The major landowner in these parts is the Eastnor Estate. Eastnor village (where I regularly go to the Pottery) and the castle are a few miles down the hill, but the deerpark is so huge that the back entrance to the estate is only a few hundred metres from my house. This has caused some […]
Last week, I was organising and hosting a joint industry / academia / government two-day workshop at our Malvern site, for about 35 people from all over the UK. They all needed somewhere to stay overnight, and I needed somewhere suitable to host an evening dinner / networking session. There’s a couple of hotels around […]
Work has been even more manic than usual in the run-up to the end of the financial year. I had four weeks of equipment trials, on two separate projects, from mid-February up until Easter, by the end of which I was totally exhausted. So I decided that it would be a good idea to recharge […]
Malvern Theatres seems to be having a bit of a binge on Alan Ayckbourn comedies at the moment. I saw Round and Round the Garden just a few weeks ago, and last week they had not one but two productions alternating throughout the week, Hero’s Welcome and Confusions, both directed by the man himself. I couldn’t get to Hero’s […]
I’ve been working flat out on equipment trials for the past two weeks, and I’ve got another one starting next week, so I’m pretty much run off my feet at work at the moment. I decided that I could really do with a complete change of pace over the weekend, so yesterday I looked up […]
It seems as if this past year has gone very quickly. Last weekend was my now-annual visit to the Pudding Club with a group of colleagues and ex-colleagues. This was my fourth visit, though I’m still a newbie compared to many of the gang – the stalwart who organises our annual trip is on her […]
Years ago, when Christopher and I spent Christmas together in North Cyprus, we visited the spectacular Roman site of Salamis on Christmas Day. There is a set of huge Roman baths, still remarkably intact with a hypocaust system, box-flue tiles in the walls, and plunge pools lined with waterproof cement. There is also a rather […]
There is a very atmospheric ruin of a monastic complex in the village of Bellapais, on the mountainside overlooking Kyrenia. The village itself is rather touristy – it has both the abbey ruin and the erstwhile house of Lawrence Durrell to attract the coach parties. But the abbey itself is worth a visit – there […]
As with many places in the Mediterranean, there were plenty of stray dogs in North Cyprus. It was interesting to see though, that the ones in Kyrenia at least had been “adopted” by an animal welfare charity – they are tagged, neutered, innoculated, de-wormed, and then released back on to the streets where both the […]
As I had stayed in the same hotel last year, I thought I knew what to expect. It’s a 2* establishment, so has fairly basic facilities, in a converted Ottoman mansion two minutes from the harbour. There are just nine rooms, one on the ground floor, and the other eight around the courtyard, accessed off […]
