Kate Shrewsday

Noah’s Space Ark

Spaceport. Cosmodrome. Be still my beating heart. We do not hear as much as once we did about space exploration. Yet high in the heavens above us Russians and Americans co-operate in a common spirit of exploration. And somewhere on Mars a small robot has just drilled another hole in the planet’s rock. Hubble peers … Continue reading »

How To Get By In Elvish

I was sitting in church behind a music stand waiting for the mass to begin when my daughter turned and spoke to me in Elvish. I have little idea what she said, beyond the vague knowledge that it was some kind of salutation. It was not even the first time she has spoken to me … Continue reading »

Reclaiming the garden

“Gardens,” said Mr Rudyard Kipling,”were not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ and sitting in the shade.” Once upon the time the garden was my baby. I loved plants and despised decking, idolised Vita Sackville West and her life’s work at Sissinghurst; I wrote for the paper on gardens, I planted and loved mine tenderly, … Continue reading »

The Bubble Gum Spymaster

In the great city of Moscow lies an ancient monastery-fortress, whose origins go back through time to the fourteenth century. And in the tiny English village of Alresford lies a small set of public toilets. And the two are inextricably linked. Linked by a story of subterfuge, intelligence and counterintelligence, the two buildings each hold … Continue reading »

I was a glutton in a past life

I think I may be a reincarnated Benedictine Monk. And not just any reincarnated Benedictine monk, either. A gyrovague. Oh, yes. Several synods of the Catholic church-notably in 451 and 787- became increasingly exasperated with gyrovagues. They didn’t have to be Benedictine but they did have to be cloisterless. They would not settle in a … Continue reading »

Running beside the carriage

Madeleine sat in her geography lesson, attending carefully to the slide show. She was learning about how man could shape his environment to make it safer. Open places, buildings which overlooked each other, wide open, light spaces: these were all less likely to shield criminal activity. And then the geography teacher showed a picture of … Continue reading »

When The Clock Strikes Thirteen

When England was young, its clocks often struck 24 hours. We know this because of evidence left by an extraordinary little boy was born to a blacksmith in Wallingford, a boy who grew up to be a celebrated mathematician. Richard Of Wallingford it was, who was orphaned and adopted by the Prior of a local … Continue reading »

The Incredible Nuclear Chromatically Selective Cat Flap

“Your cat black?” the quintessentially English man enquired as he strolled past our front flower patch. I paused in my exertions sweeping Autumn’s leaves into a bag. “Yes,” I grinned. “Little white bow tie on his neck?” “He has!” My grin widened. “Little chap’s been coming into our house and eating our cat’s food,” our … Continue reading »

Henry VIII’s Battleship: the End Game

Imagine – just for a moment – that you found a treasure box in a sea-cave, buried deep in a pool. And just suppose it was hundreds of years old, from the time of bluff King Hal himself. You wouldn’t want to go drying it out. Because wood gets used to water. The two become … Continue reading »