England
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Farewell To Cornwall: Next Stop Cairo
As ever, we have loved this visit to Cornwall. Spring seems to have dawned before our eyes, colours have intensified, and Padstow, the estuary, the coast path…have all been as wonderful as ever. We always feel so at home here. We conclude our time here by climbing to the top of Brea Hill, the highest point in the area and consequently one of the best places from which to view the estuary. As we climb, we are again at low tide, vast reaches of golden sand either side of the river’s narrow channel where in just a few short hours water will stretch right across the divide. Windshields and windows…
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The Unique Village Of Clovelly
Venturing out of Cornwall and up to the north Devon coast, we take in the self-proclaimed “unique” village of Clovelly, knowing of its beautiful setting but knowing little else about it. We are in for a treat. The first thing which strikes us as “unique” is that we have to pay to get in to the village! At first we are a little baulked by having to fork out £8.25 each just to enter, but once we see Clovelly and learn about its status it all becomes clear and we don’t begrudge a penny of it. Clovelly is perched on a seemingly almost vertical slope, cascading from clifftop to shingle…
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Cape Cornwall
Monday March 14th, and suddenly it’s Spring. As we descend the stony path alongside the cascading brook, warm sunshine kisses our faces and the air hangs heavy with the pungent scent of wild garlic. The blooms of gorse, celandine and wild daffodils paint yellow splashes amongst the green foliage as flocks of goldfinches scatter across the clifftop, maybe just arriving for the summer. Rabbits scurry beneath hedgerows and, across the field, a pheasant squawks and races away like a sprinter with his hands in his pockets. Majestic cliffs tower over the deep blue Atlantic, birds carry twigs towards nesting sites, the colours are impossibly sumptuous and if it is remotely…
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Cornwall Revisited
Currently enjoying another spell in Cornwall, we are at the same time counting the days to our next overseas adventure, now only just over a week away. Here and now, on the cusp of the seasons, the Cornish Winter clings on while Spring struggles to make its entry. When we first made the arrangements for Michaela’s Mum to join us in Padstow for a few days, we really wanted to be able to show Norma all of the different reasons we love this place, show this place in all its guises, all of its different moods. In true Cornwall style, the first thing to play ball is the weather, and…
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Famous Faces, Favourite Places
Darkness becomes morning light and the incessant rain of the last five days turns to dry roads as we head south west; the rising sun illuminates a cloudless sky across which the blue starts to deepen as we near the end of the 320 mile journey and approach Cornwall, our second home in more ways than the obvious. Without fail, arriving in Cornwall makes both of us, me in particular, feel like we’re home: today’s blue skies and early Spring sunshine just make those feelings even stronger than normal. But this time, as we leave the dark and the damp behind, our conversation is as much about yesterday as it…
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Rock History & Me #4: Dunstable California
Just outside the nondescript Bedfordshire town of Dunstable lies a range of chalk hills known as the Dunstable Downs, home to some attractive countryside and the famous Whipsnade Zoo. In an unlikely setting just off the main road out across the Downs was the California Ballroom, a live music venue which in its day sat comfortably on every tour itinerary below the A-list. The California in the mid 1970s was the type of venue which would probably not get a licence these days, let alone be on a major gig circuit, without a major rethink. My first time was late ‘74/early ‘75, and my first impression on walking into that…
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England And A Not So Warm Welcome
Eighteen hours after leaving Lindsay’s house in California we are walking the few yards from the car to our front door, jogging with backpacks on for those few paces to get out of the cold as quickly as possible. After seven weeks in the sun a February English evening doesn’t feel great. “Phil?”, calls Michaela from upstairs, “the screen’s blank”. “What screen?”. “The heating system”. The house is utterly perishing cold. It’s becoming plain that the heating – and hot water – must have failed weeks ago; carpets don’t get to feel like sheets of ice in a few days. Frantic fuse changing brings no joy, we’re going to have…
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Christmas Is Early
Well, it is in our house anyway! Once we’d made plans to be travelling again over the Christmas period, we decided to give ourselves our own Christmas Day, and Boxing Day come to that, on just about the only date left in our diary – December 9th. So here we are, 16 days ahead of everyone else, enjoying traditional Christmas dinner and drinks – although we haven’t gone as far as Christmas tree and decorations, which seemed to us to be too much of a waste of effort. Our diary has been full of visits to friends and family since our Vilnius trip, leaving us with a rather full diary…
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California Dreamin’
All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day I’d be safe and warm if I was in LA California dreamin’, on such a winter’s day. Four years ago, in October 2017, my sons and I waved a tearful farewell to my daughter Lindsay as she disappeared through the barrier at Heathrow and set off to begin a new life in Los Angeles. At that point, as she gave one last look over her shoulder and headed off to a brave new world, I never thought for one moment that it would be more than four years till I saw…
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London: Simply The Best
We live only about 65 miles from central London, we’ve literally made hundreds of visits between us, we’ve travelled to many cities in many countries, but London still stands out as one of the great destinations of the world, somewhere where it’s impossible not to have a good time. And this week, we certainly had a good time…. Tina Turner in her heyday was a magnificent performer, the shows I was lucky enough to witness back then were just plain brilliant, and we still both enjoy giving Tina a spin on nights in: so it was with some considerable excitement that we entered the Aldwych Theatre in Drury Lane to…