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It's not news that supermarkets stock numerous products which claim to be high in protein. Mostly I hardly notice them: I'm not interested. There's nothing wrong with protein, but there is enough in my normal diet, I don't need to supplement it. That being so, if something I might otherwise buy - yoghurt, say - is advertised as high in protein, I automatically avoid it. This may be irrational, but there it is.

But for some reason, in Lidl last week something caught my eye: high-protein tiramisu.

It's a small step, I suppose, from yoghurt to tiramisu, but it still seems incongruous: My protein levels are deficient. Bring me tiramisu!

A month ago - on the first Sunday in May - We returned from the farmers' market to find two messages on the answering machine, both claiming to be from bank security, and asking me to call a number I didn't recognise. Since the farmers' market is the one occasion when I make a lot of card payments, it seemed possible that I had triggered some kind of check, but I was wary of calling that unknown number. Instead I called the phone number on my card, and worked my way through the procedure until I was speaking to an actual person, who was able to look at my record and see what had happened. Yes, she said, one of my payments had been suspect. Which one was it? It was, it turned out, not any of the various market traders but the Co-op store. We both laughed at this, and she confirmed that the flag had been removed from my card.

Today being, once again, the first Sunday in the month, I set off for the farmers' market assuming that I had now reassured my bank about anomalous payments that this might occasion. Silly me.

The lady who bakes the pies was having trouble with her terminal, so when my payment was refused it seemed possible that the problem was hers, not mine;

durham_rambler used his card, and no harm done. I had no difficulty at the butcher's (Broom House) or the cheesemakers, I paid cash for two small purchases (samosas and gooseberries) and then was refused again at te Scandinavian bakery, and

durham_rambler had to step in again. Finally across the road to the Co-op store, where neither the cashpoint outside nor the till would work for me.

So I wasn't surprised, when we got home, to find that message from bank security on the answering machine; and since I did now recognise that number, I called it. This was a much smoother process, because I didn't have to fight my way through to speaking to a person; but it was also much less reassuring, because it ending with the mechanical voice cheerfully telling me that my card had now been cleared - but that security might intervene again if the occasion arose. My card, in other words, is perfectly valid, as long as I don't try to use it.

This isn't the end of the world: I have another card (on a different account with a different bank) but it is annoying, and I need to find a way to take it up with the bank. Which is one reason for making a record of it here.

On our way home from Bolton Abbey, we had lunch with J and J in York. York was a detour from our homeward route, but not by much; we were delayed by traffic in Harrogate, and it seems we cannot take the car to York without making a complete circuit of the walls (which would be a pleasure if we weren't already running late). We reached our destination - our favourite tapas bar in Fossgate - to find J and J waiting for us, enjoying a glass of sherry. It was the staff who greeted us with "What sort of time do you call this...?" Only now does it occur to me that the correct answer is "Spanish time!".

This - and the excellence of the tapas, and the pleasures of the wine list, and the joy of enjoying the latter (well, both of the aforementioned, but especially the latter) with people who enjoy it as much as we do - is why this is our favourite tapas bar. The company and the conversation would be excellent anywhere, and they were, and it seemed like no time at all before we left J and J with their dessert (more and different sherry) and set off for home.

Seen in the hundred yards or so back to the car park:

The rain which had been threatened for days finally caught up with us on the A19, and when it came it was impressive: thunder, lightning, torrential downpour, and flooding on the road (although this last thankfully not until we reached Shincliffe, nearly home).

I thought I remembered Bolton Abbey from our weekend at Beamsley Hospital in 2022; we didn't visit, but we kept driving past and being intrigued. From the high price for parking, I got the impression it was some sort of stately home - Abbey as in Northanger Abbey, and not something we were in the mood to visit right now. So on Sunday, settled in our hotel and considering the options for Monday, I looked at the internet and (not for the first time) was confused.

Here we were at the Fell - formerly the Devonshire Fell - hotel, which was on the Bolton Abbey estate, but there was no sign of a great house or stately home, just lots of glorious countryside. We had, apparently, access to the estate, and various riverside walks were recommended. Further, as guests at the hotel, we were entitled to a pass which gave us free parking at all the estate car parks - and, actually, the parking was otherwise expensive enough that my previous misapprehension began to make sense

So, just to be absolutely clear: Bolton Abbey Estate, a great swathe of beautiful walking territory along the riverside in Wharfedale, includes a ruined abbey/priory, and a village called Bolton Abbey. Nowhere near Bolton; not even a palindrome. It is the property of the Duke of Devonshire (but not actually in Devonshire, not even in Derbyshire, which is where you also find the Cavendish family, at Chatsworth). And on Monday morning after breakfast we ignored the forecast rain, and set out to explore.

