The Devil’s Pulpit

Many years ago I walked along the Wye (my grandfather caught a 41 1/4 lb salmon on the river in the 1930s) with Ingaret the Navigator; more recently along Offa’s Dyke with Robert. On Wednesday these two paths intersected at Brockweir.

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Going West

We drove to the Forest of Dean on a wet Tuesday. I am getting to know the green car better. Sometimes it is breathtakingly brainy, at other times exasperating; in fact just like Bertie.

Hanger Lane Gyratory

I have lived fairly contentedly in London for forty-three years and much of my happiness I now realise has come from avoiding the Hanger Lane Gyratory system.

Off to Sunny Spain

Books describing the authors’ walking trips are a genre I find irresistible. Today I want to narrow down the field to 20th century accounts of walks in just one country.

Train-spotting in Ukraine

We returned to Kiev via Poltava after the election and again stayed at the Palazzo Poltava. I had a first floor room with a balcony and a view.

The Holodomor

The Holodomor was the famine of 1932/33 caused by Stalin’s reorganisation of agriculture in Ukraine and Russia. Something like five million Ukrainians died and the same number were born with defects or stillborn further depleting the population.

Mass Observation

Almost half a million people took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, organised by the RSPB, this year. That’s Mass Observation.

Birds and Bees

Mhar Monastery was founded in 1619. We arrived on a crisp, sunny Saturday morning. The church was built in the 1680s, funded by two Cossack leaders, hetmans, one of whom is our old friend Mazeppa. 

Lubny

After Friday morning sightseeing in and around Poltava, we drove north west for about 200 km along a two lane highway to Lubny, our Area of Observation on Election Day.

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