Ahem, Richard and Marie, from Cholsey in Oxfordshire, where Alli and I lived just after we got married, came to see us for a weekend. It was wonderful to see them after so many years (around 30). We walked around Sheffield Park, looking preternaturally multi-coloured in the wintry sunlight at the height of its autumn […]
Tag Archives: Maisie
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
Aug
Aug
Ahem A proper summer seemed to unfold and express itself haltingly from the first few days of the month, providing some of the hottest days on record in England. The whole country seems to change character for about a month sometime around the beginning of July, when the year turns back on the home straight. […]
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
Dec
Dec
Ahem On 5th December, Jurrat knelt in the autumn leaves before our first-born daughter Jessie in the garden of Broad Oaks and asked her to marry him. She accepted and her sister Gwen (who was nearby) burst into tears, and Jaxon, their sensitive Staffie, jumped for joy up and down around them. So we will […]
03
Dec
Dec
Ahem My previous one-scener blue moon trips to London have now turned into weekly or twice-weekly trips into the City for my temporary stint as interim speechwriter at the Guildhall. I face down forlorn memories of my commute two decades ago into Greyface Gormenghast Gritty Thameslink, the grimmest railway station in Britain. I would slope […]
30
Oct
Oct
Ahem So they want to make me go to rehab, I said yeah yeah yeah? The NHS has answered my enquiry from last year about how to resolve an increasingly painful lower back, and sent me for some sessions at a weekly course called Rehab Gym taking place locally in Haywards Heath, the all-time national […]
01
Oct
Oct
Ahem, By general agreement Alli’s birthday this year was more of a birtholiday. We had first visited the sceptred Isle of Wight 25 years ago and I am the only one to remember any of the key details which included a magical day in Blackgang Chine. This time Alli and I started by looking around […]
31
Aug
Aug
Ahem Sometimes I run out of patience and often I run out of things to say. We occasionally run out of food items, thanks to Brexit’s damage to reliable food supplies. My account is running a deficit, which makes me run scared of running dry or on empty. I have run a fever and I […]
01
May
May
Ahem Easter gave us an opportunity to use the garden for a childish grown-up family Easter Egg hunt and to see Jessie, Jurrat, Ella, Sam, and celebrity Rottweiler Maisie. I got accused of indolence in laying the chocolate eggs on behalf of the Easter rarebit as too many of them were found close to the […]
03
Apr
Apr
Ahem We’ve been thinking of renting a cottage on the Isle of Wight, if it’s not too dear. But it might well be. Alli nearly booked a place in Bembridge on the south east coast a couple of months ago. However, we held back as the owner would not return deposits to renters once they […]
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