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Continue reading →: Westvleteren Abbey and Saint Sixtus BreweryWestvleteren Abbey, within which Saint Sixtus beer is brewed, is an authentic Trappist brewery. Their motto, or mission statement on their website states ‘We brew to live. We do not live to brew.’ They brew three beers, a Blond at 5%, and a brown and an amber ale, called 8…
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Continue reading →: The Green Man of Eshwood Hall by Jacob KerrPublished 2022 This is a curious mix of light and dark, the cosy and the sinister, in a folkloric, occasionally with a gothic lean, tale of a decrepit country house in the 1960s to which a family arrives to work. The protagonist Izzy, 13 years old, has been taken out…
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Continue reading →: BurningSouth Korea – 2018 – Boening This was the 2018 FIPRESCI (International Film Critics) Award winner and is from South Korea. It’s a cross of genres, romance / drama / thriller, but most of all a mystery that skilfully develops tension in unlikely moments. It’s slow-paced in its first half…
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Continue reading →: The Saint-Fiacre Affair by Georges Simenontranslated from the French by Shaun Whiteside I consider it essential when in Belgium to read Simenon. I thought I’d give a Maigret a try, usually favouring his stand-alone romans durs, and was rewarded greatly. Maigret is roused from his slumbers at 5:30 am, and for a moment, can’t recall…
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Continue reading →: Return to InvictusI returned to Invictus Brewery in the forest this morning with cash, from the atm in Gedinne, just a couple of kilometres away. We walked the long way round, through the forest on a wonderful winter morning. It had been 7 degrees below zero overnight, and Stephanie at the Brewery…
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Continue reading →: Invictus BreweryA cold night. A new record for the van. The temperature didn’t get above zero all day, despite the effect of the sun in a clear sky. I finished my book, a Simenon ‘Maigret’, by which time it was only minus 5, and Roja and I headed out for a…
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Continue reading →: The Brewery of the Lesse
There’s about ten centimetres of snow here which fell yesterday morning. It then turned cold, several degrees below zero, so it’s dry and powdery, and clearly puts most local people in a really good mood. Almost everyone I see stops to chat, about happy topics, children are out playing in…
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Continue reading →: Some wine villages of Alsace, and onto MoselleA couple of pleasant and cold days in villages of Alsace, Châtenois, Bleinschwiller, Nothalten, and Damnach. The wineries generally offer a place for campervans, with the likelihood they are wine visitors, and will spend in their shops. These spaces are behind their wineries, in their gardens, so covered in snow…
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Continue reading →: The Witch of Ravensworth by George Brewer
This is a fascinating little book that takes place very close to where I would call ‘home turf’. The Ravensworth of 1808 is the now forestless moors of Crosby Ravensworth, in the Eden valley, and stood over, by Ravensworth Fell, all of which are referred to in the text, a…
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Continue reading →: The Black Curtain by Cornell Woolrich
Published 1941 Unlucky enough to be clobbered on the head by a piece from a stone statue which falls from a building, Frank Townsend dusts himself down and continues on his way home to his wife Virginia.But, she doesn’t live there any more. When he eventually tracks her down, he…
To live more widely
supera superiora sequi
SafeReturnDoubtful is my alias.
Where is Andy?
I was so much older then…
Quote of the Week
Alice asked the Cheshire Cat, who was sitting in a tree, ‘What road do I take?’ The cat asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it really doesn’t matter, does it?’
Lewis Carroll
Safe Return Doubtful 