It was a quarter hour's drive to the village of Bolton Abbey, where we flourished our card, parked in the big car park near the village shop, and took the path down to the valley bottom and along the river to the abbey. This picture gives a better overall impression than any I managed to take (it's by Kate Lycett, whose work I have admired in the past. As we made our way through the graveyard up to the ruins, we met

durham_rambler's brother and sister-in-law, on their way to join the gathering at the hotel: we chatted briefly in the not-quite-rain, before we took refuge in the priory church, which they had already seen.

Although the eastern end of the priory is ruined - that great empty window facing the river, and some fine Norman arcading,very reminiscent of Durham cathedral - the western end of the nave still stands, and this is now the parish church (dedicated, also like Durham cathedral, to Saints Mary and Cuthbert). The south wall is a great expanse of nineteenth century stained glass, designed by Pugin: impressive, but too detailed for me to enjoy the detail. I loved the east wall, though:

Also nineteenth century, by a local artist, George or Thomas Bottomley (I've seen both) and full of the sort of iconography I really enjoy decoding.

We took the higher path, looking down onto the river and passing an ornate fountain before plunging down to the next car park, where we found sandwiches for lunch at the Cavendish Pavilion. And I stayed here while

durham_rambler walked back along the other side of the river, and returned with the car.

And back to the hotel, where he joined the gathering in the bar, and I recovered with my book and a cup of tea. The rest of the evening was food and drink and company.

The breakfast menu offers, among the cooked dishes, "Parisian breakfast". If pushed, I would have guessed that rhe classic Parisian breakfaast is a p'tit noir and a Gauloise. But the Fell Hotel interprets it differently.

( Here, a Parisian breakfast is - )

Still, je ne regrette rien...

The latest iteration of the occasional gathering which took us to Ironbridge two years ago has brought us to Bolton Abbey.

There was a small excitement just as we were ready to set out.

durham_rambler took the first of the luggage across the road, and returned to report that the battery was completely dead, so dead that he could not even unlock the doors. This was unexpected. We had been philosophical about whoever it was (and we think it was a neighbour) who had parked in front of our house on Wednesday, and not returned since: we would have liked to top up the chrge on the car, but no matter, we had - we thought - enough to reach our destination. So we called out the AA and instead of lunching en route, ate while we waited for them to arrive. Which they did, and diagnosed a flat battery, not the main one but a lesser battery which powers such fripperies as locks. This was easily (for a fee) replaced, and we set off.

We paused to visit the Coldstones Cut, which

durham_rambler had spotted was very near our destination. This is a massive piece of land art built on top of a hill which has been substantially quarried away, so that you overlook the quarry from within the monumental walls of the cut. Visit the website for impressive views of the artwork itself, because from within you can't see the whole thing:

Parallel walls of huge stone blocks lead from the entrance to a platform looking over the quarry. On either side a passage coils up and into a circular enclosure; the lower one has a central plate illustrating the variety of local wildlife, but the higher one is much more fun - a metal strip all around the permeter gives distances to such noteworth locations as the Orkney islands, Durham cathedral, Mt Erebus and Andrew Sabin's studio. It was a long climb up, and (because I don't like descents) an even longer climb down, but I think it was worth it.

We are now at the Fell Hotel. We have met with the other early arrivers of the group, we have dined, with a view of a beautiful landscape enlivened by the intervention of all the emergency services (including an air ambulance). Clearly something unpleasant had happened, and we weren't exactly grateful for our ringside seat - but this isn't about us.

And that's enough excitement for one day.

When Reform gained control of Durham County Council last year, one of the first things they did was withdraw funding from Durham Pride.

Today, to no-one's surprise, the annual procession and festival have gone ahead without them.

durham_rambler put on his (Parish Council issue) rainbow lanyard and joined the procession from Palace Green down to the Sands. The Parish Clerk had offered him a VIP ticket to the entertainments, which he had declined: "Don't you want to meet Steps?" asked the Parish Clerk, and he admitted that he wouldn't recognise them if he saw them. (But he did allow our County Coucillor to invite him into the VIP tent and buy him a half of lager.)

