Category: Travel

Limestone Way, Day Three

Staying in pubs, the customer expects a comfy bed, wi-fi, an en suite bathroom with a shower and “products” – that’s little plastic capsules all full of the same grunge labelled shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel; most places, more or less, deliver.

Limestone Way, Day Two

The Limestone Way is not an ancient footpath like, say, the Ridgeway or Peddars Way. It was created by the Derbyshire county council, I suppose to promote tourism. Originally it ran from Castleton to Matlock and this is the route, about twenty-eight miles, we are taking. Nobody can accuse us of being over ambitious. (Subsequently… Continue reading Limestone Way, Day Two

Limestone Way, Day One

“Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.” This is what Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in Virginibus Puerisque, a collection of essays published in 1881. What I think this morning is that I will be jolly glad to arrive… Continue reading Limestone Way, Day One

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To Sheffield – and Hope

My train went from St Pancras to Sheffield where I changed to a two carriage stopper to Hope.

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Venetian Souvenirs

Poor, poor Venice; the footfall of overweight tourists is making it sink ever lower in the lagoon and the Adriatic is rising, not problems that will be solved here.

The Shooting Party

It may, or possibly may not, interest you to hear about my experience backing Zac in his London mayoral campaign and I had intended to kick off by saying that I’d never done anything like this before, until I remembered…

All Change on the Tube

What do you think this was doing parked on my street all weekend? The interior lights were on and the generator was whirring.

From Norwich to Venice

In a recent post, More Chronicles of War, I mentioned Diana Cooper’s letters to her son, Darling Monster. This week I had lunch with the darling monster, better known as John Julius Norwich.

Special Guest

To make a change from London, I’d like to introduce Charles Woodruff, writing from Switzerland. The view from the chalet: Eiger, Monch and shoulder of the Schwarze Monck

Get Smart

You’re an occasional visitor to London and you’ve finally got smart. You have an Oyster card to pay for tube and bus journeys. Actually you probably have multiple Oyster cards accumulated when you have forgotten to take one with you.