The long way home

No matter how high the pile of tetchy letters demanding money, or how unlikely it currently seems that I’ll be ever be able to come even close to satisfying them all, there are some things that need to be done regardless. Like shopping (carefully, and never when hungry – that way disaster looms) and taking […]

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Walking back to…

It’s been raining steadily for days – so heavily that our well known pre-occupation with the weather has once again been elevated to the status of news, and no bulletin has been complete without flood-warnings. So it came as a pleasant surprise to see blue sky through the skylight this morning. (The skylight being more […]

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Sunday on the watermeadows

I was only going to get some cheese, as you do on a gray Sunday afternoon, when I was seized by a sudden desire for some green in my immediate field of view. You’d think, as Towcester is an old (i.e.. Roman and possibly older) market town, this might be in short supply apart from the odd […]

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The eye’s corner

There’s nothing like taking an alternative route to enliven a familiar journey. I must have driven through the Peak District to see my parents (who live just south of Manchester) tens, if not hundreds of times. I settled on what I now think of as ‘the way’ some years back – get the dull stuff […]

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One of those days in England 3 – Whistley Wood

see all the pix here I did eventually manage to find some woodland to wonder through. Pleasing both in that I’d correctly remembered that there was such a place just around the corner from Syresham, and in being so delightfully named. It’s true, and here’s the photograph I took to prove it.   Un-typically, I […]

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Surfing the green wave

It’s a breezy but sunny afternoon  and I’ve been cycling through the green and pleasant again. Happily traversing the gently undulating, tree-dotted and pleasantly sheepy landscape of south Northants. As is often the case when the wind is tossing the treetops about with that lovely rushing, roaring sound, I am irresistibly reminded of the sigh […]

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In praise of pedalling

I’d be the first to admit I’m not the fastest thing on two wheels (if God had meant this to be, I’d have been born Belgian, and have at least one ‘x’ in my name), but I’d be prepared to wager if not a king’s ransom then at least a prince’s pocket-money that there were […]

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Universal zoetrope

There’s nothing like turning a corner in the gently undulating countryside to be surprised by a sudden curving dip – like a caressing the curves of a body, hip, shoulder, belly – it’s very sensual and I can’t help but think in terms of the physical. I find a very personal satisfaction in such discoveries. […]

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