As part of my retirement gift from my colleagues at the Surgery I was given a voucher for a tour of the vineyard at Chilford Hall in Cambridgeshire. It was really interesting to hear how the grapes are cultivated on the vines, harvested and then turned into various wines – white, rose, red and sparkling,…

Those of us of a certain age may remember a song by Carol King on her Tapestry album entitled “I feel the earth move.” The chorus has the following lines: I feel the earth move under my feetI feel the sky come a tumbling downI feel my heart start tremblingwhenever you’re around. This song is…

There are two things that are meant to improve your chances of selling your house; the smell of freshly ground coffee and freshly baked bread. Apparently, the aroma of freshly baked bread evokes pleasant memories of childhood – and has more to do with chemistry than it does psychology. In an effort to cut down…

Did you know that Greenland was in fact named by the Norwegian-born Icelandic Viking Erik the Red who was exiled there for manslaughter? He named it Greenland in an effort to entice travellers to settle there. Far from being green, over 80% of Greenland is covered by a pure white ice sheet, and is the…

When I was a student sharing a house with 5 other girls, we had a pet hamster. Sadly I no longer remember the hamster’s name – but let’s call him Fred. We all loved Fred and took it in turns to feed him and clean his cage, which was kept in our dining room. One…

I am assuming those of you reading this will know the well-known children’s story of Goldilocks and the three bears. A family of three bears, mother, father and baby bear live in a house in the woods. They eat porridge for breakfast, and on this particular day the porridge was a little too hot to…