This place: Cragside in Northumberland is a house and garden reminiscent of an Agatha Christie novel. Built on the riches of an engineer called Armstrong, who eventually became a Lord and was fiendishly inventive, he made the bulk of his fortune from weapons, sadly. The gardens here are full of rhododendrons and there are paths everywhere to get in good walk. It was pouring when we were there, which had brought in many visitors to see the house so we went out in the wet. My trousers became two tone, light blue beneath my macintosh, and dark blue where they … Continue reading “It was the gardener with a candlestick in the long gallery“

Best follow the posts…and wellies or bare feet. Unless you like wet socks. I’m reliably informed that bare feet get quite cold, my wellied plates stayed dry and toasty. The boxes on stilts are just in case you get the tides wrong, in which case you could spend 6 hours up there. They have been rarely used. Continue reading Walking over to Holy Island

You can tell we’re up North from this picture. They do not expect hours of sunshine up here in the North East and this traditional hardware shop shows of a fine selection of combustibles, as well as equipment for poking the fire? Where else would you put matches in your window display next to fire lighters? Apart from a branch of the Co Op there’s not a single business that is not an independent, it was like a breath of fresh air, and there’s plenty of that too in the area. Continue reading Matches in the window…

Wild garlic, a short video from a recent walk, well about two weeks ago. Not telling you where, best left alone. This magnificent scene was a real treat this Spring. Also here some still pictures of another wild garlic location, the photo is in Somerset, the film in Gloucestershire. There you go, thought you might like to see them. If you came over here expecting to see some cartoons, then I’m sorry, but I will be posting some soonish as I’ve just finished another children’s book with my good friend Andy Harden. It’s just gone to the printers and when … Continue reading Let’s get a few cheerful images out there.

We took a little break some weeks ago, if you can take a break from being retired, so busy. Well worth it, welcomed by some refreshing weather but we did the British thing and got out there walking in the rain. We chose to walk to Llanelieu from Talgarth, a lovely little town with plenty of walking to choose from. The church was the site for our picnic and by the time we’d finished our sandwiches the weather brightened for the walk back. Inside the church were all sorts of visual treasures best seen here. I love the name of … Continue reading The Black Mountains and a hidden church

Out and about looking for sunny glades and lit bluebells, found them eventually close to the River Severn. The clouds did conspire me to keep moving but they eventually parted and let me in. Lifts the spirits and we can all use a lifted spirit these days. I hope this does it for you. Continue reading Lifted spirits.

If like me you have a tendency to laziness, then when you put away your neatly ironed underpants ( ironed??? ) then they simply go on top of the pile. It’s possible that at the bottoms of the pile is a clean pair hardly used, or even new. So should one turn the pants? If you don’t care a fig then the pants you are wearing are the same pair that you wore just a few prewash days ago. If, however, you are of a mind to always turn, then you are naturally getting the benefit of a complete range … Continue reading Turn your underpants…

I used to work for a chap up in Hull, or to give its proper name Kingston upon Hull. It was once one of our nations premier fishing ports. If you have ever been there then you’ll know that when you get to Goole ( put that name in spellchecker and you’ll get google ) you are still quite a way off. So we can perhaps agree that Hull is a little bit way off. Way out even. The man I worked for designed posters for nearby Scarborough’s famous playwright Alan Ayckbourn, who wrote, and perhaps still does, some wonderfully … Continue reading Does a budgie impact creativity?

Taken some years ago on a walking holiday in Sardinia. Sunshine almost all the way and loads of wild flowers like this deserved something more than an enthusiastic amateur to take its picture and try and identify it, but there you go. Now is a good time to think of sunshine and flowers methinks. I’m a fan of walking holidays, we’ve been on a few and shared some great moments with complete strangers who happened to have booked the same week as us. One couple actually won their holiday and did not look like walkers might look, being of the … Continue reading Sardinian orchid and sooty occupants.

This is the view from one of my regular walks with my good friend Richard. We’ve done the walk about 4 times now and the plan is to set of from Priddy a small stretched out village on the top of the Mendip Hills in Somerset, then to walk down to Wookey Hole, where there is a place to partake of a regulation cuppa before the walk back up to the top, through the woods and up a gorge. This is quite narrow and steep and it’s from here that I took this image. Looking up to a perfect blue … Continue reading Mendip Gorge looking up…