Ahem, Our first several days in our new house, perhaps predictably, were at once disorienting, exciting, and revelatory. Somehow we needed to fill each room with shared meaning culled separately from our individual lives in the Alsace, in the Cote d’Ivoire, and during the last four years of beguiling purgatory in Burgess Hill. We had […]
Category Archives: 2023
2026 Ahem
SCUDDED PROPRIETORIALLY TRIMMINGS: January 2026
Ahem, During this interminably long month of heaving weather, our far south-east corner, ancestral home [...]
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02
Feb
Feb
2025 Ahem
QUERYING PAKKELEG CONVULSED: December 2025
Ahem Our Christmas celebrations normally start after we celebrate Gwen’s birthday on the 12th, when [...]
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01
Jan
Jan
2025 Ahem
FOODELICIOUS WASHBOARD BELEAGURED: November 2025
Ahem, Richard and Marie, from Cholsey in Oxfordshire, where Alli and I lived just after [...]
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01
Dec
Dec
2025 Ahem
HYENA FUNGI HALLOWEEN: October 2025
Ahem There is a village close to the Toleza Farm in Malawi that goes by [...]
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01
Nov
Nov
2025 Ahem
SPIRITUAL CONTINGENT GONGS: September 2025
Ahem As August turned to September, I was with my Kiwi friends Ramon and Colleen [...]
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01
Oct
Oct
01
Dec
Dec
Ahem, It was night in the cold northern foothills of Dartmoor. The country sky was scattered with stars but the moon was hiding behind a black veil. I had brought my car soundlessly to a halt by an old five-bar gate opening onto a misty field of shadows that stretched down into a dark silence. […]
31
Oct
Oct
Ahem, My strongest memories of the god- or science-inspired extremes of the British weather have come from British seaside resorts such as Brighton, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Amlwch, Whitby, and several others. High winds not only happen in Jamaica. Hardly ever depicted in those eponymous seaside postcards is that buffeting, blustering weather, bilious as billy-o, the kind […]
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Sep
Sep
Ahem, La Hune, our family house in south-west France, looks out proud and far across the Arratz valley, having achieved five-star ratings in all reviews in its first few months as a rental house on Airbnb. This makes my daughter Jessie a “super-host”, along with our neighbour Marlene, who looks after the house and receives […]
31
Aug
Aug
Ahem, “We’re on the home stretch” observed my great-niece Julia-Rose reassuringly as I clambered up a gradient clearly needing crampons for progress, my hands grappling desperately with dead branches and loose pebbles to heave my legs and body up and over huge Sumo boulders that bulked the “path” to the top of Zomba’s eponymous mountain. […]
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Jul
Jul
Ahem, Jessie, our first-born daughter, and Jurrat, our first son-in-law, made their memorable vows to each other in an unforgettable wedding celebration under a blue cedar tree in the garden of Broad Oaks, following their civil marriage in Brighton last month. Jessie and Jurrat (J2) had between them arranged almost everything about the wedding celebration. […]
02
Jul
Jul
Ahem Jessie and Jurrat (J2) were legally married at Brighton registry office on 17th June. They then had lunch with their witnesses nanny Kay and cousin Sophia before joining the rest of the family for bubbly on Brighton beach to mark the day. We all look forward to the wedding in the garden of Broad […]
03
Jun
Jun
Ahem, Rain fell in solid chapters and the sun shone in free verse through the first merry half of May, although the unwelcome drizzle on Coronation day was light, occasional, and parade-friendly. Ella and Gwen joined us in watching the colourful regalia on TV. Alli made the official Royal quiche, following most of the official […]
30
Apr
Apr
Ahem, The Easter weekend saw the family gathered to hunt for prosecco and chocolate. A considerable bout of rain gracefully stopped in time to allow the search to take place in the damp garden, although the event somehow lacked its original charm from when small squealing children were running around the garden in breathless anticipation. […]
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Apr
Apr
Ahem, For over 60 years of my life I have been Lionel. But all this time I have been triplicitous and deceitful. My first name is, in fact, Cedric. Yes, Cedric. Lionel is not even my second, but my third and middle name. When I, at four years old, told my father that my nursery […]
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