Just over two months ago a stranger’s dog attacked me and in so doing bit a chunk out of my ankle. Olga’s bite hurt and as she was ushered away blood started trickling out though my sock. The attack happened one afternoon in late summer and when I recounted the incident I told of the…

This blog is a celebration. Usually, those in authority order people about, as they use imperious and clipped language or leaden images to tell us what to do. On roads or in other public spaces we are surrounded by their ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts’ with warnings and, for transgressors, threats of fines. Exceptionally, however, their advice is more measured - hence this blog.  Over several years I have collected…

Recently we had a week dominated by insects. Other animals made appearances, but it was insects on which we concentrated and which captured the interest of our nature-loving guests, one of whom was an encyclopaedic ‘seeker/explorer’; the other more a dedicated ‘watcher/observer’. In keeping, Jeni would excitedly show us photos and tell stories of the butterflies she had found during sorties into our meadow, many of…

Learning gives such pleasure. Clearly, I am not talking about ‘learning the hard way’ where a new idea comes out of some adverse event and leaves a bitter association. Rather, I am referring to the discoveries that open the mind and give new insights or skills that delight. This blog is about two such discoveries: one was by my grandson, the other by me. For River, it was learning to play dominos; for me, and of a…

Over two days we talked and talked. Rohan and I plus our two guests - a second Rohan and her husband Marc - had never been together like this before. Now there were just the four of us, with no children and no Rob who died in 2018 aged 84. Rob had been a close…

In 2003 we sold our large family home in London. With the proceeds we bought a smaller house close by and, a year later a cottage in France. In these two homes I have spent years learning French and developing the wherewithal to write my blogs. And there has been another acquisition - since my retirement I…

From what I know, most of us have, or will have aches and pains in our joints. For me it is my knees that are affected and the problems all started fifteen years ago soon after I retired. To put things in perspective, we have around 400 joints in our bodies. Of these, around one third…

At this time of year, the fallow fields around Tréguennec are awash with poppies. As beautiful as they are, for me they always conjure up images of the bloodshed, the trenches and the terrible waste of the two World Wars. My experience of the Second World War - I was born in 1942 -and the years just after…

Within weeks of buying our Treguennec cottage one thing became obvious - as a nation, the French are obsessed with food. In such a culture not only does a lot go into buying (selecting) and selling food - even their shop displays are appetising, but they delight in preparing and cooking their meals, and then,…

As a child I missed out. While everyone else in the family has had a Teddy Bear or the like, I haven’t. For my younger sister it was  ‘Wonkey’, a koala who she held as she went to sleep, for Rohan it was ‘Teddy’, a large Teddy Bear that, as a three-year-old she brought to London from New Zealand and…