Meanwhile, I stayed at home and made progress with things - website update, loaf of bread, laundry - that I wanted to get done before we head off for a couple of days tomorrow.

And that's where today went.

We might have gone to the Amble Puffin Festival yesterday; it's something we've enjoyed in the past. But it's a long wy, and it was hot - not as hot as it has been in the south of the country, but hot enough that the lazy option looked very attractive. So we went for a stroll in Crook Hall gardens; the kind of stroll that consists mostly in moving from one seat to the next, making the most of every patch of shade.

This particular green shade is in the 'Shakespeare Garden':

I know that the idea of a 'Shakespeare Garden' is to include every plant mentioned by the poet, but all I could find about this particular one is this ten-year old article, which describes it as an aspiration. I suspect that the yew tree is carrying a lot of the load here, though the dominant theme seems to be the purple globes of alliums.

Meanwhile, the cathedral supplied a musical background with a sustained peal.

... last Saturday wasn't just about great novels, it was also the Eurovision Song Contest - a somewhat depleted contest (and no, I have nothing useful to say about the boycott that caused that) but still quite long enough. And that's just the Grand Final, we don't watch the semi-finals: we may be missing somew good stiff, and feel free to point me towards it (was that really Boy George representing San Marino?) but three nights of Eurovision in one week? I don't think so!

I was intrigued by Croatia's entry, and "ethno-pop group" called Lelek, whose song Andromeda was staged in a way that suggested they were aiming to found a new religion. The BBC crib sheet says:

Performed in beautiful close harmonies by ethno-pop quintet Lelek, it discusses the suppression, abduction and forced marriage that Christian women endured in the Ottoman empire, and how they'd protect themselves by tattooing their bodies with symbols of the cross.

Looking now at the translated lyrics, this makes sense - but suggests no-one is hoping to lure Turkiye back into the contest.

Talking of "ethno-pop", all credit to UKraine, for its use of traditional instrument the bandura, and for keeping bandurist Yaroslav Dzhus on stage throughout. "His costume," it says here, "references Cossack-era musicians as keepers of oral and musical tradition," though that is too subtle for me to have picked up even if he hadn't been in the dark most of the time. (More about this on Instagram.)

I have a soft spot for Greece's offering. It has the best knitwear, and includes someone actually knitting. Can you combine rapid, video game themed glitz and sentimental shout-outs to mother? Greece will give it a try, and throws in a couple of statues (one golden, one marble white) for good measure. I thought it deserved to do better han 10th, but what do I know?

As witness, I didn't mind the UK entry. Going hard for quirky is a gamble, and it didn't pay off (we came last, with one vote, from the Ukrainian jury). Whereas the song I actively disliked was Bulgaria's - which naturally won, and not only won, but topped both popular and jury votes and set a new record for the margin by which it won. I thought it was loud and brash and - well yes, very Eurovision. "brilliantly unhinged and full of sass," says that BBC guide.

Very Eurovision now, anyway. T he interval act looks back over 70 years of Eurovision, and has fun reimagining some classic entries in a contemporary style. Don't miss Lordi taking on Papa Pingouin, Papa what? Oh, I'm so glad you asked:

Watch on YouTube

Saturday's Guardian released its list of the 100 best novels of all time. From the way they released it in installments online, not to mention the invitations to engage: how many have you read? what would you put top of the list?, I'd be tempted to dismiss it as clickbait. I also react badly to the application of "of all time" to an art form as recent as the novel. How far back can you trace the novel? The earliest on the list is Don Quixote (1605, #26) which is fair enough, but "of all time"? Seriously? But I can't resist a list, especially not a list of books, so without taking it too seriously, some thoughts.

( Down the rabbit hole - and not finding Alice there... )

We could go on playing "what about?" more or less indefinitely. But this has gone on long enough, so let's stop there.

I do not belong to that school of thought which says in the face of extreme horror, suffered by others, one should be silent. On the contrary I believe that all the forces of imagination should be employed to speak of their suffering.

Carol Rumens, interview with the Poetry Book Society.
Guardian obituary

With the caveat that the opposite is also true: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.

