The puppies had me flying out of the Airbnb the next morning accompanied by Stella, barking her head off. Andrew followed with his coffee. “Did you hear the owl this morning?” John asked. Andrew raised his eyebrows. The genuine-ness of the owls not to mention the crickets was still in question. We learned a little  Read the Rest…

Andrew and I (and Stella, the dog) traveled to Walla Walla last week. You might be forgiven for thinking we were going for the wineries but we were not. Neither of us are drinkers. We were there for the Walla Walla sweets and Ancestor Worship, as Andrew says. My father was born and grew up  Read the Rest…

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…

Iona. Wendy figured we needed to leave by 9:00; it might take as much as an hour and half to get to Fionnphort for the 11:00 boat. We missed the 11:00 boat, we missed the 12:00 boat.  There’s only one decent road on the island and it’s not always even that. It runs along the  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…

I got up early my final day in Berkeley, not wanting to miss a minute of it. Suzanne shut the front door after retrieving her paper and I called from the kitchen where I was making tea, “I HEAR you!” She chuckled. Mary-Ellis picked me up in the morning and we moved my suitcase to  Read the Rest…