A Day in Ludlow, Shropshire

There are lots of interesting places to visit near my daughter’s home in Worcestershire, but with the weather rather changeable and the possibility of rain, we decided to visit the town of Ludlow where if the weather turned bad, we could at least easily seek shelter. Happily, despite the grey clouds and cold wind, the […]

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Astley Vineyard, Worcestershire

Visiting Astley Vineyard has been a long time in the plans. It began with sampling their delicious wine, courtesy of my daughter Nicola, who lives only a 10-minute drive from them. Then she bought me some of their wonderful vermouth when I got into drinking vermouth a lot after attending a vermouth workshop run by […]

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Aldeburgh in April

As you will have realised if you’re a regular reader of my blog, Aldeburgh in Suffolk has become one of my favourite places for a short break. I’m just back from my third visit and although April brought more than a few showers, and there were still lots of March winds blowing, it was still […]

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A Day on the South Bank & Bankside, London

It started with Ben (6) coming back from school a couple of weeks’ ago and wanting to tell me they’d been learning about Roy Lichtenstein and David Hockney in school that day. As he started a drawing, reproducing for me the Lichtenstein painting they’d be studying, he recognised ‘The Splash’ on the front of a […]

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A Day in London: Art, Ballet & Food

As a child, I was taken to The Nutcracker ballet at Christmas every year. I began ballet lessons at the tender age of three and carried on until I was 15. Of course, as I watched Tchaikovsky’s magical ballet, I wanted, like many other little girls, to be a ballerina … but I was also […]

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Spain 2023: Exploring the Local Area

Linda and George’s lovely house – in the style of a Spanish finca – is tucked into a gorgeous valley in the mountainous north-eastern part of the Costa Blanca in southern Spain, with glorious views. It’s only about a 15-minute drive, though, to the coast and the town of Moraira or inland, there’s the town […]

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Spain 2023: A Day Trip to Valencia

I’ve made the day trip to Valencia from Linda & George’s home in Spain a number of times. It’s a beautiful city that I don’t think I could tire of visiting. The city is the capital of the province of Valencia and the third largest municipality in Spain. There has been a city there since […]

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Spain 2023: Return to Alicante

Remarkably, it’s been six years since I lasted visited my good friends Linda & George in Spain – a trip that was once an annual one. But covid and other things intervened, though happily I have seen them a number of times in London since then. So, it was with delight that I once again […]

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A Week in North Wales, 2023

I’ve just returned from a lovely week in North Wales with the family. I didn’t know Wales well at all and welcomed the chance to get to know it better, especially as I have a Welsh daughter-in-law and three half-Welsh grandsons. The cottage we rented was in the Snowdonia National Park and thus we were […]

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A Taste of Twickenham 2023

There had been posters in the windows of shops and restaurants for weeks advertising A Taste of Twickenham – a foodie trail and chance to find out about some of the other things the town had to offer. I made a mental note of the date, let the family know, and told the two eldest […]

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