Last week in the Guardian Zoe Williams tested celebrity drinks brands. I'm interested in drinks (if not celebrities) and anyway, I'll read anything Zoe Williams writes. This is what she had to say about Emma Watson's Renais gin:

Watson is the closest you'll come to a celebrity with an authentic purpose and hinterland in this market. With her brother, she's created a gin from salvaged grape skins, on the Burgundy estate where their father has been making wine for 30 years. Watson senior has an award for his chablis, which they almost never give anyone who isn't French...

She goes on to say nice things about it. But I was distracted by the way she presents the source as a creative, new idea: distilling the must that remains when the grapes have been pressed for wine, how clever, who would have thought of that?

...The photographer was Italian and raised the inconvenient objection that a spirit made of grape skins is a grappa. That just wouldn’t sound very Watson, though.

Also, while a spirit made of Italian grape skins is a grappa, a spirit made of grape skins from Chablis is a marc de Bourgogne. Which I think of as a product with much higher prestige than gin: but I'm probably out of touch.

In 1925, Clough Williams-Ellis borrowed "a modest amount" from the Midland Bank, and bought the estate of Aber Iâ on the coast of North Wales. The name means 'glacial estuary', but the first thing he did was change it to Portmeirion: 'port' for the coastal location and 'meirion' because it was in the county of Merioneth. On this site he set about building his village - his very strange, un-Welsh, utterly peculiar village. It isn't fake, exactly, because there's no pretence that it's anything other than one man's dream, take it or leave it:

If you take it - if you step through those inviting gates - you accept the sense of unreality as part of the deal. For those who (like three of our foursome) had first met Portmeirion through The Prisoner, there's something sinister about this: just enough to add spice to all that prettiness. We discussed something that hadn't occurred to me before, whether some genius came up with Portmeirion as a location when The Prisoner was being planned, or whether it was Portmeirion that shaped The Prisoner; and on no evidence other than what seemed more likely, inclined to the latter. Back home, the internet provides evidence for this several episodes of Danger Man, the precursor to The Prisoner, were filmed here.

( Shall we explore...? )

Because it is only too easy to escape from the Village; the car park lies through that tunnel...

Today is the hundredth birthday of David Attenborough. I have no particular opinions about this, beyond a general "that's nice." Or at least, that was my initial reaction, the first time the BBC mentioned it. But they are making such a fuss about it, I'm becoming quite irritable. I have nothing against the man, but his birth is not the only thing that happened in the spring of 1926.

Why yes, I am thinking of the General Strike. I have been surprised at the general absence of comment on its centenary: it was quite a big deal at the time, you know.

There are some commemoative events going on, but you have to look for them: and while I was doing that, I found a couple of links which I will stash here to come back to when I have time, one from Hansard in February 1926, and one from Beamish Museum.

And one other (because I haven't forgotten that I have a post pending): on Good Friday, 2nd April 1926, The Portmeirion Hotel opened to guests.

Have I written before about the guilty pleasure of obituaries? I don't want to treat anyone's death as a good thing, but sometimes an obituary for someone I had never heard of makes me less sad that they have died, more glad to know that they lived in the first place.

Last Saturday's Guardian carried an obituary for sculptor Lloyd le Blanc (Why the delay between online and print, I don't know. It's just one of the Guardian's little foibles.). I admit, it was the giant bronze artichokes that caught my eye (another reason to dream of visiting Le Manoir aux Quat'Saisons), but I also admired Le Blanc's career path: with a fine arts degree from Yale, followed by a stint as a welder on North Sea oil rigs, what else would you do but set up a foundry?

More pictures on the Le Blanc Fine Art website.

My newspaper of choice lets me down when I try to quote the counter-example of Nicole Hollander: I am a long-time admirer (my 1991 diary was 'The Sylvia book of days') and I was sorry to hear of her death. But it's possible, I suppose, that someone may read this who has not already encountered Sylvia, in which case the information might be a source of happiness. Since the Guardian is silent on the topic, here's The Chicago Sun-Times. And - not an obituary, but a reference work - Lambiek Comiclopedia is generous with examples of her work.

We spent the afternoon at a lecture jointly organised by the City of Durham Trust and the World Heritage Site. The speaker was Colleen Batey, currently World Heritage Site Honorary Professor: a new post, and one which sounds as if it will give her scope to do all sorts of interesting things.

