Living Between the Lines
A wry look at family life
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Eating out
(The second of my holiday posts) Dining out is part of the holiday, for at least some of the time. On the whole, the food has been good and the service great. There have been those odd occasions though, when things have seemed a little, well, odd. Take the other night. The guest book recommends a nearby hotel for food and drinks. Lisa and I are sceptical. We both recall a holiday to Italy a few years ago. My sister was with us at the time. We decided to check out a hotel that looked very inviting from the roadside. We enquired at the desk if non-residents were welcome to…
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Donkeys, pool-men and an end to suspicion
This post was scribbled during my recent holiday to Rhodes. What makes grown men and women think that riding a donkey up steep, winding steps in temperatures of 40 degrees, will be fun? I have not fallen into this trap I hasten to add but plenty do. Hence, as we wander through the labyrinth of streets that make up the City of Lindos, we witness many folk of mature years struggling to climb aboard these truculent beasts of burden and once aboard, to stay seated. Nor is this penchant for self-harm shared solely by the older generation. As we step aside to allow one donkey-train to pass, we note a…
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The Doll’s House
This is the second of my scheduled re-runs covering my absence from the computer. This post was first published on 27th September 2010. I have always been one to make something out of nothing, in the creative sense I mean. I wouldn’t like you to imagine I am prone to hysterical outbursts at the slightest provocation! So, given a few cardboard boxes and some egg cartons when the kids were young, I’d disappear with boxes and children for a bit, returning with a space ship or a sweet shop or anything else that our imaginations could dream up. So confident were my children that I could make them anything they…
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Adventures in South Africa 2006 1/2
As I prepare to pack for the holiday I mentioned in my previous post, I thought it an opportune time to schedule a few memories of a South African trip taken in 2006. The following is the first part of my account. Part two will follow in due course. Part One I have always wanted to go to New Zealand. New Zealand intrigues me and not just because I believe that is where all the Hobbits come from. New Zealand has been on my list of places to visit for years. As my fiftieth birthday approached and folk were deciding how I should celebrate it, a quiet drink, a…
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Talking myself into it
I am about to go on my summer holiday. Am I excited? Trying to be. Am I looking forward to it? Trying to. Am I driving my family mad? Yes. Do I need my head examined? Maybe! The thing is, however good a holiday sounds, I am one of those people who would be quite content to stay at home, in theory if not in practice. This may surprise you given that I have already told you all how I left my home and family and travelled 5000 miles to spend three weeks with an eccentric, undeniably strange and sometimes bizarre woman, the likes of whom I had never met…
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Festivals and BBQs
I was never a ‘festival goer’. That is to say, I could never see the attraction of camping in a muddy field, with limited sanitary arrangements, soggy sandwiches and warm beer. Much less did I ever fancy standing with thousands of other people to listen to a band. Yes, I am well aware that to some people this is absolute bliss. (Jane G, if you are reading this, I admire your stamina!) I am not sure whether it is my aversion to the mud and undeniable discomfort or my claustrophobic reaction to crowds that bred this dislike of such things in me but dislike them I do. The only outdoor…
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Curiouser and Curiouser
Our regular trips to the gorgeous seaside town of Fowey, (pronounced FOY) in Cornwall, never fail to delight and to throw new experiences our way. A while ago we seemed to be in a Celebrity hotspot. Celebrities wandered the streets and sat at dining tables with us, they queued for groceries and stood in doorways making TV adverts while we lesser mortals tried to look inconspicuous. If you are wondering what I am talking about, I point you in the direction of: Fowey Royal Regatta – Celebrity or not Celebrity? Sept. 2010 Our latest visit, however, threw up an entirely new experience. That experience came in the form of a new…
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More haste less speed
“Oh My God! Look at that poor woman Beryl!”
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Taking a bite of the apple
Ok, would you “Adam and Eve it?”* finally, I am doing it. Yes, having been a staunch supporter of the PC and Windows since the dawn of 3.1 I am switching my allegiance. I have purchased an iMac. I have an iPhone, I have an iPad but to date, I have not had a personal iMac. Up until now, those sleek, white machines have resided at the office and I and my laptop PC have resided at home. So, you may well ask, what has wrought this sudden change? Is it the advertising power of the Apple sales team? Have I succumbed to the gorgeously simple yet luxuriously tempting lines…
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I don’t want to be Famous
I opened the Times newspaper the other day, glossed over the first few pages given over to latest world events and looked beyond. My attention was actually caught by a short article on page 19, entitled, “What do today’s youngsters want to be? Just happy.” (Joanna Sugden – The Times) I suspect that if you asked any age group to truly declare their deepest wants then their answers might be the same. Don’t we all prize happiness above all else? A survey was apparently carried out to extract this gem of information. Here are a few statistics to mull over: Apparently 33% of girls aged between 8 and 16 years,…
