Arts
A View From The Farmhouse, Part Five
A frustrating few weeks with so much cold and wet weather. Two recent storms have stripped the fruit trees and blown part of the roof off the derelict cottage opposite the house. I have been [more…]
Normandy
Arts
A View From The Farmhouse, Part Four
Work is ongoing to make more vegetables plots, obtain manure for the ones we have and keep the composting going. I will add another bin to the three recently built and establish a place for [more…]
Arts
A View From the Farmhouse, Part Three
‘Had we but World enough and time, This coyness lady were no crime………………. But at my back I always hear time’s winged Charriot hurrying near: And yonder all before us lye Deserts of vast eternity……………………’ [more…]
Arts
A View From The Farmhouse, Part Two
Tons of soil (h/t Dr Spooner) The farm was bought by my English friend for an amount about the same as the cost of a reasonable terraced house in an English Northern town. In all, [more…]
Arts
A View From The Farmhouse, Part One
This is the first of an occasional series looking at life in Northern France in general and plotting progress with the farm. Setting the scene: Here in rural Lower Normandy things move at a slow [more…]
Biography
That’s Life, Part 2
My first time in France was in 1963 on an army ‘Adventure Training Expedition,’ aka ‘Think up a jolly which has a ‘ military slant ‘ and have most expenses funded. We were to canoe [more…]
Biography
That’s Life
I was interested to read 1O210ken’s piece: it is good to read and perhaps learn from other peoples’ experience. I had the same question put to me by my father when I was 15. I [more…]
20th Century
Stand in the Trench, Achilles*
Most of us, if asked, would be able to name a fair number of WW1 poets and writers without too much hesitation. Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves, Rupert Brooke, Isaac Rosenberg – [more…]
20th Century
Book Review: “We Defended Normandy” by Lt Gen Hans Speidel, 1951
Could War In Europe Have Ended in 1944? Was Montgomery right ? Americans said “No”, now Speidel says “Yes” “We Defended Normandy” by Lt-Gen Hans Speidel (Herbert Jenkins, 12. 6d.), 1951 Book review by [more…]