The Dog Test
It's nice to know that you don't have to look like an Earth Mother with milk squirting from your nipples, simply to prove you're a woman. There's the straightforward Dog Test. This particular instance...
View ArticleMy TV and Radio career
'Career' is way too strong a word! But I have had two genuine encounters with media people over the years. The first occurred in early November 1993, at Laugharne in west Wales. Laugharne is the place...
View ArticleMidland delicacies
'The Midlands' isn't a well-defined area of the country. You could say it is bounded by Wales in the west, the peak District in the north, the Fens in the east, and the Cotswolds in the south. Or, if...
View ArticleShrewsbury Abbey - in Cadfael's footsteps
I hadn't been to Shrewsbury since 1996. I was last there with M---. It was a dull and rainy day. I remember parking opposite Shrewsbury Abbey - we didn't go in: by and large, abbeys weren't M---'s...
View ArticleIndustrial Grand Tour - Ironbridge, Coalport and Coalbrookdale
Above is the classic painting Coalbrookdale At Night, painted by Philip Jacques de Loutherbourg in 1801. It shows the 'satanic' flames and lit-up smoke of the primitive iron-smelting process of the...
View ArticleSoulmates
The relationship spectrum is wide. At one extreme, no contact with any other human being, on any level: the full-on hermit life. At the other, a close and loving bonding with another human being, so...
View ArticleI didn't stop and say hello
I was just coming away from one of the tills in Waitrose at midday today when I realised that following close behind me out of the store was someone I'd last seen eight years ago. It was the male half...
View ArticleThe Heart of Wales Line
When planning a day out while on holiday, I find it really helps to think of a theme, and stick with it. At least for a few hours, anyway! I was in Shropshire, and looking westward on the road atlas....
View ArticleChanges in the kitchen
I don't post much about my home, mainly because I rarely spend real money on it. It's kept very clean and very tidy, and from time to time I buy little things for it, but I haven't bought anything...
View ArticleTrouble in cameraland
Oh dear. The main Melford camera, a Panasonic LX100 bought almost exactly a year ago, has developed an annoying problem. Except at full aperture, images show small shadowy specks here and there. Here...
View ArticleA love-triangle
The Panasonic LX100 camera, with dust on its sensor, has been boxed ready for the warranty procedure, which I shall get started by midweek. The much older Leica D-Lux 4 has taken over daily photo...
View ArticleMy purse wasn't hit
Well, that went better than expected! I refer of course to my plan to take the Panasonic LX100 camera to Panasonic's official repairer in Horley (on the extreme southern edge of Surrey) and get the...
View ArticleMy weight is becoming a real problem!
I have been slowly but steadily gaining weight right through the summer. Something is causing this. It could simply be too much sitting down at home, combined with too many calories - although I speak...
View ArticleA game I could play
I've just had a rather good idea. It's a daily game that will get me on my feet and walking briskly around the village. This will make me a bit fitter, and help me lose a little weight. I was thinking...
View ArticleMorning walks - the village and the cruise ship
Games are fine for some people, but (cards apart) I'm not a game player, so the thought of organising a regular morning walk for myself by throwing a dice (I should say 'die', shouldn't I?), putting...
View ArticleThe camera seems to be fixed
I have to say, that was quick service! I took my dusty Panasonic LX100 up to DKAVS at Horley on Tuesday morning, and by late afternoon on Thursday had an email saying that the job was done. The 'job'...
View ArticlePounding the streets
'Pounding the streets' is possibly putting it a little strongly, but I've kept to my resolve to get out early in the morning and do a standard two-mile walk (and it is two miles - I measured it...
View ArticleSlug City
Just a footnote on my morning walks. You get to notice all kinds of things that you'd never see if driving around. For instance, all the slugs on the pavements. At 8.00am the pavements are covered with...
View ArticleThen there were three
Well this is a shame. I had a set of four Chinese bowls, which I must have bought in March 1992 - I can see them in photographs of my home at that time - so they came into my hands twenty-four years...
View ArticleAdultery
I have before me three novels about adultery, taken from my bookshelves: They are Iris Murdoch's A Severed Head, published in 1961; John Braine's Life at the Top, published in 1962; and Guy Bellamy's...
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