The Town of Books - Hay-on-Wye
If you know anything about literary festivals, or cultural festivals generally, then you will have heard of Hay-on-Wye, which is a small town on high ground overlooking the River Wye, upstream from...
View ArticleMy 2016 trip to Lundy - 1 - sailing there, and arrival
Another sunny-day post that I've kept up my sleeve! I'm going back two months, to 27th September. It was early autumn. I was going to visit Lundy again, that little island in the Bristol Channel,...
View ArticleMy 2016 trip to Lundy - 2 - the Marisco Tavern, Judith, and the Old Light
You don't really get very long on Lundy, if you are a day tripper. It's not all day. It's about four hours. You can of course see a lot in that time. In 1996, on my previous visit, M-- and I had a...
View ArticleMy 2016 trip to Lundy - 3 - farewell, and the return to Ilfracombe
Judith and I had just left the Old Light on Lundy. It was really brightening up now. The wind had dropped and that meant the sea would be much calmer on the two-hour return journey. Thank goodness! I...
View ArticleTwo certificates gained at Slimming World!
Back to the present - well, last Thursday evening anyway. The weekly Slimming World group meeting and weigh-in. I wasn't expecting much progress. Maybe a pound lost in the preceding week. But it was in...
View ArticleA bag strap solution
It had to happen some time. Three days back the brass strap fittings on my favourite orange bag - the Italian one I bought in Florence in 2009 - failed, and the bag started to slide down towards the...
View ArticleNice white teeth are great - but not so happy about makeup
I went to the dentist recently. It was only a check-up, but I'd deferred going for many months, and I thought I'd better get on with it. Financially speaking, it would be a bad month to discover that...
View ArticleWhere is my pagan Christmas?
In my family we did away with Christmas presents for adults many years ago. It was ridiculous, buying presents for people who could afford anything they wanted for themselves throughout the year. And...
View ArticleA dodgy differential
Fiona - my cherished Volvo XC60 - has just done 97,000 miles. That's quite a lot of mileage for six and a half years. And she hasn't been just a pretty thing on my front drive. She's had a definite job...
View Article2017 holiday plans
With the New Year not far off, I've been thinking about where to go next year. It's going to be yet another year in which I'll have to think carefully about what I can afford to do. (Will there ever be...
View ArticleVery Brainy Policemen and My Criminal Career
So, all new police recruits will have to possess a degree! And the Police Federation, which represents the ordinary policeman or woman, agrees, as this will unify standards across all the forty-odd...
View ArticleWeight-loss update
Last week my weight-loss progress stalled. It's pre-Christmas, and four days of that week involved catch-up get-togethers, with nice-but-naughty food and drink to go with them. Naturally, I paid heed...
View ArticleTotal transmission transplant
Another update, on my car Fiona. My Volvo XC60. Six and half years old, 97,000 miles done, and from the beginning worked hard as a caravanning tow-car. She went into the workshop four days ago. They...
View ArticleChristmas cards
I've had a serious mental block this year over writing my Christmas cards. I really got going only on the 10th December, when I bought 60 charity cards and 48 stamps. I was taken aback by how much that...
View ArticleUnofficially, one stone lost
This morning marks a Great Event. I weigh myself at home in the nude every week, usually on a Monday. Today, treading carefully - in the nude - onto my electronic home scales, and timidly looking down...
View ArticleSpectacular lit-up houses at Christmas
It's not something I'd ever do, but a lot of people love to festoon the front of their house with Christmas lights and other lit-up features, creating a display that looks quite spectacular in the...
View ArticleFiona returns from the workshop, and it all looks good
What a saga. The strange humming noise from the rear I first heard a year and a half ago, which gradually turned into a worrying drone, and which could for so long not be diagnosed, turned out to be...
View ArticleChristmas Day
I was out on Christmas Eve - a dinner-party of eighteen nearby in the village - and didn't get to bed until two in the morning. I woke as usual at seven, but must have snoozed off, for then suddenly...
View ArticleThe Curse of 2016
And so Debbie Reynolds has now gone too, the latest name in an unusually long list of music and film artists who have been harvested by the Grim Reaper in 2016. My goodness, I sometimes watched her TV...
View ArticleNo more of the packaged life
My current weight-loss endeavour involves sticking to fresh foodstuffs and avoiding most manufactured and packaged foodstuffs. Manufacturing and processing may make some food more attractive, more...
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