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Continue reading →: The Islands of Borðoy and ViðoyIn 2004 after almost eight months living in Queenstown, New Zealand working as a cricket coach, I returned to the UK via the United States of America. I took the Air New Zealand flight to Los Angeles and then made my way across the States by Greyhound Bus, stopping to…
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Continue reading →: Into The Sun by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz
translated (in 2025) from the French (Switzerland) by Olivia Baes and Emma Ramadan Originally published in 1922 – Science Fiction It seems these days, that few books live up to their exciting premise, but this, though I hurriedly add was first published in 1922, certainly does. One day the news…
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Continue reading →: The Predicament by William Boyd
British Spy Literature published August 2025 I’ll begin by saying I’m a huge Boyd fan. I’ve read and enjoyed everything he has written. I’m not sure though, there’s quite enough in the character of Gabriel Dax to sustain a trilogy, but this is entertaining enough. In the second of the…
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Continue reading →: Viðoy Island – the FaroesThe Norröna docked at Tórshavn at 7:30 am this morning. Late last afternoon the conditions were so calm that it allowed the ship to sail through Yell Sound, the straits that run between the islands of Mainland and Yell. The ferry was less than a third full, but still a…
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Continue reading →: Teething ProblemsIn 1986 I persuaded three friends to get involved in a crazy project to renovate a 1960s Austin Wolsely and drive it to the Pyramids. At the school that I then worked, the Head of Metalwork, also a good friend and who happened to be skilled in car mechanics, helped…
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Continue reading →: On the road again..It’s time to get on the move again. The Coast to Coast season finishes at the Lodge at the end of this coming week, it’s been a busy September. After breakfast service on Friday morning I’ll head down to Harwich and take the Stena Line overnight crossing to Rotterdam and…
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Continue reading →: Movie Catch-Up 2
Weapons – USA 2025 – When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance. This isn’t the sort of horror film I usually watch, I prefer something…
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Continue reading →: Island of the Blue Foxes by Stephen R. Bown
Disaster and Triumph on the World’s Greatest Scientific Expedition Published 2017 This is the gripping telling of two voyages of Vitus Bering on his Russian expedition to the Aleutian Islands and Kamchatka on the early eighteenth century. It is an excellent addition to the literary canon of books on the…
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Continue reading →: Ultramarine by Mariette Navarro
Translated from the French by Eve Hill-Agnus- Published March 2025 This has a simple plot, a tale off the sea and a ship’s crew that by way of its telling, comes across as a sort of dark fairy tale. Strangeness abounds, and that aspect makes Navarro’s debut novel, both memorable…
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Continue reading →: RojaVery sadly, Roja did not improve. I made the difficult decision to return to our own vets, just for a final and second opinion, though I knew the outcome. At my first appointment in Letterkenny the vet told me that this may be the case. Though when lying on the…
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 