Archive For The “Off the wall” Category
Just after Christmas, my wife and I went for a week to our cottage in Brittany. Our key aim was to begin to prepare the garden for 2017. As usual, we stopped over for a day in Paris. There, the streets had the same tell-tale trappings as at this time every year. Dumped on the…
It’s confession time. Earlier this year I wrote that I was a compulsive chatterbox whenever travelling on busses or trains and that I had resolved to give the habit up [Pipped at the post, Greyhares, 5 May, 2016]. I failed. My silence only lasted a few weeks and I was soon chatting again at full…
There is a garden near our home in France and it is one of my treasured sights. Among other such sights could be a particular wall or seascape, bush or tree, or perhaps some old railings. Whenever I see one of them, I linger and gaze, sometimes touch or even sniff. As with many of…
Just recently two of our clocks have been causing concern. The concern is over the noises they do or don’t make; or more honestly, to the noises that I can or can’t hear. Sensitive readers may wish to skip the rest of this paragraph which describes a critical but personal component of this saga. For many years my…
Alan West finds himself in a parallel universe It was the day after the day after Christmas, one of those nowhere in particular days when you feel you ought to be doing something but can’t. So we decided to walk to our nearby shops to stock up on eggs, indigestion remedies and other essentials. On the…
Joe Collier discovers lost well in garden. Authorities now looking into it. Last week I sat twiddling my thumbs. I had planned several summer projects but all had been thwarted. Finally, my wife suggested that if I had nothing better to do, why not look for the well in the front garden. We learned of…
Graham Dukes calls for the abolition of February and March I have been thinking. I don’t do it very often, because it tends to give me a headache; however, I have some hope that one day it may earn me a medal. This particular train of thought started up a while ago when I found…
Graham Dukes makes the case for the fluttermouse. Whatever one’s world view, one can hardly avoid having a sneaking respect for creation. The old seven-volume Taxonomy of the Animal World, that has graced our bookcase for years, is reason enough for that. I shall never digest more than a tiny fraction of it, but I…
