Previously on ‘My Imaginary Dinner Party’… Margaret Atwood’s arrival successfully diffuses the sexual tension broiling across the table between Leonard Cohen and Lana Del Ray. I’m feeling a little bit grumpy because the pasta bake is well and truly cold. Why did I get it out of the oven so early? We’ve talked a bitContinue reading “My imaginary dinner party guest #4: Bill Bryson”
Tag Archives: travel
A trip to Oxford to see some extremely old hair grippies
The problem when I come to write in a public place – like here, in the restaurant on the rooftop of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, is that as soon as I open my laptop to type, a large portion of the English language floats lazily out of my head, along with my impetus toContinue reading “A trip to Oxford to see some extremely old hair grippies”
Falmouth, Jupiter and solitude
“Oh! You’re from Jupiter too.”I blinked at the hairy stranger. “Erm…am I?”“Yeah I can tell. I can just tell.”The hairy stranger pointed his finger across the pub table and, after a moment of hesitation, I touched the brandished finger briefly with the end of mine. I must have passed this test of Jupiter etiquette becauseContinue reading “Falmouth, Jupiter and solitude”
The weirdness of flying in a plane
Something weird just happened to me. Without moving my head at all, I could flick my eyes to the left and see Eastbourne, the place in England where I live and spend most of my time, and I could flick them to the right and see the northern coast of France, the country I’m currentlyContinue reading “The weirdness of flying in a plane”
Bumbags and birthdays
“Where did you get that from? Guatemala? Honduras?” I followed the Waitrose check-out lady’s gaze to my crotch area. Ah yes, I was wearing a multicoloured bumbag. Not for fashion reasons obviously, but as a nifty hands-free receptacle for any guinea pig grass I happened to find on my walk (I live in quite aContinue reading “Bumbags and birthdays”
Daphne du Maurier wrote her first book here but I forgot to bring a pen so I’m writing this stupid blog instead
Fowey is not pronounced Fow-ee. That’s the most surprising thing about this small Cornish fishing town. Everything else is exactly as it should be. Steep narrow streets, quaint cafes offering Cornish cream teas, crooked 16th century pubs, seagulls, little shops (selling postcards, chunky jewellery, floaty dresses and those tiny wooden sailing ships you’re supposed toContinue reading “Daphne du Maurier wrote her first book here but I forgot to bring a pen so I’m writing this stupid blog instead”
Wandering the Sussex hills
To the disappointment of every tabloid journalist in the UK, the late May bank holiday was not a ‘total washout’ as predicted. These are from today’s walk around Lullington Heath 🙂
Montenegro’s Herceg Novi through my cheap camera lens
If Herceg Novi were a person, and not a small town located at the mouth of Montenegro’s famous fjord-like Bay of Kotor, it would be a person with multiple battle wounds – perhaps a missing limb or two, definitely with severe PTSD, and a lot of stories to tell. Over the last few centuries HercegContinue reading “Montenegro’s Herceg Novi through my cheap camera lens”
Supermarkets: the beating heart of America
I recently got back from a brilliant week’s holiday in Massachusetts. My friend had her wedding just outside a little town called Groton by a big, quiet lake surrounded by forest. It was beautiful, all of it. The wedding, the lake, the white wood-clad New England houses with their dolls-house dormer windows and immaculately stripedContinue reading “Supermarkets: the beating heart of America”
Why can’t I be on permanent holiday, and other thoughts
Last week I spent five and a half days in the rural Languedoc Roussillon region of France at the house my grandparents have spent 27 summers restoring from a ruin.