The original plan was for the session to be divided between two speakers: but then Jane Lovell looked at the Bank Holiday rail timetable, and realised that it couldn't be done, so instead we had a single talk with a dual focus. Colleen Batey's revised title was Interpretation through storytelling: case studies from Orkney and St Kilda. I'm not convinced that these two cases cast much light on each other. The Orcadian example looked at the interpretation of the Earl's Bu at Orphir, as described in the Orkneyinga Saga, and camre to the conclusion that the Saga gave an accurate description, but that subsequent interpretation had settled on the wrong building as the drinking hall. At St Kilda, the question seems to be, who gets to tell the story? But if you'd announced a talk on "Some digs I have worked on in Orkney and St Kilda (with pictures) I'd still have been there...

Most tantalising prospect: the possibility of a projct to research the mason's marks of Durham Cathedral and compare them to those found in St. Magnus' (which I think must refer to this project, and see whether the same masons really did work on both...

To celebrate my significant birthday, we spent the weekend in Bwthyn Deudraeth, a cottage on the Portmeirion estate: not actually in the village (or should that be The Village?) but just outside, and a few steps away from Castell Deudraeth, a Victorian 'castle' which is now Portmeirion's other hotel. My birthday being the Friday, it was the day we were in transit, so we didn't actually visit the village until the day after - but that will be another post, once I have sorted out some photographs.

Just one picture, for now. I had completely forgotten about Portmeirion pottery, until I saw the fruit bowl in our dining room: but then I couldn't resist unloading all the fruit and photographing it:

We did manage to celebrate on the day with a birthday dinner at the Brasserie at Castell Deudraeth: but don't be fooled by the name, this was a very grand brasserie. We were ushered to what at first appeared to be a delightful table, with windows looking onto the garden on two sides - but it was right next to the piano, and then the pianist arrived. It's not that he was bad: I suspect that he was very good at his job. He certainly had stamina, starting at 7.30 and still going strong when we left, and the piano is not a quiet instrument. I was amused by the presence on the wine list of a range of 'Portmeirion' wines (and even more amused when I saw them in the shop: chardonnay, Rhône, picpoul de pinet, each label adorned with a village landmark...). I might have chosen the sauvignon blanc, to accompany a vegetable risotto in which asparagus had lead billing, but I ordered a Sicilian grillo and was well pleased with my choice, not only because the dominant note of the risotto was pea. Its mild smokiness was also a good match for the cheeseboard (though I also had a glass of muscat de saint-jean, just to be on the safe side).

Back at our cottage, we didn't have room for birthday cake, but we did play with the television set: no internet and therefore no catch-up, but it did have a channel which showed nothing but The Prisoner. This was not only thematically perfect but also convenient, as GirlBear had never seen the show; unfortunately, the episode then screening happened to be the final one, not an ideal introduction. Another evening we saw the second half of a more typical story, after which she declared that she had now sampled quite enough, and didn't need to see any more. (Further research reveals that the entire series is available on itvX, and yes, I may well revisit it.)

On Saturday and Sunday we explored Portmeirion, and there will be more about that later. But on Saturday we also went out in search of provisions, and it's a sign that we were in holiday mode that we decided that it was worth going as far as Anglesey to shop at Waitrose: about 20 miles, 40 minutes, a lovely scenic drive around the fringes of Snowdonia. As a bonus, this took us across the Menai Bridge. Leaving, GirlBer fell into conversation with the cashier, and told her we were staying in Portmeirion: I got married at Portmeirion, she said. Was it closed? Oh, no, there were lots of people there. And when my father led me down the steps, they all applauded. A beat, then: I'm divorced now.

I can't follow that.

On Wednesday we went back to Oswestry, because it was market day. It was a wet and gusty day, and the outdoor market had very sensibly decided not to happen, but inside the market hall there were many sparkly things to entertain us, like this little café-bar.

Upstairs in the gallery was a guitar shop, where

boybear eyed up a guitar with rainbow strings, while the rest of us watched the proprietor unpacking a box of 78s, reading the name of each while we - and another (even older, I suspect) witness - identified as many of them as we could. GirlBear won this game by singing Zambezi. We returned to the Beech Tree for lunch (the falafel were even better than the Turkish eggs I had eaten last time), and paid our respects at St Oswald's Well: I do like a tiny place of historic interest tucked in to the side of a housing estate. Then we returned to visit K. again. We had all, I think, been hesitant about whether she would welcome four visitors at a time, but she seemed to be feeling better than she had on Sunday, and I think it was all right.

