Category: Kitchen Table Chat

  • Up, up and not quite away

    Among the many irritating mysteries of my life is why, apparently, the rest of the world can find cheap flights on which they can circumnavigate the world whereas I cannot. Even if I think I’m there it always turns out that if I’d saved the time and gone straight to the carrier’s web site I…

  • No Comment

    Naturally, I always assumed that there has never been a comment on my site (apart from one when it was set up) because no-one read it. But this week, to my delight two, yes two people have pointed out that the comment button doesn’t work. I should have actually taken on my normal, first assumption…

  • Those were the days

    According to the Observer there is a movement afoot to return to post-war standards of food rationing and use. A lot of food, apparently, is discarded in Britain causing horrible build-ups of methane, the stuff that cows produce so prolifically, and which is a nasty greenhouse gas. I’m all in favour having never lost my…

  • Not national, not an anthem

    I somehow managed to miss the big rugby match when England beat Australia but made good by watching the England/France game last week. Which set one of the many enraged bees in my bonnet buzzing. This is the one about the dreariness of the national anthem. Apart from the ghastly droney tune and the utterly…

  • Escape to Edinburgh

    A week spent in Edinburgh during the festival is a week well spent in my view. Talking of spending though, the costs do add up. The most expensive show we saw was Fuertzebruta at £25 but do three or four shows a day for a week, even at £8 it works out pricey. One of…

  • Shock horror

    So, thank goodness, we didn’t get flooded although number 2 son did manage to get himself electrocuted wading through water and treading on a live wire, exposed when a traffic bollard had become dislodged. Happily, when I found him in the emergency room at the hospital he was vying with his chum to make ‘this…

  • The River Rises

    I’m often told that I live in a beautiful place and it is true. One of the most attractive things about Grandpont is the proximity to the river which is about three minutes walk from where I live. Every morning I walk over Folly Bridge by Salter’s Yard from where ‘on a golden afternoon’Alice and…

  • Notes from a small island

    There is something particularly grim about bad weather in places designed for sun. Sitting in a little ‘villa’in Corsica last week and watching the palm trees bend under the wind – one of the many, named winds that Corsica experiences – and hearing the distant thunder over the mountains, listening to rain lashing against the…