Month: May 2018

Eating My Hat

Reggie and I were unadventurous yesterday. We reprised our Monday morning walk to Bruniquel but this time in low cloud and a light drizzle, or a grand soft day as it’s called in Ireland.

Château de Haute-Serre

Six grape varieties are allowed to make red wine designated Bordeaux: Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Carménère. The last three are not household names, at least not in my cellar.

Didactic

”Didactic”, that’s a nice word hitherto unused here. To make up for yesterday’s feeble post today’s is didactic.

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Categorised as Travel

French Leave

There was a temporary parting of the ways yesterday. Robert went to Mallorca to the Rafa Nadal Academy to brush up his tennis.

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Categorised as Travel

Plain Tales from the Hills

  Brenda Bayliss, who posted a comment on Verdict, has proved to be a diligent and accurate genealogist of the Hill family, from whom her husband is descended. It was rather remarkable that she tracked me down through this website which hitherto has only mentioned Bellew family history.

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Categorised as Family

A Swift Solution

Very broadly, membership of the EU has been bad for fishermen but rather good for farmers, financial services and some manufacturers (especially motor car manufacturers and the aeronautical sector) but what impact has it had on me?

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Categorised as Politics

A Swift Hello

There used to be eels in the lake at Barmeath and probably still are. The lake is landlocked and I could not work out how they got from the sea to the lake but they did; probably through an overflow drain that runs under the fields and then through ditches down to the sea. Much… Continue reading A Swift Hello

BIE Were Best

The British are at heart isolationist while our leaders are strategists who see the benefit of alliances with almost anybody. I’m no historian but any fule can see we have fought against and subsequently fought alongside almost every country in Europe (and the United States). And then there’s Russia …

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Categorised as Politics

Yes to Europe

Our collective memory of the 2016 referendum is emerging: voters were not told by either side the pros and cons of membership of the EU. Our collective memory of the 1975 referendum is that voters were deceived into voting for a Common Market and were kept in the dark about ever-closer economic and political union.

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Categorised as Politics

At the Theatre

The Jermyn Street Theatre have taken on a project of Wagnerian proportions. They are putting on a cycle of nine one-act plays by Noël Coward. It is the first complete London revival of Tonight at 8.30 since 1936.