Make soup on a Thursday. It’s the day when the stuff in the fridge might be past its sell by date but will cook up quite nicely as a soup. Don’t expect it to taste the same every time. In fact there are times when if you could replicate the recipe you would because it tasted so good, but you’ll have forgotten what was in the fridge. I’m back at the landscape front fighting the battle to get some drawings finished. I went through the phase of really big drawings and some have been put in the recycling bin and … Continue reading Soup of the day

That’s what I looked like at my son’s wedding. Reviewing some pictures just recently I was struck by how badly I wear clothes. When I worked for the printers in the late stage of my career I was supposed to look smart but being a tad older than most and unused to wearing a tie apart from to keep my trousers up, most clients thought that the scruffy old geezer must be the owner, so a sort of benefit. One of my colleagues regularly used to tease me with the expression ” Who dressed you this morning? ” I thought … Continue reading Like a badly wrapped parcel

There’s nothing like a good walk and a selection of home made biscuits to cheer the soul. My good friend Mike and I managed to avoid talking about politics almost completely today, going on about food instead. There’s something quite relaxing about talking about food whilst walking. We had the bonus of a brilliant days sunshine and were able to partake of some delicious biscuits made by Mike’s wife Judy, who’s baking skills are somewhat legendary. I’d made the tea and doled that out from my flask whilst we sat on a hillside in the balmy sunshine overlooking the Gloucestershire … Continue reading Cooking the Goose…

I’ve never been good at maths, and for you people in the States that’s maths plural. All of them. I just did not do the maths well. I was intimidated by teachers with no patience and who could see that I simply did not get it. I never got it at school, but can see the value of it now and since of course. I struggled to do my homework on the subject. Homework being a bit of a misnomer as we did our homework at school, we did not go home until the end of term or the occasional … Continue reading “Get Carter!”

It was an expression my mother would come out with for almost any sort of calamity. So when I failed my A levels , or almost all of them, ( I just got Art ) she’d have used it then. It always made me feel better and it might have been better if she’d been a bit more cheesed off. She was a woman who never seemed to lose her temper, if she was cross, cross was about as cross as she got, and she might excuse it by saying ‘ I’m a bit cross about ( fill in the … Continue reading ‘ Ooooh! …Never mind’

But I do rather like the look of chimneys and rooftops. We are in St Malo for a weeks walking, which is mainly round the coast. Some great days we’ve had and we splashed out on a lunch out yesterday. I’m not one to take pictures of my food generally, but could not resist these two. Top one is slow cooked beef on beans and the next one is sea bass fillet on carrot. They were truly excellent and mine gave me a week’s protein in one sitting. Holidays would not be holidays if you had nothing to tell the … Continue reading Most people look the other way

I published this about three years ago, with, not surprisingly no response. It would have been my late father’s 101st Birthday yesterday. So in a sort of celebration of that I am putting this out there again. A kindly letter to him on the birth of my brother ( on the same date as our new King Charles, but a couple of years before he arrived ) There’s something very charming about the letter and my father was so appreciative of it that he kept it all his life. —————————————————————————————————— This is a letter sent from Arlou in Belgium on … Continue reading The Belgian letter

A day out in Dinard, across the water from St Malo in northern France. We took a walk along the edge of the coast along a concrete walkway which serves as a breakwater to prevent erosion and lets one see the amazing collection of villas perched atop of the rocks. There’s a sort of signature one as you come across the water Then along the footpath plenty more. This was a place where the English first came for fancy holidays in the 1800s but they did not necessarily build these. They all seem to have that unique French feel and … Continue reading Your house is bigger than mine.

Great September skies over Painswick Beacon, where we’d gone to find a Trig point. A relative of ours likes to search these things out. They were used by the Ordinance Survey people to map the country and can usually be found near or on the tops of hills but not exclusively. Gloucester Cathederal has a couple up on the towers. Usually they are concrete blocks like the one below, and are not necessarily on public footpaths, so one has to be careful to trespass responsibly or you may get an angry farmer waving at you. The one on top of … Continue reading Taking in the view at Painswick Beacon