Visiting Harry Potter world was always going to be on my list of things to do on a visit to England. But it became an absolute bucket list item when we visited New Zealand last year. One of the people in our group hadn’t been all that interested in visiting Hobbiton, since she wasn’t a…
The imposing manor house above the lake doesn’t say much at all about what happened here during WW2. The house had been bought by a developer who would have built a housing estate but the manor and 58 acres of land was purchased in 1938 by Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair, head of the Secret Intelligence…
There’s more to English towns than ancient villages choked in traffic like Buckingham and London. Linda and Mike live near Milton Keynes, a deliberately designed city envisioned in the 1960s. Here’s a quote from the Wikipedia article. “Recognising how traditional towns and cities had become choked in traffic, [the designers] established a ‘relaxed’ grid of…
Part of what makes these winter festivals sparkle is the camaraderie, the joining together with neighbours. After our visit to Waddesdon Hall we moved on to the village of Little Horwood where everybody gathered around a bonfire on the village green to sing Christmas carols, musical accompaniment provided by the Great Horwood band in which…
Yule is, after all, a season to celebrate the return of the light after the long days of darkness. Our friends took us to the Christmas fair at Waddesdon Hall to enjoy a truly spectacular light show. That was where I discovered my special nifty gloves that kept you warm while allowing you to fiddle…
Christmas, as we all know, is quintessentially a Northern Hemisphere festival, celebrating the return of the light. It’s no coincidence that several religions celebrate around the date of the winter solstice, a time of deep darkness, cold, and hunger. These days the essential dread of the cold dark has faded into the history books and…