This morning I went down the hill on the cable car, which is really more of a funicular, hoping to find a walk-in clinic so I could get a prescription refilled before going off to America where it’ll be significantly more difficult. I arrived at 11 and the receptionist said that they’d have drop-in times […]
Storied aunt
Last night we went for dinner to the home of a storied aunt, one who suffered an unspeakable tragedy when she was in her late teens and, according to all her relations, has not been the same since. There was something not quite as usual about her, but after a stilted start to the evening […]
Curly hair
Last night we decided to stroll down to town for dinner. While the net strolling was downhill, a lot of it was very steeply upwards, to the top of the hill where the cable car (funicular, to be more accurate, I think) ends. Then there was a way downwards between tall hedges. At the foot […]
Sabres rattle
The jangling of metal against metal is deafening. It does make one sceptical about any form of government, really, when one has de facto army rule on one side and a least common denominator Hindu nationalist democracy on the other. Yesterday we had a visitor, the GF’s uncle who accompanied us to Thailand about a […]
Change of weather
A cyclone grazed the country and cold southerlies began to blow. The temperature dropped 10 degrees or more, the skies turned steel grey and it poured with rain all day long. We went out with the Doyenne to get some groceries from a magnificient city centre warehousey sort of place and then drove a bit […]
Uptown
Dinner was an immense success. I baked the side of salmon after marinating for a bit under a paste of minced garlic, mustard, lemon and tarragon, and it turned out flavourful and tender. With it I cooked one of my usual things, courgettes on high heat with sliced chilli and garlic, then tossed with mint […]
Bad toe
We went to the high street for lunch again yesterday and on the way back stopped at the greengrocer/ fishmonger to collect some supplies as we are preparing dinner tonight. We came back with a truly massive side of salmon, far more than strictly required, but it should do nicely for lunch the following day. […]
Stage set
Not much to report, but as usual work has flared up like eczema; more welcome than that, but no more pleasant. I would like to be a person of leisure. We went into Blenheim’s high street for lunch yesterday. It was a very nice walk; down a quiet street then through a park through which […]
Into the hive
In the morning we went to the farmer’s market which was very good indeed, the best we’ve seen in this country by far. It had a very rural air to it, being held in the A&P ground with a fiddle player but the produce was very good and our haul included delicacies such as pine […]
Not as bad as it looked
We are in Blenheim. This morning the Gentleman Friend’s cousin Bloddeuwydd and her husband the Winemaker, picked us up from Picton and drove us the 20 minutes to their house. We had passed through Blenheim but it had all been warehouses then; now we went off the motorway (so to speak) into quite a pleasant […]