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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…
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Continue reading →: Alsace Wine CountryI stayed around Lugano for a couple of days more than I had originally planned, influenced by the fine weather, and knowing that on the other side of the Gotthard Tunnel was in most and cloud, and below zero. As if to emphasise the fact, it was a clear morning,…
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Continue reading →: Profundo Rosso (Deep Red)
Italy 1975 This is perhaps the most famous of cult Director, Dario Argento’s Giallo films. Giallo means yellow and derives from pulp Italian fiction of the 1920s of which the covers were regularly on yellow backgrounds. The Giallo films had their heyday in the 1970s and were crime themed, with…
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Continue reading →: Above LuganoMinus 9 overnight, but the van is so easy to heat. Remote control on the heater means that ten minutes before surfacing a quick depression of the button and the edge is taken off getting out of bed. The weather’s set fair here, with the middle of the day getting…
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Continue reading →: The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild by Mathias Énard
translated from the French by Frank Wynne David Mazon is in his mid-30s when he decides his very ordinary life needs a shake-up. He motivates himself to finish his doctorate in anthropology, a field project that takes him from Paris to a rural French village on the Atlantic coast, near…
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Continue reading →: Mount San GiorgioMinus 7 under the clear overnight skies was the precursor to perfect January day. One of the few people I saw, I exchanged a greeting with, and she made the point that it was the best weather of the year. I have to agree. Our mission was to summit Mount…
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 