Louise as I like to remember her, with her beloved Pom Pom and hula-hoop gear (holes in tights), in her kitchen at Evering Rd
Tuesday 2 March should have been just another day. Except that it isn’t. It is ten years exactly since we received the terrible news that Louise was dead.
Lockdown life is different for everyone. I’m the first to admit that my cunning plan of going straight from the Maldives to Switzerland was a good one – no quarantine and a remarkably liberal attitude to social gatherings, restaurant, bar and shop openings up until Christmas, when the shutters come down on all but socialising privately with up to six people – and this is really a blessing. Continue reading
7 December 2020
Louise would have been 31 today. Almost ten years since she died. It is simultaneously like yesterday and an aeon ago. This morning – 3 am to be precise due to jetlag – I flipped though her Facebook photos and her joie de vivre, sense of naughtiness and good humour shone out to me. Of course she had her moments – we all do – and I remember when she was about 14 or 15 regularly waiting on the stairs listening for the late night bus to rumble past in the hope that she would be on it…and at some point she would tumble through the front door and I would pretend to be asleep. Continue reading
Seven years on and still here – read my blog!
My sweet peas
Exactly eight years ago I was still reeling from the surprise diagnosis of my soft tissue sarcoma . You can read about it here but, for those who remember the last words of that blog, they were: ‘I will probably lose my calf muscle – no more mountain walks – but should be able to ski again in due course. These are small but meaningful mercies if one can at least continue to live.’
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This gallery contains 7 photos
After a few days off at home – Ross training for the marathon onSunday and me catching up with work on the book and my charitable endeavours – we set off on part two of our staycation, via lunch with old friends John and Hilary in Penn. Ross is loving experimenting with our new electric car, although we have some interesting challenges plugging it in overnight in our two hostelries. This time we are headed for Hartwell House near Aylesbury where the Bourbon Court were housed after they fled from France. Continue reading
We should have been in Provence for a glorious 12 days of sea, sun and relaxation. For the past few years we have stayed in the delightful Villa du Soleil with various friends, right on the beach of Lalonde les Maures. Thanks to CVOID quarantine restrictions this year it just ain’t gonna happen. Continue reading
Last week it was announced that Brits had to quarantine on return from Switzerland. This quarantine business seems to be peretty arbitrary – for instance I discovered that Romania magically appeared on the list but has never been mentioned in despatches. I can’t help wondering if it’s got anything to do with the fact that the government consider Romanians who live in Britain as EU migrants rather than British holiday-makers, and don’t vote. Anyhow, to continue…here are some photos of the Dents du Midi in all their glory. Continue reading
Here’s something I wrote on the trials of COVID19 for my healthylivingwith cancer.co site…I thought in the absence of travelling further than the local shops it might amuse.
So we are almost 6 weeks into lock-down when I receive a text out of the blue. It’s from the NHS coronavirus service and it says, ‘Your condition means you may be at high risk of severe illness if you catch coronavirus. Please remain at home until the end of June…’.
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Wax palms at Cocora
Tatacoa desert
The final stage of our four month trip takes us by air to Pereira capital of the coffee country. Just as I say, ‘we’re all aboard and taking off 5 minutes early’ we find ourselves being asked to disembark due to a technical issue. It doesn’t look good as we are given drinks and snacks but suddenly we are asked to board again and we leave only an hour or so late. Phew! Continue reading
Cartagena
Medellin from Comuna 13
So here we are almost at journey’s end. The last part of our trip takes us down the western side of Colombia and back to Bogota and then home! But it is so rich in experience that I’m splitting it into two blogs. We travel via a mix of plane and car, and see two extremes of this country – the very rich and the dirt poor and, in Medellin, some green shoots of transformation. Venezuelan refugees continue to be a major theme, always on the road – walking to who-knows-where, begging in the cities, sleeping rough. Depending who you talk to there are between two to three million of them. Some find work undercutting local labour, but most rely on generosity and handouts in this poorest of countries.
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