Category: old places
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Family Traditions…
Yesterday, I had another trip up to Worcestershire, to visit the churchyard where my mother’s side of the family mainly reside these days. When my Nan was alive, we would be up there every few weeks, putting flowers on the graves of various relatives. I don’t remember minding that at all. It was also a…
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Campaign for the promotion of Shakespearean insults…
Good morning thou craven toad-spotted puttock. My spirits were considerably lifted this morning, when amidst the huge pile of debris evicted from number 2 daughter’s school bag, I found a sheet of paper titled Shakespeare Insult Kit. On two sides of A4 paper, three columns per page, are lists of words used in the works of Shakespeare…
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Hanbury Hall – Resurgam
A rather sad old house, comes back to life. Hanbury Hall, Worcestershire. I made a flying visit to Worcestershire on Monday and not having huge amounts of time to spare, but wanting a few minutes calm and culture, I drove over to Hanbury Hall, which isn’t far from Droitwich. The little leaflet/map you’re given with…
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Wrestling With The Weather At Wrest Park
In which we bravely visit Wrest Park, near Bedford, despite evil weather conditions. We’ve had some glorious sunny days around here lately, very springlike. Sadly though, Sunday was one of those grim reminders that we shouldn’t yet take spring for granted and that winter could still turn round and bite us in the bottom. Having…
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Bess of Hardwick
On our recent trip to Hay-on-Wye, I picked up a copy of Mary S. Lovell’s book, Bess of Hardwick, First Lady of Chatsworth. Although I’ve known bits and pieces about Bess for a long time, this is the first time I’ve read a whole biography of this remarkable woman. Bess was no beautiful princess like…
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Goodrich Castle: Roaring Meg & The Best Cheese Scones Ever…
Some castles are inferior little numbers, scarcely more than a raised mound of earth or a dubious pile of stones. Not Goodrich Castle. Goodrich is A PROPER castle; solid, chunky, brooding, mysterious, exciting. When you need a castle fix, Goodrich should be there high up on your list. Sitting on top of a hillside, above the meandering…
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New Year, New Kindle
I haven’t been here much lately. Partly because my hands finally recovered and I was able to stitch again – see my other blog if you’re remotely interested in needlepoint – and partly because I was given a Kindle for Christmas. Now, I could have had a Kindle last year, indeed the possibility was dangled in front…
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Tired of blogging?
This week, as I’ve been reading through my daily Bloglovin selection of posts, I’ve become aware of rather a lot of people complaining about how hard they’re finding it to blog regularly, how difficult it is to come up with original content and how tough it is to stick to their posting schedule. Now, this…
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Progress Report
My daughters have just brought home their school reports. Panic not, I am not going to regale you with their content – I’m not that sort of mother and I hope someone will take me outside and shoot me if I should ever become one. No, what I wanted to say, is just how different…
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Going To Bed With Phil Rickman
I have a confession to make, for the past three nights, I’ve been taking another man to my bed – Phil Rickman. Well OK, not really – the husband would probably have noticed – in fact I’ve actually been reading Phil Rickman’s latest book, The Secrets of Pain – another in his series of novels…
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Meet my new life-coach, Dr Seuss!
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. Dr Seuss Was Dr Seuss a part of your childhood? He never featured in mine, although I think he practically taught my husband to read. I was subject to Peter and Jane, but that’s another story altogether, and probably explains a lot. Since we had our children, I’ve come…
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Any Scrivener Fans Out There?
Is anyone using Scrivener for your writing projects? My friend who is Mac mad, gave me a pile of magazines, dating back a few months, which I have in the reading room (otherwise known as the en suite bathroom). A large proportion of the content goes way over my head, but one article caught my…
Mostly Motley 