Ahem, During this interminably long month of heaving weather, our far south-east corner, ancestral home of the south Saxons, has led a charmed life, picking its way through and near the triple storms, snow, frosts, floods, driving rain, and sidewinding winds. For much of the month, charcoal clouds scudded with dark purpose across Birdineye Hill […]
Tag Archives: Max
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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Oct
Oct
30
Aug
Aug
Ahem August was a very fruitful month. Raspberries and blackberries, plums and greengages, even rosehips and sloes suddenly made a massive and early appearance in the hedges and byways along which I walk Max. There were reports from Burgess Hill of previously uncharted bushes within hedges suddenly producing rare and delicious plums. August was also […]
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. […]
02
Feb
Feb
Ahem Jessie and Jurrat came back from their stay in Luxembourg with Uncle Tank and Auntie Susie, and retook ownership of Jaxon, whom we delivered safe and sound after his five-day stay with us. Jaxon was an entertaining guest. His self-absorption is highly amusing whereas in humans it might become irritating. Alli had been urgently […]
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 […]
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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 […]
01
Apr
Apr
Ahem Our dogs have not been well. Both Bonnie and Max have suffered from stomach trouble, but Bonnie stopped eating and drinking and her temperature soared while she walked around in a dehydrated and discombobulated daze. There were rumours of a dog virus around the walkers’ slopes of Batchelors’ Farm. She was referred by the […]
31
Jul
Jul
Ahem I’m sure that I’m the last person in Little Britain to have noticed that tea shops and coffee houses are replacing traditional pubs throughout town and country as social centres and meeting places. I even wonder if the British pub can survive much longer in its present form. It’s yet another British institution now […]
31
Jan
Jan
Ahem The turn of the year did not witness many resolutions, still less successful ones. No surprise here, being the first new year under the endless lockdown mentality, although the perennials of dry January and committing to lose weight remain worthy of mention. Much more heart-warming was the long-awaited arrival of Maisie the Rottweiler from […]
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Jan
Jan
Ahem No sooner had Gwen arrived back from York than we drove together to the supermarket for her to buy tons of sugar, vegan butter, chocolate, and other ingredients to add to the loads she had already brought to bake her vegan chocolate brownies. Her first days here were spent in labour-intensive and kitchen-hogging mixing, […]
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