As I get older I get more picky, and this extends to where I sit when travelling. For some time I have had favourite seats in cars and planes. The list now includes places in the underground, more specifically, in trains on the District Line. Here, making sure I find one of my favourites is…
The house that Joe watched
Maybe it’s a man thing, but I love peering into building sites. Somehow, watching as a crater is dug, foundations are laid and then a building grows is absorbing. But observation is often difficult as construction companies often build screens to obscure the view. And, although peeping between corrugated iron sheets or through the knotholes…
The only way is Sussex
There was a short detour to be made before booking into our restaurant-cum-hotel on the edge of Lochinver. Our aim was to pick chanterelles. In Scotland they are at their best in late summer and one September we had stumbled across a carpet of them growing in their favoured Eeyore environment - a damp mossy…
Seeing the wood for the trees
Dotted around Kew Gardens are some twenty 'tree sculptures’ by David Nash. They come in all sizes, and sit variously in the middle of lawns, between bushes, or almost hidden in the undergrowth. Just finding them is fun in itself. They are being displayed, as the organisers say, in a 'Natural Gallery' and it works…
Thanks but no thanks
In our last house the railway ran along the back of the garden. Not exactly pleasant for us, but for Ravi, a toddler and train enthusiast, it was pure heaven. Whenever he visited he would stand on a chair by the window and watch spellbound as each train passed by. One day we went to…
Men and their toys
Yes, men can be grumpy, unsociable, and uncommunicative, but on occasion we can also be gentle and understanding. Indeed this is often how we are amongst ourselves when sharing our 'toys' - those mechanical objects that bemuse women. Two such instances occurred recently. Not with a video camera, Apple iPad or over-complex watch, but a…
Line of most resistance
It was a lovely spring afternoon and I sat sipping tea in the conservatory, calculating the amount of my time I spend procrastinating. The task was prompted by the sight of shirts, towels and smalls fluttering prettily on a washing line that I had just put up; a job that took 3 years. In the…
Touching moments
There are a lot of special things about South Kensington tube station. First, it simply has history. The London Underground was the world’s first public underground service and South Ken one of its original stations - witness the bold, mid 1860s, wrought iron lettering over the entrance. Second, and at a more personal level, South…
A sense of belonging
Although I have lived in my current house for over eight years, it is only now that I feel as though I belong. More precisely, when it comes to my house, my street, and my neighbourhood, I now feel we belong to each other. At work, which dominated my life for 40 odd years, I…
Strictly Heaven
Once tea was poured and pleasantries were over, talking began. I was round at Martha’s and on that particular morning our discussion naturally turned to the previous night’s final of Strictly Come Dancing and to its winner, the drummer Harry Judd. ‘Strictly’ is not everyone’s favourite programme but Martha and I are devotees and in…
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