I have a mole in my garden, making a complete mess of my lawn. It’s not even contenting itself with a few discreet molehills. These are apparently feeding tunnels, just underneath the ground surface, and all have appeared since the weekend. It looks like a young child has scribbled all over my lawn – it’s […]
….and already my holiday feels like a long time ago. It’s hard to believe that this time last week I was sitting at Rome airport waiting for my delayed flight home, and still drying out from the thorough soaking at Ostia that morning. Overall, it was a very good holiday, though it was rather bitter-sweet […]
Saturday was the last day of the holiday, and we flew home from Rome Fiumicino airport. But the flight wasn’t until the afternoon, which gave us the whole morning to explore the area around the airport. It so happens that the flight path on the approach to Rome lies directly over Ostia Antica, the old […]
On Thursday evening we had a change from Ancient Rome and turned our attention to Papal Rome, with a lecture before dinner on St Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums. Then on Friday morning we piled into another fleet of taxis to take us to the Vatican Museum. It is the most popular museum in […]
One of my reasons for deciding to go to Rome was because it was the first place that that Christopher and I went on holiday together, in 1990. We spent a week exploring the city and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves seeing many of the sights. So I felt that he would really approve of me scattering […]
Sorry for the break in transmission for the past week, but I’ve got a good excuse. I’ve been on holiday in Rome. I joined a group tour run by Christopher’s and my favourite holiday company, Andante. They are rather an unusual company, owned and run by archaeologists, who run very interesting trips which are a […]
My father has been enlivening his retirement by looking into our family history, and tracing both sides of the family back through many generations. It’s fascinating stuff, but some of it has more relevance to the present day than we had anticipated. It’s become very clear, looking at the family tree, that just about all […]
I had a chap come round yesterday to quote for fixing the broken fencing in the garden. That turned out to be easier and cheaper than I had expected – the fencing is now in fact superfluous to requirements. Since we put it up 12 years ago or so, a large hedge has established itself […]
I was showing Tom and Katie around “the estate” at the weekend, as they haven’t been here since I’ve had the structural engineering done in the garden. It’s quite interesting seeing it through someone else’s eyes – there is such a difference from how it was before that it’s really quite impressive. We went right […]
I seem to have been eating particularly well this week! On Thursday I went to my favourite pub, the Plough and Harrow at Guarlford, for dinner with a group of friends, most of whom used to work with me. That was fun. I did struggle to eat three courses – duck terrine, twice-baked cheese soufflé, […]
