Month: April 2018

On Broadway

I sometimes use St James’s Park station as a cross country route to my club. Incidentally there is grim news in Clubland. The new business rates will see clubs facing rates rising by as much as 400% and my club is reluctantly phasing in higher subscriptions.

We Shall Fight Them

Paddy L-F made his name writing this sort of prose. On Friday night there was thunder and lightning and rain. On Saturday morning it was windy with dark clouds over the mountains that threatened further rain, so we drove south away from the Cretan Sea to Paleochora on the Libyan Sea, where the sun was… Continue reading We Shall Fight Them

Easter Sunday

The Elia Hotel is owned by George Digridakis whose grandfather played an important role in the Resistance after the German invasion in 1941. Today we are en fête and will celebrate Easter under his gaze.

Griffons, Goats & Grub

We have seen griffon vultures wheeling high above us. They look quite small at such an altitude but in fact have a wingspan of more than eight feet. It would be exciting to see one close-up but that seems unlikely.

War and Peace, Part I

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery at Soúdha must be one of the most beautifully sited in the world. It is kept perfectly. The lawns had been watered the morning we visited.

Walking on Crete

These days it is hard to get off the beaten track but if that’s your kind of thing (it’s mine) Western Crete is for you. Olive trees out-number inhabitants by sixty to one; the scenery is spectacular; there is an abundance of churches and, at this time of year, lovely wild flowers. 

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On Crete

Thank you for happy birthdays in Comments and e mails. Margaret and Pam sifted the facts and correctly deduced that we are in Crete, scene of fierce fighting in 1941 (The Battle of Crete) and subsequent resistance. The Greek Orthodox Easter Sunday, this year, falls on Sunday next. And the musical birthday clue was When… Continue reading On Crete

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Pastoral

Pastoral appeared in Punch on 8th April, 1903. It is inappropriate this cold, rainy Eastertide. The weather (in the past Emphatically bitter), Seems to have changed at last. The birds begin to twitter.

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Fox, Food, Fops

It was raining much too hard to take a photograph of this fine bronze of Charles James Fox erected in 1816. I was walking across the north side of Bloomsbury Square on my way to the British Museum and their Charmed Lives in Greece exhibition.