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The smell of frankincense came down the street and I knew it had already begun. It was just past 9 o'clock on a Sunday in November, yet another Sunday commemorating Robert. We stood with his father in silence, burning frankincense for a boy we didn't know, but whose loss we viscerally felt. The evening before we'd met Artur in his friend Yervand's (our guesthouse host's) kitchen and got to know each other over a couple of glasses of vodka. "I'm so sorry to greet guests like this." Artur kept repeating. "Like what?" We kept replying. He was referring to a great sadness he, his family, friends, and the country were carrying - the war with Azerbaijan in 2020. "My son..." he'd begun and his voice cracked and his brown eyes filled with tears. "His son, Robert, was killed in 2020. Nineteen." Yervand finished for him. "We just really feel bad that we have to greet you guests with this sadness, but this is what we...

An opportunity came up to courier dogs from Tbilisi to New York for an American charity, SPCA International. All expenses paid for; yes please. Nova was the dog I ended up taking, a lanky street dog with wise eyes. We spent over 7 hours together at Warsaw airport, bonding over our need for fresh air and the Costa coffee lounge. And goodness me did we attract a lot of attention. Children, old ladies, security guards were not fazed by Nova’s somewhat severe features, and we weathered the long journey pretty well together. Touchdown in JFK came with a heavy heart, and off Nova was whisked by two SPCA employees, off for yet another round of scans and injections, document checks, and check-ups. I hope you’re well, Nova.     I myself was then whisked off in an Uber, arrived in Brooklyn at a hostel, exchanged a few words with my Mexican roommate, and fell asleep. By 8 am the next day I was down by Williamsburg Bridge, sitting on a bench with a steamed-oat-filter-brew, watch...

  "How much is 1kg of potatoes in England?", "How much does an English farmer earn per year?", "Why is a young girl like you walking alone?", "Where did you just come from? The sky?!", "Where did you learn to speak Russian?", "Are you married?", "What do your parents do?", "Do you plan to marry a Georgian man?", "What do potatoes taste like in England?". Such were the questions that swamped me as I sat to drink coffee with a group of potato gatherers in the mountains of southwestern Georgia. "Join us!" the men had cried across the ploughed earth, laughing in disbelief when I actually did. But before even picking up a bucket, I was ushered into the shade, told to sit on a sack, and answered yet more questions while an enamel pot of coffee boiled over a gas stove. *** It was early morning when I ran up and through the village of Ghreli. I took breathfuls of cold air and smelt freshly m...

goodbye in the metro, sept '22 They are about to say goodbye. The train slows, as do they, reaching for each second as they drop, drip down through the cracks in the metro floor. Blue eyes.  Red top. Brown stare. "I hope I see you again." "Good luck." And off the train she goes, washed away in the flow of strangers. Faceless; among the drops of time that dripped down through the cracks in the metro floor. goodbye on the platform, feb '23 They sit in a bar, eating peanuts, drinking beer, crunching time. They're on the platform. He chirps away, while she clings, to each stroke in desolation.  Time counts on as theirs counts down. "Safe trip home."

21st Aug, Didube bus station I've arrived early, to wander and absorb the smells and colours of the morning market. It's 8 o'clock and there's that hushed bustle of morning that's both charged with the thrill of the day ahead and remnants of sleep. This reflects onto you, the bystander, the outsider, wonderfully anonymous and free to simply gaze at the rickety stalls and their piles of spices, salt, tomatoes, pulses, pickles, nuts without any hassle. Later in the day, when the sun has sharpened those sleep-blunted edges, these markets are not for the faint hearted. The stall holders are voracious experts in facial expressions and body language, and a slight hesitation or flicker of interest will result in a barrage of mournful cries: 'girl, girl, what is it you want, come back...' 'pretty one, try these delicious treats...'. I usually just pass on, silent, smiling, hardened by now to their pleading, while inhaling the spicey green smells of coriander...

Guanciale . Pecorino . Bucatini . Three words that hadn't entered my classroom vocabulary before living in Rome, but demand your immediate acquaintance when first perusing a Roman menu, sitting on a chair, balanced between uneven cobbles that pave a humming square . These three ingredients shout 'Rome' or, indeed, 'Lazio' louder than any other product and, when combined, create the Madonna of all Roman dishes: Pasta all'Amatriciana. It is precisely this link to the local that makes this dish special, the ingredients containing a particular history and identity of western Italy, that unify in flavors and peoples alike. Born, like many dishes, from workers taking their meals out into the fields, shepherds around the town of Amatrice used to take blocks of sheep's cheese and strips of pork cheek and fry up this wondrous combination to accompany a simple form of pasta made from flour and water which was then wrapped around a piece of wire. And here the ...

It was a grim-faced day, the sky starved of light, resting on the skeletal shoulders of the trees. It was the sort of day that sucked away vitality, leaving in its place a plateau of nothingness. She whizzed down the road, gazing at the valleys below and a lonesome red kite above while the sun bloomed a murky pink in the greyness beyond. She met the brothers at the edge of the Rushmore estate. A year had passed since she had last seen them, and the sudden rush of joy at meeting once again clouded their thoughts and clarity of thinking, each not knowing how or where to begin. They chained the bike and set off at a swift pace, talking more ‘at’ than ‘to’ each other, not finishing answers to their own questions, only to begin another rapid string of questions in successive machine gun bursts. Neither wanted to talk about themself and impatiently rushed their turn of interrogation in the hope that the others would lose interest. By the time they had reached the bottom of the hill, all thre...