November 18, 2019
Welcome to Port Wenn! If you are a fan of the series Doc Martin, you’ll appreciate the reference. If you aren’t, read on. We went other places, too. The day began at the cottage in Morvah with the usual tea and breakfast and me asking Sue and Wendy what they remembered from the day before Read the Rest…
November 3, 2019
Monday morning–my first sugarless day– I was awakened by the sound of birds singing and cows moo-ing: Since I was still the only one up, I went round the cottage filming the window fixtures and talking to myself: When I finished this catalog of domestic quotidian, I took off my glasses to polish a lens Read the Rest…
October 27, 2019
Sunday was my day of reckoning for all the cake in my system. In the morning we drove into St Ives, Wendy parked in the car park and we rode the shuttle bus into the heart of town. The car park/shuttle is really the only solution for these villages with narrow streets never meant for Read the Rest…
October 22, 2019
Wendy, Sue and I set out for Cornwall early afternoon and I got a feel for the pattern of the days. Everything is a reason to stop for a cup of tea and probably a slice of cake. (The English have a real gift of the cake.) I think our first stop was to celebrate Read the Rest…
October 17, 2019
Tags: Butleigh Somerset
Castle Cary is a market town in southern Somerset but I only know it as the train stop for Butleigh where my cousins live in a stone house with five cats and a rabbit hutch used now for pegging up the washing. Sue met me at Castle Cary; David, her neighbor had driven her. I Read the Rest…
October 14, 2019
My last night on Islay brought a doozy of a storm. I wouldn’t have minded being stranded another day but the next morning, ferries were running. However they were only running from Port Askaig, which is more sheltered than Port Ellen. We were taxied up the high road and rushed unceremoniously onto the car deck Read the Rest…
October 11, 2019
It rained hard my third night on Islay. I looked out the window early morning and thought it was yet another reason I would miss Rachel. I had to get around on my own for the next two days. But by the time I came down to the breakfast room at The Grange, it was Read the Rest…
October 9, 2019
My second morning on Islay Rachel drove us to the west part of the island to Kilchoman distillery. This was to be my only official distillery tour although I called in at the gift shops of nearly all of them. I’m glad Kilchoman was to be the distillery I toured because I like their Scotch Read the Rest…
October 7, 2019
Corryvrecken is the name of a famously fierce whirlpool off the coast of Jura, the island north of Islay in the Hebrides. George Orwell and his small son were lucky to escape it drenched, but with their lives. I submit that there’s another corryvrecken on Islay and her name is Rachel. She was my guide Read the Rest…
February 6, 2019
I never visited my friend Louise when she lived two miles from my house. She was my singing student before we became friends. Then she moved to Oregon City and I spent five hours travel time to visit her there. I’ll get to that in a minute. First there were the books. Or rather, The Read the Rest…