St. Paddy, Rain and A Gap in the Hedge.
An English Travel Writer
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1w ago
Happy St Paddy's Day of yesterday! This is the cake I made for a party of some of the other Irish around here.  We talked of Irish things, like which is the best island to visit off West Cork, and  which is your favourite RTE fails collection on Youtube (this is mine)   Little K suggested sprinkling gold around the leprechaun and giving him a bottle by his side, a suggestion which suited him very well.   Her dad talked of a road sign he had spotted on a road trip across the country to Dublin, which flashed past his car window on a dark and rainy road.  It said ..read more
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Happy Blooming Christmas!
An English Travel Writer
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3M ago
Looks like we may be spending a few days in Spain over Christmas. I've always wanted to see what they do at Christmastime there.  I'm told it involves a lot of pretty lights and singing of traditional songs in the village square, which sounds fine to me!    And the weather is very likely be better than the unrelenting grey gloom of London in the last few weeks. I'm not  complaining about London's weather now, though, because we do need some rain and cold to make the plants grow later.  And we had a long and beautiful autumn with more colour than usual. Still, looking a ..read more
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La Villette Park, Paris - WHAAAAAT?
An English Travel Writer
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4M ago
I saw this strange looking creature the day before I left Paris. It is a 17th century tenor cornett shaped like a serpent and with a dragon's head.  It is just one of thousands of exhibits in Paris's musical museum, which must surely be one of the best in the world...  ...yes, in the world.  But I had never heard of it before I went to Paris.  It was only when I idly decided to visit La Villette that I discovered that the city of Paris has been assembling a huge  musical centre called the Cité de la Musique in the park for about thirty years.   Not on ..read more
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Happy Halloween! And, at last, Paris
An English Travel Writer
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5M ago
We don't get many kids knocking on the door around here at Halloween, because, I learned the other day, they all go down the road to St. Johns Wood.   It's about a mile from us, and many of the people who live there are American, and they put amounts of time and money into their decorations in a way that hasn't seemed to catch on here.  But the main thing, apparently, is that they're far more generous with their sweets.   Naturally the local kids have noticed.  We haven't had anyone at our door this evening!  I remembered about St Johns Wood and Halloween wh ..read more
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Parliament, Photos and Paris
An English Travel Writer
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6M ago
   I thought I'd upload a few photos of what I've been up to lately. I've been pretty busy but mostly nothing interesting, just insurers, banks, dealing with theft, car, things not working, blah blah, all come at once in one horrible flood. So you'll be glad not to have to read about it!   However, there have been some nice times, so here are some random pictures of the last month or so.  The photo below was taken from the terrace at the House of Commons.  K works in Parliament a few days a week and we had lunch with her there the other day.  Parliament is in ..read more
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Two Fur Coats in Bantry House... and a Colourful Bathroom.
An English Travel Writer
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7M ago
As I promised, here's some more from my trip to West Cork in Ireland.  One of my favourite trips was to Bantry House. I'd wanted to see it for years, after K visited it and highly recommended it as "a bit crazy".  So T and I drove out there one rather drizzly day.   Here's the house, distantly viewed against the Bantry bay's foggy backdrop.  Can you make out the hills on the other side?     Bantry House looks very like an English country house, built in English style by the Earls of Bantry, who were English earls. But of course it is not English ..read more
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Back from Ireland
An English Travel Writer
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8M ago
When I look at this picture it reminds me of my teenage years in Malta, when we would go down stony paths that wound through ancient stone fortifications, and then swim off the rocks at the shore.  But if this had been Malta, I'd have taken the photo in winter or early spring, because the flowers in the foreground would have been long gone by the time the blazing hot summer arrived.   Anyway, as the title of my post suggests, this picture doesn't show long-ago Malta. It shows an Irish scene - a view from the coastal path towards Charles Fort, at Kinsale, Co. Cork.  The ..read more
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Edinburgh
An English Travel Writer
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8M ago
 I'm putting a post up today to see if my old Blogland friends are still around  - I suspect that notifications of my posts aren't going out any more, but maybe I'm wrong. So if you've followed me in the past, it would be great if you'd comment, even if it is just to say "hi" ...  it would be good to know if anyone's out there!    ? Right now I'm sitting in London feeling very grateful that the weather is mildly sunny, and we are not getting the scorching temperatures of more southerly bits of Europe.    Some of the hottest weather I've had this summer has ac ..read more
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Coronation, Cherubs, And Baffled in Turin.
An English Travel Writer
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11M ago
  I posted an account of my trip to Turin long ago -  on Easter Monday to be precise.  A few hours later, I found the post wasn't displaying properly so I tried to alter it on my phone.  Well, I failed, and messed the post up beyond repair.  So I took it all down again and haven't got around to re-posting it till now.  It is a little way down this page, and I hope you don't mind the delay.   Of course Easter now seems long ago, and the Coronation of Charles III has dominated everything here for the last few days. So I will say a bit about that first.&nbs ..read more
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Quilts, Colour and Making Do.
An English Travel Writer
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1y ago
Isn't this strange? It is a teeny part of the current London Fashion and Textile Museum exhibition, which closes on 12th March.   It celebrates hangings and quilts using the fabrics of the gifted colourist, Kaffe Fassett.  (Can you spot the fragment in this picture of the whole hanging, below?     Kaffe Fassett is obsessed with all kinds of stitching from knitting and crochet to fabric design. Many quiltmakers use his highly detailed fabric to add depth and variety to their work.   If you'd like to know more about Kaffe, take a look at t ..read more
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