Culture
Postcard From Marrakech
Introduction For my 50th birthday, as I didn’t have my children all available, I decided to experience Marrakech. A lot of people recommended it, so decided it was a good time of year to visit [more…]
Literature
Book Review
Furst amongst equals
There are spy novels…. & novels about spies. Fleming, Deighton & Le Carre definitely wrote the former (& in doing so laid bare their inner classist prejudices) , whilst Ambler, Greene, & Conrad constructed far [more…]
20th Century
This Is My England, Part Eight
Look at Tolpuddle now, with its neat thatched cottages, its tall chestnuts in splendid flower, all in all as pretty an English village as ever found its way on to a Christmas card, and you [more…]
Animals
Larry’s Diary – Week One Hundred And Eighty-Three
Monday Good morning people and welcome to a new week. What a lovely sunny morning, I could feel the warmth of the sun on my fur as I headed down the garden. Mind you it [more…]
Fiction
The Parrot Lady
‘You the parrot lady?’ She smiled: ‘Yes, I suppose I am. Is that what people call me?’ ‘No – just me. How many parrots have you got?’ ‘At the moment, just a pair. But I [more…]
Biography
Trade Plating Around England, Part Three
How it all hangs together and how easily it goes pear shaped. Brief recap, I spent two and a half years trade plating round England with the occasional foray into Scotland and Wales. Part one [more…]
20th Century
The Sore Seated Safari, Part Two
We left our travellers on the evening of September 25th, 1929, as they settled down for a night’s sleep in the village of Bereku, Tanganyika, about 37 miles north of Kondoa Irangi. Today it boasts [more…]
Fiction
Jinnie’s Story – Book Five, Chapter Seven
Jinnie was sat at her desk in the garden office reading emails and reports. Although it had only been in use a short while the garden office was proving to be just what Jinnie needed. [more…]
Arts
A View From The Greenhouse; Please Make It Stop!
Finally got the layout finished with the completion of the four (slightly) raised beds. In the final analysis (for this season at least) I decided not to permanently fix them down with corner pegs as [more…]