Through a glass darkly – 173
Madeleine Bunting: The Plot: a Biography of My Father’s Acre I have been reading a difficult to categorise book by Madeleine Bunting, a former Guardian journalist. The book is an oblique history of her father and the small plot of land that he loved on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. Her father, John…
Through a glass darkly – 172
I made the mistake, a few years ago, of buying a book that got rave reviews in the Church Times. The book was The Nazareth Manifesto by Sam Wells, the prolific and very effective Vicar of St Martin’s in the Fields. It was a disappointing book, but two things stay with me. One was a…
Through a glass darkly – 171
Downsizing is a slow process. As you pick up items and remember where and when and why you acquired them. And then think of a few reasons for not throwing them out. So too with books. Many books hold associations, both of places and of people. I remember reading four volumes of George Orwell’s Collected…
Through a glass darkly – 170
Birthday Girl It was Susie’s BIG birthday in the week. We had a celebratory lunch with our friends Mike and Wendy at Left Field, a bijou restaurant on the edge of Bruntsfield Links. It was a Sunday lunchtime, and warm sunshine flooded in on our window table. The other window had an excellent view of…
Through a glass darkly – 169
To the Sea by Train The most enjoyable book I read in January was a Christmas present from Jem and Anna. Andrew Martin is prolific railway historian and novelist, and To the Sea by Train is a historic, anecdotal look at the golden age of British railway travel. In 1846 there were [apparently] 272 railway…
Through a glass darkly – 168
We’ve never made much of our wedding anniversary. Though I think that four years ago we flew back from Kyiv very early in the morning, after a truncated night. And I offered to buy Susie an anniversary breakfast in the airport at Frankfurt, with lots of Bavarian sausages and scrambled eggs. But she didn’t feel…
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Christmas into New Year That was Christmas that was. We were delighted to have Jem and Anna, Freya and Oskar, with us in Edinburgh for a week. It was the first time since I retired that we have had family here over Christmas. [We have been variously in High Wycombe and Watlington, in Ankara, Kiev,…
Through a glass darkly – 166
I bought a diary last week, a Quo Vadis executive planning diary. As a sign of confidence in the future. But I don’t have anything to put in it yet. Except for the dates of the [grand-] children’s birthdays. And the programme for next year’s Six Nations rugby matches. STOP PRESS And the date of…
Through a glass darkly – 165
We are home in Edinburgh again. It is quite nice being at home. And Jem made a big effort to be in Edinburgh to meet us off the flight from Kaunas. Which was great. He is not long back from running the Frankfurt Marathon. See below. Susie was a bit nervous in advance about the…
Through a glass darkly – 164
Susie was being picked up for her op at 8.35am. She was on a strict fast and looked enviously at my cup of tea. Which left me to have a shower and go down to the breakfast room in the basement. Where I talked to my neighbours from Anglesey. And supplemented my scrambled egg and…
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Through a glass darkly 