Armchair travelling

Today has been enlivened by the sound of cars skidding on the hill outside: thankfully, no-one seems to have hit anything yet. So there'd be no prospect of going anywhere right now, even if we were not locked down. I distract myself with pictures of past travels.

On the last day of our holiday in Norfolk, as I wrote at the time (a year and a half ago), we saw the Bears onto their (Bittern Line) train at Sheringham, and then drove home by the scenic route via Cley. I thought we had explored Cley the previous day, but now our road took us through a completely different village. Suddenly, there was a church:

Well, of course there was a church. I ought to have known that there was more of Cley to see, since we hadn't previously found the church. But now here it was, very inviting in the late-afternoon sunlight, and we stopped for a look round.

( It was well worth a look... )

And since this was our last evening in Norfolk, we couldn't go home without finding our way to the beach - the expmnse of pebbles was a bit of a surprise!

Farewell to a slut

I was sorry to hear of the death of Katharine Whitehorn, and if anything even sorrier to learn that her death was preceded by a diagnosis of advanced Alzheimer's. I can't remember a time when I didn't know her writing (she joined The Observer in 1960) but there's surprisingly little of it on the internet. Oddly, most of the references I am finding relate to her time at Roedean school, from which she ran away: fortunately, she remarked later, because otherwise ahe would never have lived it down on Fleet Street (times have changed...).

With one exception: inevitably, her notorious piece about Sluts (think of it as How not to be a domestic goddess). Certainly I recognise myself in the comment "But sluts are good at using memory as a substitute for tidiness - though I absolutely deny that I ever said (as friends allege): 'If you're looking for the tax forms, they're under your slippers in the salad-bowl.'"

Her Cooking in a Bedsitter, which I treasure for its style more than for its usefulness, lists under essential kitchen equipment:

NEWSPAPER You cannot do without it. It is your work-surface, your floor-covering, your splash-mat round the gas ring itselg; it is the only way you can stop the coffee grounds fallong through the slats of a wicker waste basket, and the neatest way to bundle up the debris for getting it out of the room. The nicer your room, the more newspaper you must spread around.

It includes a recipe for 'Toucan Mush' (a can of tomatoes, a can of broad beans).

Available in the UK only, Katharine Whitehorn's Private Passions (choice of music and biographical chat).

Found while looking for more KW, the John Bright Collection: collection of historic costume belonging to "award-winning costume designer John Bright" (who?). I want this Liberty cloak.