Articles

    Perhaps the single most off-putting “like”, in the lists provided by Men Seeking Women in Guardian Soulmates is “NT”, or National Trust, seconded only by “log fires” and “country walks”. Can you imagine a more boring past time than  trundling around historic houses looking at topiary and tapestries, leaving the Rangerover to babysit […] Read more

“Inspiration is always a surprising visitor,” is a quote from the poet-priest John O’Donohue, a favourite  of the artist Robert Kenny-Smith. Bob offers another quote, this time from Matisse, who spent time on the coast with his friend, Derain: “You must present yourself with the greatest humility- pure completely blank, candid; your brain seeming empty […] Read more

This hip yogi was collecting daan (charity, baksheesh, funds) for his “beloved Guruji, Swami X” and had taken £256.13 in cash to build a temple in the Himalayas. He wasn’t particularly out of place as Totnes gathers many such characters to its cosy bosom, where they become part of the variously costumed population, such as […] Read more

  Bike shop married to a cafe. Combinations of utilitarian/practical with no-nonsense food work well if the food has some heart and the utility is gritty and functional- eating to live and all that. Zappi’s on St Michael Street in the centre of Oxford offers refreshment in a brightly lit space upstairs. Sit and read […] Read more

Jane Fanner-Hoskin serving her coffee-walnut gateau and scones with cream   Jane and Vyvyan, her wheelwright hubby, live in a canal boat close to Kirtlington Quarry. I first knew them when they were moored on the canal at the bottom of Frenchay Road in Oxford, but the Council rudely moved them away. They let me […] Read more

where the bee sucks…. Smallholding,  sweetpeas, salad greens, succulent vegetables, a ‘Strine with many strings to his bow and his spouse (from Holland). Somehow David and Anneke have created a rural idyll just three miles from Oxford where you can buy the freshest organic produce and bask in the micro-climate of extravagantly planted  acreage with its […] Read more

(Please note that Marianne Bruel retired from the business in 2014, after 13 years of producing wonderful meals. The Rose no longer bears her stamp- in fact the very opposite of all she aspired to). One day, while  researching a book in the Bodleian, I found I was starving. Such is the effect on the […] Read more

  The cries of a girl in distress made me leap up  from my desk  overlooking our cul-de-sac,  the river flowing sweetly alongside, and run down to investigate the commotion (I work at two desks,  one of which  is useless for work that needs serious concentration, while the other is conducive to deep thought). A […] Read more

  Twenty years ago, in the early 90’s of the last century, I was already blogging- after a fashion. This week I unearthed a cache of articles that had been published in The Pioneer of New Delhi. This short-lived daily set off with high hopes, but spluttered to a bankrupt halt after only four or […] Read more