If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!It was Bastille Day, after all.

Just passing through Paris, I snapped this from the hotel.

This week has flown by. It’s already early Thursday morning, which although I still need to grab two nights’ sleep technically means I’ll be heading off on my trip tomorrow. With this in mind, I made a half-hearted attempt to put some clothes at least close by my bag, but ended up cutting my hair […]

…may be getting on in years, and she may be losing her hair, but she sure knows how to make good use of a duvet.

Picking raspberries is a quite hypnotic way to spend the afternoon. You can tell if they’re ripe before you pluck them from the branch, as they’ll happily slip from the stalks of they are. If there’s the slightest bit of tension, you leave them there for another day.
There’s a knack to raspberry picking. First, you […]

Walking back from lunch, I passed the black poppies in Russell Square, which look quite sinister wearing their funereal outfits in the bright mid-day sun, yet at the same time quite beautiful.
This picture was taken with a camera phone, so not bad, considering.

Met Alistair for a drink at the NFT bar on Tuesday evening, and we got to talking about Bond (only natural in so filmy an environment), eventually getting on to the poem Tracy di Vicenzo’s recites in the Piz Gloria Apline Room as Draco’s helicopters close in for the kill.
It only really works when she […]

I’m off to Santiago de Compostela in a couple of weeks. I didn’t realise when booking it, but it’s the second most important pilgrimage spot in the whole of Christianity after Rome. Several thousand people every year walk between 1400km and 1500km to get there on one of four well-established routes through France and Spain.
A […]

It’s the last weekend of the month, so it’s baking weekend. This month, lavender biscuits, with lavender picked fresh from the garden this morning. As long as you can get your hands on the stuff, it’s one of the easiest biscuit recipes of all.
125g (4.5oz) of butter
100g (3.5oz) of caster sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons of lavender […]

That picture is at the Disneyland TGV and Eurostar station. It must be the only one of its kind on the network, and I love the way that Mickey’s smug winky face changes when he’s being electrocuted. It’s actually a warning about short-circuiting the lines if you let go of your helium-filled, metallic balloon.
Fortunately our […]