My favorite thing to do in a city like London is to have a small mission that allows for adventures along the way.  Tuesday’s mission was to explore Ealing because Andrew’s (The Sweetheart) father was born in Ealing and Andrew knows shockingly little about his father’s origins. I began the day by walking to Paddington  Read the Rest…

When we were last together, I had said farewell to Lindisfarne after being in the unlikely position of reassuring native Britons at the bus stop that there was indeed a real bus that arrived on Holy Island regularly, if not often. Once back in Berwick, I checked into the Castle Hotel, not the Castle Vale  Read the Rest…

Lindisfarne, more often referred to as Holy Island, is a half hour’s drive from Berwick, just down the main coast road. You might think it’s easy to get to. It’s not. Without a car, the choice is an $80 taxi or the bus, which leaves Berwick on Wednesday mornings. The only bus off the island  Read the Rest…

I set Tuesday as the day to go to Durham because rain was predicted and I thought a cathedral would be a better place to spend a rainy morning than tromping around Berwick on the city walls.  My interest in Durham cathedral began with Bill Bryson and was encouraged by Sue. I had read and  Read the Rest…

It must be said at once that the Tweed is a tidal river, not a fabric or some reason to make a joke about rightly silly British place names of which there are hundreds; this just isn’t one of them. Berwick-Upon-Tweed is in Northumberland, in northeast England and two miles from the Scottish border. The  Read the Rest…

Easter morning on Calgary Bay. In my jet-lagged stupefaction, I kept trying to say something clever about this and had to patiently remind myself over and over that it was Calvary that had Easter associations, not Calgary. Our holiday cottage was on Calgary Bay on the isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides. Ours was  Read the Rest…

By the time Wendy, Sue and I arrived on Mull in the Scottish Inner Hebrides, I had spent nine hours on a plane, ten hours on trains and an hour on a boat. The three of us were still an hour by car from our holiday cottage not counting stopping for groceries in the island’s  Read the Rest…

Here I come with another U.K. travelogue. This one has two overriding features that make it different from some of my past ones. Firstly, on this trip, I left behind a sweetheart. A prevailing image that puts a lump in my throat even now when I think of this trip is that of watching Andrew’s  Read the Rest…

If you are only here because of the provocative title, the relevant information is about halfway through the post. New Years Eve day I again walked the Compton Road loop and got drenched and did a trial pack of my suitcase. The outlook was not good. Sue and Wendy were still “poorly.” Sue was so  Read the Rest…

Two days after Christmas, Wendy, Sue and I sat in the front room. Wendy was writing thank you notes, Sue was doing something on her phone and I was writing my second batch of Christmas cards and blaming their late departure on the Royal Mail, which was still on strike. Wendy looked up. “I hear  Read the Rest…