Ahem The weather this past month has been ridiculous even by English standards, a confusing farrago of passive aggression and bipolarity. For several days it was just damply dismal; then it slowly brightened up in a faltering, febrile way, before becoming positively neo-African at its zenith for a couple of days; then suddenly sank back […]
Tag Archives: York
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
03
Jul
Jul
Ahem My vegetables are being pilfered and pillaged. Every time I go to the garden, at least five fat pigeons disengage themselves from the already skeletal broccoli, beans and courgettes, and flap unhurriedly up to reclaim their posts in the surrounding trees. Last year there were hardly any of these flying rats. I would rather […]
31
May
May
Ahem A lot of things happened on Mayday, as they should. In medieval England, it was one of the biggest, most popular and least controversial holidays of the year, the focus of a week of ribaldry, licence and lust, when the rural working class (90% of the population) got drunk for days on fermented beer, […]
01
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, […]
01
Jul
Jul
Ahem We have seen our daughters together thrice this month, the first time with their partners Jurrat and Sam, when Alli, Gwen and I drove to meet them all in Tooting Bec Common in south London. Relaxed, informal, friendly, the tooting common welcomed us to a spot near the shade of an oak tree at […]
01
Jun
Jun
Ahem Jessie’s 29th birthday was celebrated on Europe Day with great success and aplomb. The 9th May is a very ‘international’ and upbeat day. It also celebrates 25 years of Austria in the European Union, 70 years since the Schuman Declaration, 75 years of the United Nations, the 250th birthday of Beethoven, and national windmill […]