On Thursday we returned to Trevor, to take the canal boat across the Pontcysyllte aqueduct, and the sun came out and the guide was excellent, so that was fun and not at all terrifying (even when she informed us that the joints in the ironwork were sealed with Welsh flannel soaked in sugar-water and pigs blood, and that the structure was therefore held together with treacle). We headed in to Llangollen in search of lunch, and would have liked to patronise the tearooms at Plas Newydd, but they were only serving cake, so we went into the town and found a pleasant little café next door to the delightful Courtyard Books.

We have now relocated to Portmeirion: a drive through beautiful scenery, though sometimes swathed in cloud.

boybear has been here before, and surprises me by how clearly he remembers it: it has been a constant of this holiday that we remember different fragments of childhood holidays in Wales, but on this occasion he is on his own, it is my first visit to Portmeirion. Which seemed like a good way to celebrate my birthay.

In the run-up to Easter - yes, two weeks ago, and this post has been in progress ever since - Washington Arts Centre hosted a mini folk festival: this preview gives more information than anything else I could find. We attended two events, one of which was only semi-attached to the festival: another we would have gone to, if it hadn't been sold out (an evening with the Davy Lamp Folk Club). Swings and roundabouts.

( Ken Russell )

( Martin Simpson )

To complete this survey, on Tuesday the Bears steered us to Treuddyn Village Hall for the Dragon's Breath folk club: a very friendly singaround club, not English but Welsh, though you couldn't have told from the material. Donovan's Colours, "one of my own poems," and a generous admixture of self-penned material, none of which was actively terrible. Also some classical recorder and flute, Stan Rogers' Tiny Fish for Japan (I hadn't met this before, had to look it up and was delighted to learn who it was by), O'Carolan's Sí Bheag, Sí Mhór and the real blast from the past, Roy Harper's Tom Tiddler's Ground. The Bears made me particularly happy by doing Raglan Road. If there is any line you can trace through all of this and say, That's folk music! I am no closer to discerning it. But maybe if you take the mixture as a whole...?

Yesterday was sunny and mild; since the Bears were due to arrive on an early afternoon train, we didn't stray far, so here's a picture of the gates to he park in Chirk:

It's about time we had a picture of a red dragon! Also, the "bloodied hand of Chirk". It's worth persevering through the many advertisements on this page for two explanations of this badge, one colourful, the other plausible.

Today we were more ambitious: we would head for the Pontcysllte aqueduct, and see whether we were brave enough for the boat trip across the aqueduct, the 'stream in the sky'. Naturally, it rained. Worse, the boat was out of service for maintenance: but the staff were very reassuring, we strolled along to the start of the aqueduct and decided that although we were not tempted to walk across, we might well return for the boat trip later in the week. Meanwhile,

durham_rambler wanted to take the advice of our host and visit the Horseshoe Pass. It was a scenic drive up to the viewpoint, provided that your definition of the scenic encompasses low cloud, muted colours and hazy visibility: "a watercolour view," says GirlBear.

By the time we came back to the Horseshoe Falls, though, it was hardly raining at all. The Falls were not what I had expected.

Not a high cascade, but a weir, a marvel of engineering constructed by Thomas Telford to manage the flow of water to his canal, and part of the associated World Heritage Site (oh, yes, in this respect too we are not so far from home). We admired the view, spotted a couple of violets hiding in a bramble bush, and were entertained by the efforts of a pair of kayakers to manoeuvre their craft through a kissing gate. Then we relocated to the Chain Bridge Hotel (no, not the Union Chain Bridge, a much smaller affair) for lunch. Our table looked out onto the river, where the kayak-related entertainment continued: a group of kayakers were removing a boat that seemed to have been abandoned on a bank in mid-river.

And home via Aldi, to buy provisions, which I should now prepare for an early supper ahead of a visit to a folk club.

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The Shadow Gallery

June 2026

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News from Nowhere

Recent Entries

Seen in Lidl

The unco-operative bank

Lunch in Fossgate

A walk by the Wharfe

Breakfast of champions?

Somewhere in Yorkshire

Pride and preparations

Whit Sunday in the garden

In other cultural news...

Flamingo, pot plant, Middlemarch

Quotation of the week

Reinventing the wheel

The Imagined Village

Centenaries

Obituaries

Interpretation through story

Welcome to Portmeirion

Going back and doing it again

In search of the English Folk Song

Sun and rain