It is our first evening in Chania, Crete. We have unpacked our cases. Stocked up on food, etc. from the local supermarket just down the road. Struggled back up the five flights of stairs to our top floor apartment with its stunning views over the old town, harbour, and the Mediterranean. Had a couple of […]

‘Is there anyone on board who is either a doctor or a nurse or someone who has had any kind of medical training at all?’ Immediately overhead indicator lights go on up and down the plane! It would appear that Julia and I are the only people on board who are not medically trained?! The […]

A man went on safari with his wife and mother-in-law. One night the couple woke to find the mother gone. In a clearing, not far from the camp they came upon a chilling sight … the mother-in-law face-to-face with a snarling lion. The man’s wife said: “What are we going to do?” “Nothing!” replied the […]

‘Has anyone seen my iPad?’ I ask. We are in the middle of packing up Chipps Barton – the family home for the last 25 years for Julia’s mother, Olivia. She is 90 years of age now and we all feel (including Olivia herself) that it is the right time for her to move from […]

I am looking out of the window towards the bottom of our garden … and the buddleia are dancing! Our neighbours had the trees that back on to our garden lopped last year, and the buddleia that were already growing there took full advantage of the extra space and light and have grown up high […]

When the Rev Dr Howard Williams was the Minister of Blenheim Baptist Church, Leeds, just after the end of WWII, he caused quite a stir when, following the General Election of July 1945 in which Clement Attlee led the Labour Party to victory, he had a poster put up outside the church that read: ‘One […]

We have finally persuaded my 90-year-old mother-in-law, Olivia, to sell up and move to a cottage next door but one to her youngest daughter, Livy (who is now the principal carer) in the delightful hamlet of Ebbesbourne Wake near Salisbury. We know that it will be a wrench for her but, since she has been […]

You know that you are in the centre of Knaphill Village when you arrive at the mustard coloured pub by the traffic lights on the corner of Lower Guildford Road and the High Street. Built in the 1700s as a hotel, The Anchor was one of the first buildings to be built when Knaphill grew […]

What a year 2016 was! How was it for you? 2016 is over but the repercussions of the decisions that were made last year will be felt in this coming year, and in the years to come. There are possible seismic changes ahead. The world is in transition. There are question marks over our whole […]

What’s your favourite TV ad of all time? Mine has got to be the British Telecom ‘Beattie Ads’ launched around December 1987 starring the wonderful Maureen Lipman (and a red BT Tribune phone) as Mrs Beattie Bellman, a Jewish granny. Having just been told by her grandson Anthony that he’s flunked his exams, passing only […]