Ahem There is a village close to the Toleza Farm in Malawi that goes by the name of Nzengheza, a Chichewa word that translates as: “Don’t outstay your visit here [or you’ll be in trouble]”. This seems extreme, but many names of Malawian villages and people have literal meanings or messages. One man told me […]
Tag Archives: Alli
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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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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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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Oct
Oct
31
May
May
Ahem At the very end of April, I drove to La Hune, our house in France, via Newhaven, Dieppe, and an overnight stay in the Chateau du Plessis near Argentan, where the French owner told me that the previous day’s guest had been the Duke of Westminster. I didn’t ask if the Duke successfully paid […]
31
Oct
Oct
Ahem Ten minutes of light drizzle fell on the dusty ochre fields the morning after my arrival at Toleza Farm in Malawi, where I spent most of a month that is normally the hottest and driest of the year. Farm records show that virtually no rain had fallen there for nine months. However, gusts of […]
31
Aug
Aug
Ahem Ella and Sam were formally wed on 24th August in Wadhurst Castle in East Sussex, a glorious culmination of many months of diligence and planning by the couple, aided by close friends and sisters. They designed and organised most of the event themselves after choosing the venue and catering. It was also the confirmation […]
02
Aug
Aug
Ahem, The simple scoreline did not truly reflect the embroiled imbroglio of the football match. It was a game of two halves: the post and bar were each rattled; there were fouls, handballs, swallow dives, hospital passes, and theatrical agony all over the pitch; six players were booked; two were sent off; two goals disallowed, […]
01
Jul
Jul
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 […]
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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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. […]