As we walked out of our drive a month or two ago, we noticed an odd hole. There are no rabbits here and cats rarely make holes, just a smelly dump. We knew it was odd but thought no more about [...]

I love my garden. It is a place of boundless surprises. A plant comes into flower that you did not expect and brings joy. However, I tend to be bouncing around the plot doing this and doing that. [...]

I always find myself out of kilter with people, an oddity if you like. A person posting on a website I use for those of us with leukaemia could not wait to visit Greece. Is she suffering with [...]

I am in Shrewsbury, where Ann was born and where we married in 1971. At a cafe in Butcher Row, staring at all the older people walking past. After all, I might just know them. It proves futile. [...]

It is late July in the Peak District and a pastel blue haze is everywhere. No, it’s not the blue sky but a wildflower growing along the verges and on wilder areas. What a show it is, more [...]

Here I am, in the Shropshire Hills and hitting those climbs. If you don’t know this area then look up Church Stretton. It was not considered ‘little Switzerland‘ for nothing. [...]

The re-run of Civilisation on television has ended and I am sad. What an amazing personal view it proved to be. Also, what chance that anybody will be given such an opportunity today. When [...]

Ann and I had our first week’s holiday in four years, walking the South West Coastal Path. It was sunny and generally warm and pretty amazing. Seeing Polruan, the port opposite Fowey, for [...]

I am a walking example of skin damage due to sunshine. It would be easy for me to say stay out of the sun but that is not always possible. It may also be that there are those of us who have to [...]

Global warming and sport do not appear bedfellows. However, just looking at the recent Euro’s the sheer number of people travelling to watch football is mindnumbing. Yes, I understand the [...]

I am fresh from a visit to a local farm that manages some of the finest hay meadow in Britain. Consequently, the farm has a long history of small scale farming and rearing cattle on native hay [...]

Help, somebody is walking all over my grave! If that sounds odd, read on. I write articles for Journals, one online, related to the cemetery world. A recent one that was published was followed by [...]

Yes, I was off to hospital on a Sunday morning. Up at 5.50 am, I was away at 8.45 pm for the 20 mile drive to Chesterfield. Quiet roads and an empty car park, it was pure bliss. Even the medical [...]

It’s that dreaded slug attack time. This year has been so bad that I am seriously thinking of giving up on plants that feature on the slug menu. That suggests that I would need to stop [...]

I am not a political person. Some years ago, I became far more cynical than in the past. It is easy to question everything and support nothing, although I don’t think that applies to me. [...]

Ann and I have had a more uplifting time these past few weeks. There has been a big uplift in visitors to the Peak District over this period. On our runs and walks we always interject if somebody [...]

Herb Paris qualifies as a very strange plant. The latin name of Paris quadrifolia highlights its rather strange leaf formation. I believe it to be very poisionous but I have not tested it. Google [...]

Ann and I share our bedtime reading; she reads a bit and then I take over. The book we are reading is Inside The Neolithic Mind. It is complex and difficult but our two brains work well together. [...]

In a recent post on shamans, I illustrated how Ann and I were reading on this subject. It is both fascinating and complex. At its simplest level, my house is a cosmos. The underworld is in my [...]

Ann and I are trying to break the mould. It’s that one where you are aware of many interesting places in the vicinity but you don’t visit them. So, off we doddle to a U3A visit to a [...]

Living in the Peak District has a lot of benefits. Firstly, as it is not so remote, there are lots of pubs in quiet and remote hamlets and villages. Secondly, there is an incredible number of [...]

Tulips and springtime, what a combination. Every morning I leap out of bed and find a window. Down below, my tulips flourish and my heart sings. All that work back in the Autumn, reading the [...]

The smartphone is poorly named. It is really an infuriating engagement device for corporate profiteers. I don’t have one but I have to accept that Ann does. Do I use it? Of course I do. [...]

The NHS has fallen apart and it is a sad indictment. It’s not the staff but the sheer bulk of the monster, too big and too cumbersome. I can see how my own health situation flags up all the [...]