The uncertain weather continued during the first half of the month, ruining the plans of charities, open days, village fetes, Prime Ministerial speeches, cricket, concerts, and other flummery activities. The British weather’s main characteristic is that rain is always imminent, as John Lennon had noted. The phrase “Flaming June” implies that the month traditionally brings […]
Category Archives: Ahem
2026 Ahem
QUOTIDIAN HAMMERHEAD HIPPO: February 2026
Ahem Rain and colder weather in southern England dominated the first few days of the [...]
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02
Mar
Mar
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
01
Jun
Jun
Our amazing dog Bonnie, possibly a Bedlington Whippet, or maybe a small Schnauzer Lurcher, born in a rescue centre over 18 years ago, and more recently very frail and forgetful, as well as nearly blind and deaf, disappeared about two weeks ago. She became confused one evening in the garden at Broad Oaks in Burgess […]
28
Apr
Apr
Ahem, A few days after I had, with all due ceremony, carefully poured twenty bright and bushy-tailed goldfish from a large transparent plastic bag into our rejuvenated pond, aware that the fish would be in temporary shock and hiding behind pond foliage for a while, Alli and I slowly began, quite separately, to realise that […]
01
Apr
Apr
Ahem, Muttley was one of my childhood heroes (along with Rolf Harris). As an infant TV-watcher, I thought Muttley was a philosophical genius; he could summarise all relevant social discourse into three cardinal responses: a chronic wheezy snigger; a frustrated oath-laden mutter grumble; and impatient agreement by rapid head-nodding while rasping “yeh-yeh-yeh, yeh-yeh-yeh”. It inspires […]
05
Mar
Mar
Ahem, On the ninth day of the month, I travelled to meet my sister-in-law Julia and her long-time friend Christine at Heathrow to spend the rest of the month with them at the Toleza farm near Balaka in Malawi. Hitches, snafus, and hassles from previous similar journeys were much reduced, and we were driven to […]
04
Feb
Feb
Ahem, Jurrat, Jessie, and Jaxon (J3) came to Uckfield for a Sunday roast on their first visit since we moved into our new house. Alli cooked a pork belly with cracking crackling, which was pronounced delicious by all who had it. At the end of the month I joined Jessie and Jurrat, Ella, and Gwen […]
29
Dec
Dec
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 […]
05
Dec
Dec
Most Africans suffer poverty and inequality in various different forms, including income and employment, geography, age and gender. The gender dimension is particularly significant, with poverty rates among women and girls far higher than among men or boys. Market research was commissioned in 2016 to help understand the economics of the gender divide in […]
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. […]
29
Nov
Nov
These days the ampersand is used mostly in business names, but is often frowned upon as an alternative to the more general and personal use of ‘and’. The shape of “&” predates the word ampersand by 2,000 years, when Roman scribes wrote in cursive. They wrote the Latin word “et” which means “and”, then started […]