Category Archives: Travel

Snapshots of Scotland

Posted on 25 February 2018 by sheg4184

It must be thirty years since I last visited Scotland, land of lochs, Highland cattle and kilts. It was a Christmas with friends on the Isle of Skye that ended in tears when we were unceremoniously evicted on New Year’s … Continue reading →

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Citrus Drizzle Cake

Posted on 12 November 2017 by sheg4184

Its mid-October and the sun is getting lazy, rising reluctantly well after eight o’clock. Yet, way down south on the toenail of Spain, there is still heat in that slothful sun. Andalucia. Vejer de la Frontera. A sprawling hilltop town … Continue reading →

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Living it up in London

Posted on 10 October 2017 by sheg4184

Earlier this year, I spent an unusually sybaritic week sightseeing and overindulging with a friend from the Philippines on her first trip to London: Hampton Court (food), Harry Potter World (food) and Harrods (and more food). Then there was a … Continue reading →

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…and North Again

Posted on 22 September 2017 by sheg4184

From Menton, with its glimmering sea and glittering inhabitants, we drove east along the coast and straight into Italy, where the buildings instantly lost their glamour and polish. Manicured gardens became market gardens, pencil pines were exchanged for olive trees … Continue reading →

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Road Trip South…

Posted on 13 September 2017 by sheg4184

A clement, uneventful, Sunday drive out of Luxembourg, along a smooth motorway that crossed vast pastures, south to Dijon.  Here we found narrow, cobbled streets and half-timbered buildings, a handful of handsome churches and clusters of modern coffee shops that … Continue reading →

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History Upended

Posted on 30 August 2017 by sheg4184

A birthday. I forget which one. I was probably about ten. A card arrived from Australia with a $10 bill inside. There was a financial exchange with my father, a trip to the local bookshop, a new book: The Children of … Continue reading →

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North Yorkshire: then and now

Posted on 8 August 2017 by sheg4184

Once upon a time, my One and Only set out to walk the Pennine Way. This is a challenging, long-distance track that lumbers painfully up the spine of England from Edale, in Derbyshire’s Peak District, north through the Yorkshire Dales … Continue reading →

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Rome: a City of Echoes, Illusions and Yearning…

Posted on 26 July 2017 by sheg4184

… so says Giotto di Bondone, Renaissance painter. It was the middle of June. We were in Rome to celebrate a significant double birthday that suddenly felt, joyfully, incredibly insignificant among an overwhelming density of history and antiquities. Rome is … Continue reading →

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The Allure of Bruges

Posted on 25 June 2017 by sheg4184

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown; Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o’er the town… Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour, But I heard a heart of … Continue reading →

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Spring Flowers

Posted on 7 April 2017 by sheg4184

The Cotswolds.  A rural idyll just west of Oxford.  A variable landscape of high, open hilltops, narrow wooded valleys, villages of butterscotch limestone, and dry stone walls edging fields dusted with black faced sheep and their newborn lambs.  Today, in … Continue reading →

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