Hobbies
Cruising From Malta, Part Two
Day 3 – Saturday – Mykonos I woke up and saw that it was a couple of minutes before six, and the sun was shining, the sky was cloudless and the sea like a mirror. [more…]
Travel
19th Century
Disaster at Quintinshill
Setting off from Edinburgh on a splendid May day, Mrs. AWS and I enjoy our Burger Kings. In the mad world of railway pricing, one of only two differences between Avanti Trains Standard Premium and [more…]
20th Century
Desert Mysteries Redux – Part One
In the original Desert Mysteries series, I wrote about a 1939 edition of Blackwood’s magazine bought at an antiques fair that led me to research the lives of the men who had read it and [more…]
Hobbies
Cruising From Malta, Part One
I won’t bother taking you through all the preliminaries for this cruise except to say this time I choose to fly to Malta to pick up the cruise ship, P&O Azura. It cuts out a [more…]
Arts
Postcard From The Scotsman
Mrs AWS and I are enjoying our May day-trip to Edinburgh, but time is tight. After walloping down (£10) ice creams, we must hurry to Waverley station if only to watch our train depart the [more…]
Arts
Postcard From Edinburgh Castle
Mrs AWS and I are enjoying our day trip to Edinburgh. Although we’re used to exploring Princes Street, this time we are swept in a crowd of alighting passengers at Edinburgh’s Waverley station in the [more…]
20th Century
Desert Mysteries, Part Six
In the film “Lawrence of Arabia”, Lawrence is asked, “What is it, Major Lawrence, that attracts you, personally, to the desert?” His response was, “It’s clean. I like it because it’s clean.” This quote is [more…]
Hobbies
A trip to Albania, land of the Eagles – Part Three
Our days passed with a fairly set routine. Up early – but far too late for running water, so it was a quick sluice down (over the toilet) from the stored water drawn before dawn, [more…]
16th Century
Postcard From The Scottish Reformation
I have a strange sensation in my trousers while strolling Edinburgh’s Royal Mile arm in arm with Mrs AWS. Behave yourselves. Regular readers will be unsurprised to learn my work colleagues pay me not to [more…]