Hello, I’m NCS. I write short notes from a little yellow beach hut on Lancing beach, about reading, leading, family, lighthouses and whatever the sea puts in my head that week. Be curious, not judgemental.
Latest notes
The Finnishing Touch
A postcard of Bengtskär, the tallest lighthouse in the Nordic countries, from a Postcrossing stranger in Finland who read my profile. The front is for everyone. The back was for me.
The Lighthouse Nobody Was Looking At
Brazil, 1922. A stamp made to celebrate a nation, and a tiny lighthouse in the corner that nobody was meant to notice.
Opposite the Sunflowers
I sit on the bench opposite Sunflowers once a month, give or take. Usually on the way back from something in London. Train into Charing Cross, ten minutes in Room 43, train home. A small private detour. You get blocked, sitting on that bench. People walk up and stand in front of you and you…
The Algorithm and Samuel
She was ahead of me in the coffee shop, phone in one hand, oat flat white in the other. Talking with her friend. “Honestly? I just trust the algorithm. It knows what I’ll like better than Samuel ever did.” Samuel, I assumed, was her local bookseller. Or maybe the friend who used to slip her…
The One Who Didn’t Know Any of That
People don’t usually tell you when your writing is good. They just read it and move on. So when someone takes the time to say something, you notice. What I started noticing was this. When people mentioned a post, it was always the same ones. The street sweeper my mother pointed out when I was…
Reader favourites
The ones people still mention to me.
New notes from the shed, now and then.
