Mid-August is an evocative time here in Southern England and after a sociable and luxuriously fed weekend there was nothing quite like rounding it off quietly in my small courtyard garden with a simple supper under the fading blue skies…
It sounds crazy over there in the USA. All those people going mad about President Obama’s healthcare reform policies sound like they have gone hysterical. Death threats in the name of God! Where does that fit in with anyone’s idea…
I went to Bexhill-on-Sea yesterday. It is a seaside town in East Sussex, England – not far from here but I have never been there before. I knew about it, of course. As a small schoolboy I read about it…
Would you like me to sing you a song? Well, tough. I have lost my singing voice. Doesn’t he go on? I can hear you now as I mention that dreaded word illness. Now don’t worry, I am not going…
I am half way through my morning mug of coffee, the window is open, pleasantly neutral summer air is breezing its way round my room and, somehow, a small spider has decided to make me its home. Off you go…
Another new week begins with a new dosage of my anti-seizure drugs – epanutin – I am now down to half my original amount and consequently full of hope that I am on the mend. So far I have had…
It is that time of year when it used to be traditional to go to the seaside for your summer holidays – well here in Europe anyway. I was one of those lucky children who actually grew up with the…
Harry Patch who was 111 years old, will be buried today after what will be a moving and what appears to be a national ceremony of some significance for all of us. As I write, crowds gather outside Wells Cathedral…
Sometime ago, I found myself standing in a Philadelphia park with a grizzled old black ex-cop. We were watching a cricket match and I was struggling to explain the rules of this complex and absorbing English sport. He said, without…
As I wrote yesterday, I spent all of last week at my kungfu club’s summer camp (www.whitecranefightingarts.com) where the underlying theme was correct posture and the ancient Chinese theories behind it. I wasn’t always well enough to go to all…