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 ofContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 166”
Tag Archives: books
Through a glass darkly – 161
As a change from reading books about the Spanish Civil War, we had an occasional outing in a Car Club car. Susie drove, as I can’t get my left leg under the steering wheel. We took garden rubbish to the recycling centre, bought Green Goddess compost from Caledonian Recycling, and some inexpensive wine from ALDI.Continue reading “Through a glass darkly – 161”
Through a glass darkly – 159
The summer is ebbing away. It was good to see Roy and Shona, the third and last set of Lyon visitors. Susie and I limp around each of us with a set of walking poles. We have both been preoccupied with the idea of going to the NordOrthopaedics clinic in Lithuania for a hip replacement.Continue reading “Through a glass darkly – 159”
Through a glass darkly – 158
Drama on our doorstep yesterday afternoon. There was a major gorse fire on Arthur’s Seat, the volcanic hill just beyond the bottom of our garden. Our friends arriving from Lyon wondered if it was laid on for their entertainment. I set off to walk [limp] round the hill this morning. But it seems that someContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 158”
Through a glass darkly – 155
Confessions of a pagan nun Against a future downsizing from this house [but Don’t hold your breath], I regularly clear small handfuls of books off the shelves and take them to one of the charity shops. Often I can remember when and where I bought books and read them. But I recently came across KateContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 155”
Through a glass darkly – 153
Books can be evocative. I clearly remember being given a paperback copy of John Le Carré’s Tinker Tailor, Sailor, Spy back in the mid-1970s by Mme Anne Warter, then Directrice of the Paris bookshop Nouveau Quartier Latin, and reading it with great excitement on the rather second-rate Silver Arrow train from the Gare du NordContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 153”
Through a glass darkly – 150
I’m ambivalent about mountains. On the one hand I’m very acrophobic around bridges, high buildings, and mountain roads: as a child I baulked at going up the Monument in London, more recently I used to be nervous about driving across the Forth Road Bridge, and driving over the Viaduct de Millau is the stuff ofContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 150”
Through a glass darkly – 146
We are just back from a week down south, with the children and grand-children, and I have been re-reading Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, published in 1945 the year I was born. I guess this book has been around all my life. There was certainly a paperback copy in our house in Wimbledon Park Road, theContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 146”
Through a glass darkly – 145
Hedgehogs have never been a major part of my life. In our early days in Paris, Susie and I had a hedgehog that regularly visited our [first floor] garden. In the very hot summer of 1976 we fed the animal with stale baguette and milk [a big mistake – See below]. And the hedgehog leftContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 145”
Through a glass darkly – 142
Susie and I were married on Saturday, January 11th, 1975. It seems a long time ago. I had just started working in Paris for Oxford University Press, and had travelled up from London on the train the previous day. Susie had given up teaching in Oxford the previous summer, and had been living at homeContinue reading “Through a glass darkly – 142”
Through a glass darkly 