Sabbatical

Book Review: Stella Gibbons, The Matchmaker (1950) Stella Gibbons (1902-1989) In 1995, Kate Beckinsale appeared as Flora Poste in a televis...

My Last Amazon.co.uk Purchase This morning's post brought the new CD, Eternal Light , from the young Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas, ...

Farewell to the Tipperary This afternoon, Clara's sister Mary joined us for our last walk over for a pint at the Tipperary Inn. The sun...

English Summer Today it's finally summer in England. The sky is clear and blue, and the thermometer is inching up toward 28°C (or 80°F)...

13 Days and Counting... A lovely summer day. I slept well last night, and today I'm lazing around reading a novel in the flickering sha...

14 Days and Counting.... Clara and I packed up five boxes of books and took them to the Post Office, and sent them via surface mail for abou...

The Countdown Begins: 15 Days Today, Clara and I walked to the University of Warwick through battalions of stinging nettles and returned Cla...

Another Obscure English Writer's Memorial I blogged several months ago about the ubiquity of writers in England. At the time, I had jus...

Last English Road Trip, Part 2: Fishbourne and Chichester On Monday morning, we left the car parked at the highly- recommended Rokeby Guest ...

John Constable at Stonehenge Here is a John Constable oil painting of Stonehenge, completed in 1836—the year before his death. According to...

Our Last English Road Trip, Part 1: Stonehenge and Salisbury Even with the crowds of tourists and the A303 whizzing past, Stonehenge is awe-...

Tourists at Kenilworth Castle Yesterday afternoon, Clara's Carleton College colleague, Jackson, took the train from Oxford to Leamington...

More Rain It's raining heavily here in Kenilworth again. Here's the latest warning from the Met Office for the West Midlands: Outbr...

Return to Old Milverton An old postcard of Gaveston's Cross on Blacklow Hill, between Leek Wootton and Warwick. The level of the Avon Ri...

Britain's Worst Flooding in Modern History f rom the Telegraph (click to enlarge)

Flooding on the River Avon Here are a couple of photographs taken from the footbridge over the River Avon just beyond the church in Ashow, a...

200th post More Flooding in the Midlands Yesterday was another day of heavy downpours in England. The Midlands were particularly hard hit. ...

Harry Potter Night This was the scene in front of Browsers Books on Talisman Square in Kenilworth at 12:01 a.m. GMT Saturday, as the first c...

Blogging toward the future... Twenty-seven days until we're back in the U.S.A., at which point this blog will have served its purpose. ...

Time to Come Home From today's Wall Street Journal : "Europe's 13-nation currency hit new highs against the dollar Wednesday an...