I wasn’t going to let the death of Britain’s longest-serving monarch get away with only one mention on this page. We British (and I am still British, even though I no longer live there) haven’t had much to be proud of recently (MPs behaving and squabbling like children in a playground ffs) but organising the […]
Tag: Great Britain
Farewell
I was a small child when Mum said one day: ‘I wouldn’t be the Queen for all the money in the world.’ I was stunned into rare silence. Why would you not want to be Queen? To wear crowns and beautiful dresses and to have everyone wait on you hand and foot? Besides, if Mum […]
In Dreams
Last night I dreamed I went to Yorkshire.* In my mind I travelled past Fox House, down alongside the stream to Toad Rock, left around the corner and up towards Surprise View. Mist hung low over the hills, flattening their tops, hiding Cark Wark, the ancient fort, and suffusing all with a muted light. The […]
Great Britain: Part Six – We’ll Take the Low Road
In a change to our current schedule I return briefly to the travel blog and November 2019. On our final morning in Aviemore we wake to a whiteout. Heavy frost covers everything – the lawn is white and our black car beside it wears camouflage. A fluffed up ball of blackbird sits on the hedge. […]
Great Britain: Part Five – The Frozen North
Circumstances have stymied my blog posting in recent weeks, including lack of access to decent internet that would allow upload. I’m still playing catch up from our travels last year and, given the current situation with the covid-19 pandemic, expect to have plenty of time in the next few weeks to do so. As we […]
Great Britain: Part Four – Grabbed by the Trossachs
October 2019 I’m a big sky girl and Scotland is a big sky country. So I’m a little disappointed when the clouds close in and truncate the view, flatten the tops of hills, hide beauty that I know is there. We turn to the Queen Elizabeth forest (clearly not Scottish Nationalist territory) surrounding Aberfoyle, walking […]
Great Britain: Part Three – Lakes and Hills.
October 2019 There’s a stark beauty to Bowness. Here the houses aren’t the warm hues that make other parts of the country picturesque, rather they are shades of grey. The stones here are harder so even though they seem to be haphazardly piled on top of each other, random shapes and patterns, they are straight-edged […]
Great Britain: Part Two – Into the Dales.
October 2019 The sky hangs low, cutting off the hilltops, and rain splatters the windscreen. In this light the grass is vividly green, snakes of pale wall dividing fields into random shapes and sizes. It is a sight unique to this country and typical of this county: Yorkshire. God’s own county. (Kiwis please note the […]
Coasting
October 2019 Nearing the north west coast of England Essie shows a large blue expanse to our left but, frustratingly, there are sand dunes in the way and no amount of stretching my neck will allow me to see over them. Finally the dunes break and there it is: the sea. I grew up as […]
Merry Christmas!
Circumstances (and fate) have conspired against me and this is not the blog I wanted to write. Instead I present a truncated version with a few words and a lot of pictures. Nothing says Christmas like a tree full of lights sparkling against the dark of a winter evening sky. Framed by curtains left open […]
Tracy Annenberg 