Over the years, I have grown closer to animals. When the children were young, I was rarely drawn to talking to, picking up or cuddling the family’s pets; for me just patting or stroking were enough. In keeping, animals outside the home went essentially unnoticed. With age I have changed: as an older man I…

Recently, Rohan and I spent a long weekend in Paris. While there, we set aside a morning to visit the restored Notre Dame. By all accounts the restoration following the devastating fire has been extraordinary and seeing the building for ourselves was a priority. Sadly, my expectations were not met; partly because they were unrealistically…

As part of a half-term holiday treat, we took our grandson, River and one of his best friends Ava, to see J M Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’. The play was on at London’s Barbican, and the atmosphere when we walked into the centre’s vast, thousand-seater auditorium, and then looked across to the set on a giant…

Our summer in France was, as always, a delight. For months there was the pleasure of being with our French friends, of living French (Breton) culture, of buying and eating produce where the choice, quality and the taste was unbeatable, and (for me) the ultimate pleasure of simply speaking French. Add to these were the…

Soon after her seventieth birthday, Rohan had a dream - for her eightieth she would go to Uzbekistan. In particular, she wanted to visit Samarkand and Bukhara, towns with histories going back two and a half thousand years and which, as early as 100BC, were important trading posts on Rohan’s much-loved Silk Road. Over the…

All this week I have been on holiday in Uzbekistan and consequently have been unable to find the time I would need to write this Saturday’s blog. I’ll be back in London in a few days and plan to publish again next Saturday (18th October). In the meantime, this week’s illustration shows a photo of…

Increasingly, I treasure moments when my mind has time to think. Soaking in a warm bath offers one of the best opportunities; a close second occurs when gardening. I am not talking about gardening that is demanding, such as picking, planting or building; rather it is weeding, and recently this has been the ‘order of…

On most days each week I go to the gym. In London it has been my after-breakfast routine for around ten years; in Tréguennec, my visits only started this summer. Importantly, getting to the gym in London involves a twenty-minute walk, while in Tréguennec each trip is a little shorter as I drive through the…

Over the summer, the house next to ours in Brittany is used for holiday lets. With each ‘new’ neighbour, we usually exchange ‘hellos’ when they arrive and then, if they ask, we give advice on local matters such as the names of good restaurants or the day of the local market; usually, however, that is…

Around five years ago we started to make arrangements to help me better see the fine details on our TV screen. Last week, the final part of those arrangements was completed when the ugly cardboard ‘box’ that had been used to support a new television ‘temporarily’, was finally replaced by a made-to-measure box made of…