I read excellent reviews of Sally Phipps’s biography of her mother, Molly Keane. The best was in The Oldie but they left me pretty sure that I didn’t need to read her book. However, fate intervened.
I have been at the Cheltenham races this week. The weather was super-sunny and warm on Wednesday – most unusual for the Arctic micro-climate there. The traffic is as well managed as possible in such a rural location, so I choppered in.
Galateo has never been out of print, at least in Italy, since it was written in the 1550s. Its author, Giovanni Della Casa, was born near Florence in 1503.
At lunch on Sunday my host made a rather unusual starter. I am sorry that I didn’t think to take a picture as he served it in a big sapphire blue glass bowl and it looked spectacular.
I write these posts for fun. Only a few, but you are a cherished few, read them. When there are comments I’m delighted – they are usually much brainier than my post . So what could possibly go wrong?
It is 8.44 miles from my front door to The Water Poet near Liverpool Street. I don’t have a pedometer but Uber faithfully records the mileage and notes that I was picked up at 6.13 pm after a lunch that began at 12.30.
Charles Moore in his Spectator column this week recalls listening to Tristan Voorspuy recite The Fox’s Prophecy when he went on safari with him in Kenya. As you will have read, Tristan Voorspuy was murdered on his farm in Kenya and Charles Moore remembers him with affection.
If you went to Eton you know what beaks are – if you didn’t, it is what the teachers are called. In 1959, in Bud Hill’s house, there were two extra beaks.