An old university friend once told me of an unusual habit his grandfather (an otherwise outwardly ordinary man) had when sitting down to Sunday lunch. If there was pork crackling in the offing, he would take a decent length of it, recline in his chair with head thrust back and, ... Read More...
Dabbler Diary
Clutching our yellow balloons we sidled through the crowd into the windy car park. There was an excellent turnout for the nursery’s 10th ‘birthday party’. The balloons were being handed out by Natalie, the manager, while her number two Melissa filled ever more from a vast helium cylinder and in ... Read More...
The second remarkable thing you noticed about him – a middle-aged Indian gentleman, stout but trim, and wearing a silk tunic in traditional paisley pattern – was the preternatural sense of calm he exuded. One sensed a feeling of deep peace within him, a resigned acceptance of life and its ... Read More...
In the laminate section of CarpetRight I idly stroked a plank of Balterio Vitality Deluxe 4V Wood. To my mind the plank had a somewhat nautical look and I imagined how the living room thus bedecked might resemble a frigate from the golden age of British sea power, myself as ... Read More...
On Christmas Day we walked up to the top of Troopers Hill, which affords a wide view of Bristol’s justly non-famous skyline (my city has many fine features; a skyline is not one of them). Troopers Hill is a small, steep, unusual nature reserve surrounded by urbanity, watched over by ... Read More...
Last week I recalled a Scot from my local rugby club who – this was the late-‘70s – adopted the outward signs of being a Frenchman: Citroen DS, Gauloises, vin rouge, beret. An unusual obsession, but an understandable one. After all, has there been a better time and place for ... Read More...
I took a day off work to paint the kitchen, not very Christmassy. We had to have a new roof put on it earlier in the year and the bare plaster has been accusing me for months. It didn’t go smoothly but then what ever does? The ceiling needed two ... Read More...
When I was a young lad, just beginning to appreciate the coarser things in life, one of the characters at the local rugby club was a Scotsman who, to a peculiar degree, took on the persona of a Frenchman: Gitanes, vin rouge, Citroen DS, beret. Very much a Francophile, as ... Read More...
In last week’s diary ZMKC accused me of being happy. Well, happiness comes and goes. Happiness can of course be found in one's sprogs, but then so can worry. The real problem with happiness is that it is elusive in the present, which is why we have page-turning novels, epic ... Read More...
Austerity of austerities, all is austerity! I've been wondering: how are we going to pay our way in the world? Sunday, and we were in Oxford, visiting the postgraduate college where my wife and I met. It’s doubled in size: there are two new large buildings, mostly residential, with another academic ... Read More...
