Author Archives: Lionel Stanbrook

Ahem I have been gazing out across a moist flower-bordered billiard-table lawn, blurred through the window. It’s an overcast day, 24 hours before the start of the London Marathon. The garden has broad oaks and green acres, and my father in law has given it a timely tonnage of additional nutrition that the English drizzle […]

Ahem We went to a restaurant in Huningue, Autour de la table, with the Jarvises and the Barneses to celebrate my birthday and where force majeure encouraged me to copy Gwen’s well-established record of eating meat only on her birthday. I had some very thoughtful cards and presents, including a log storage bag and a […]

Ahem The couple renting our house in the south west of France broke the rental contract with us early, after one lost her job locally and the other had to take on new work commitments in Paris. With rigorous project management, they had helped to improve the house interior in the few months while they […]

Ahem We returned from the warm climes of New Zealand to the cross-field Sundgau swoosh of the moaning west-south-westerly, creaking windows, frosted mornings, then later to flailing snow, shrugging hoary wind-blown locks and dusting the surrounding hills with cold comfort. Once home, Alli suffered from the effects of a persistent virus that laid her low […]

Ahem The fortnight before our extended Christmas vacation in New Zealand was backpacked with incident and action. My myriad internecine bank accounts, loan agreements, scrip and credit cards had to be carefully calibrated with the fine checks, filters, gears, brakes and balances that are now characteristic of my new gossamer financial identity. Advent was recalled […]

Ahem It was great to welcome Ella and Sam here for a few days. They spent some quality time at home playing Monopoly, throwing darts and tasting whiskies with our neighbor Jeff (after watching the plucky Spurs edge it against QPR). They also went to Basel, the Herbstmesse and ice skating, and one sunny morning […]

Ahem It’s all happening here in the southern Sundgau. One cat-black night was disturbed at 3am by sudden thudding explosions, a power cut, urgent voices, and the lazy reverberated drawling of the Leymen village siren, waking up the village as well as surrounding farmsteads and houses across the border. Was it an axe-man on the […]

Ahem I was looking northwest across Basel from the Hinterhof Dachterrasse, after being prompted to view the sunset. There were several tall cranes cornering building sites and some jagged rectangular office blocks with golden windows but I had to agree that a great sunset makes almost any urban (or rural) view look good, and the […]

Ahem There was a pleasing symmetry to this month as it was precisely bookended by the 60th birthday parties of good, close and long-standing family friends. At the beginning Alli and I went to East London to help celebrate our friend John’s birthday and to catch another view of the magnificent garden that his partner […]

Ahem The month started cold and windy when Ella, accompanied by four of her university friends, came over to see us for a few days. The weather impeded them by unleashing four straight days of alternating drizzle, hail and pounding rain, so the girls were unable to lounge around a sun-kissed pool, but they did […]