Category: old places
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Thinking and not thinking
Just sitting here listening to thunder rumble around somewhere not that far away – isn’t May a frustrating month for weather? No sooner have you turned off the central heating for the summer when temperatures plummet and the rain decides to give you a months worth in one afternoon. Oh well. Anyway, I’m just sneaking…
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Whistle Stop April & May
Well hello again. What a busy couple of months it’s been around here (hence I’m afraid to say the lack of recent posts). I’ve just sat and listed the main events and it runs something like this… Visit to Croft Castle Visit to Builth Wells Visit to Bath Visit to Glastonbury Visit to Wells Visit…
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Garden aspirations
Hello again. It’s that time of year when all sorts of things that have been lying dormant in the garden suddenly start to reappear. Of course, the main things that reappear in my garden are the bindweed, ground elder, creeping buttercup and green alkanet, but hay-ho, some things are sent to try us. On the…
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In and out in December…
It’s no secret that I tend to find the low-light days of winter something of a challenge, which is why I’m delighted to say that so far this year, I’m managing to stay pretty buoyant. Maybe it’s the generally mild weather we’ve been having or just a determined effort to stay relaxed. Whichever, all I…
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Merrily, Merrily, Merrily…
Oh Phil… I have a bone to pick with Phil Rickman’s publishers. What do they think they’re doing publishing the latest Merrily Watkins novel at such a busy time of year? Now my poor family are going to have to fend for themselves and the tapestry is going to be neglected, while I immerse myself…
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Re-reading is challenging…
Well it’s a few weeks since I embarked on a self-imposed challenge not to buy any new books, but instead to read or re-read titles languishing on my shelves (or piled up by the bed, in the bathroom, on my desk – oh you know the score). So how am I doing? Umm. First the…
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Iain Banks: Away the Crow Road…
I was elbow deep in potato peelings when I heard the news last night, that the author Iain Banks had died at the grossly unfairly young age of 59. I’d missed the apparently well publicised announcement that he was suffering from terminal cancer, so it came as a huge shock. Like many of his fans, I…
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Reading Challenge Preparation…
I still haven’t decided whether I have enough will-power to go without buying books for a year (or indeed a few months)- see here But just in case, I thought I’d start picking out titles from the shelves – not too many though, a few at a time might be best. I came up with…
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A bookish challenge…
I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I am a bookaholic. This habit means that I get up to things I probably shouldn’t, such as reading reviews for books I’ve never heard of, just because they are links at the end of the last book I finished on my Kindle.(Yes, I’m a book tart, I keep…
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Oh, now come on…
I felt like Victor Meldrew this morning when I opened the curtains to lashing rain and a dark grey sky. Somebody has kidnapped the spring – I want it back – NOW! Just when I thought it was safe to put a couple of my thicker winter jumpers back in the wardrobe, here I am…
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Looking for an F word…
Here’s a question for you. Which word do Shakespeare’s King Lear, The Sound of Music, Sir Walter Scott’s Kenilworth, a 1970s Prog Folk group from South Africa, the Jesuits, and the Neolithic long barrow, Wayland’s Smithy, all have in common? Can you guess? Need a clue? Think – mischievous gossip, or ‘fly-by-the-gibbet’ Got it? The answer…
Mostly Motley 