• Just So Stories

    Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

    Yes, on his way home from work, my dad called at a book stall that was opposite my granny’s drapery shop. He bought me a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s “Just So Stories”. I think he paid sixpence for it. It was a nice surprise present and I enjoyed reading it.

    Dad was also a comedian and loved bathos. One time we met in the shop and he said he had a special surprise for me. It turned out to be three pence worth of dripping (beef fat). I’m laughing even now, over sixty years later.

    How the camel got his hump.
  • Race for life

    My daughter and granddaughter, who recently did the “Race for Life” – a charity run in aid of cancer research. Well done them!

  • Three books and a rose

    List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

    1. The Road Less Travelled by M Scott Peck
    2. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
    3. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein

    All because they helped shape the way I think about the world.

  • The train that made me cry

    Not this…

    Not this…

    Not this…

    Not this…

    Not even this…

    But this. This is the train that made me cry…

    It’s an English Electric Deltic from 1961. I cried because it reminded me of my 14-year-old self, who was quite a trainspotter when this was in service.

  • Integrity

    What quality do you value most in a friend?

    …that they are true to themselves.

  • Laburnum

    Spotted today locally…

    Laburnum in full flower
  • John 14:6

    Do you practice religion?

    “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” Jesus.

    My wife and I are both Christian in the Pentecostal/charismatic mode.

    We also like visiting churches, especially old ones.

    Exeter Cathedral
  • Life was lived

    Do you remember life before the internet?

    Yes, and I don’t recall any sense of lack without it.

    Irises
  • Test shots

    …with new camera.