Monday 12th April 2021 saw the lifting of further government restrictions as a part of the so called “roadmap to recovery” and along with half the population of Ipswich we visited the wonderful “Jimmy’s Farm” at our first opportunity. We have spent many happy hours visiting the farm in the past and it is better…

The residents of Wendley Drive in Meanwood, Leeds have had a regular weekly slot on the BBC’s One Show for the last year.  They started bringing their chairs outside one night a week and sitting by their gates and chatting with their neighbours, it was another of those occasions when viewers could listen to the…

Before moving away from Yorkshire we used to visit the York Maize Maze which attracted crowds of visitors for a few weeks during the summer.  I was always grateful to the organisers of this event who would furnish visitors with a map to help you navigate your way through.  With the plants standing way above…

We have now passed the first anniversary of the beginning of the first Lockdown in England and when you look back over the last year, you might be shocked that we are where we are today.  We have experienced so much during this time, queuing to get into supermarkets, having to get used to wearing…

One of the traditions in our house over many years has been the Simnel cake, ideally we would have it on Mothering Sunday, but in honesty, I am seldom organized enough to hit that target and more often than not it has been Easter Day before the Simnel Cake has been ready to eat. I…

I still get quite emotional as I look at this beautiful picture of class one at the Dunblane Primary School. Yesterday marked the twenty fifth anniversary of perhaps one of the darkest days in recent British history, we have a very similar school class photograph featuring our eldest daughter when she was the same age…

One of the things I have missed during the last year has been our family holiday to Conistone in Wharfedale, about three miles up the Dale from Grassington in some beautiful countryside. Normally over twenty of us spend time in communal living, there is no television, so we entertain ourselves, chatting, catching up on each…

As I look back over the last year, I have found myself repeatedly saying sorry. The truth is that life hasn’t worked in the way that it ought to work and I know that I have made mistakes along the way, in part, because I have found the whole process of working in an alien…

We first visited our manse at the beginning of 2013, the house had stood empty for quite some time and the garden was a bit of a wilderness, the house itself was a bit of a throwback to the 1960’s but one of the big selling points for us was the view across the fields…

Maybe you don’t need me to remind you that today is St Valentine’s Day and as a grumpy old man, I look at these occasions as yet another marketing ploy for companies to re-brand their ordinary product, inflate the price and fleece well meaning members of the public.  My wife tells me that I haven’t…