A friend sent me this – beautiful photography, excellent sentiments – and I thought I’d share it with you in this first post of 2012. It says what I’d like to say so much better than I could say it (spelling mistakes excepted). A wish for world peace, wisdom, courage, happiness; what more could we [...]
If you are of a sensitive disposition and a member of the female persuasion you might choose to look away NOW – you can come in again at the asterisk below. Ahah! Did you think I was going to talk about the BBC documentary on assisted suicide? Sir Terry Pratchett investigating the experience of the [...]
I’m a subscriber to the old English proverb: Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. And I love Ecclesiastes‘ lyrical ‘To everything there is season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven …’ which includes ‘a time to keep silence, and a [...]
There’s been a real battle raging in my head and heart this week. All because of a wedding. No, not that wedding; my niece’s nuptials. The event was near London, so we decided to take a leisurely route travelling down, and do a little exploring along the way. Fine in principle. There is still so [...]
I’m rather partial to stately homes and beautiful gardens. So a trip to the Borders to visit Mellerstain House, home to the 13th Earl and Countess of Haddington, was just what the doctor ordered in a rather fraught week. It’s about thirty years since I last went, and it more than lived up to my [...]
This weekend I watched the film, Becoming Jane. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it depicts Jane Austen’s own ill-fated romance. The heroine is rather more feisty, and definitely more beautiful, than I always imagine her to be, but many of the other players in her personal story are instantly recognisable as prototypes [...]
Whenever I prepare for a lot of travelling the thought of my death flashes across my brain. Not in a morbid way, you understand, but just as a possibility. As someone once told me in my teens, always make sure you’re wearing decent undies when you go out in case you end up in a [...]