The candles have been extinguished, the pumpkins look more sad than spooky. Another Halloween has been and gone. When I was little we didn’t get passing zombies, our house was off the beaten path, they never made it far enough along our road. Trick or treat, Halloween is a festival that’s leaves me cold. I…

Are you ready? Not yet you’ll see, so forgive me I’m just stuck in the seat. Let’s talk about the traffic show, it essentially talks about the traffic. Okay, wait two minutes okay. Wait a minute let me just look at the map. Okay, let’s talk about the traffic. It says there are lots of…

Firing up the coffee machine has become a daily ritual in our household over the past few years. It was purchased to save us money on buying coffees out and about. We are not coffee nerds, but I have grown attached to a milky, cappuccino-esque coffee in the morning. Disaster struck a month ago when…

A few weeks ago, I visited a pizza restaurant in Edinburgh. It was close to the hotel I was staying in. I was lured in by an offer on their website that indicated kids eat for £1. The meal was fine, we enjoyed it, and the service was good. The kid was entertained, and I…

How wonderful it feels to be able to put together a Lego toy 40 years after it was last touched. I remember playing with Lego as a child, but I don’t recall it ever being on my ‘I want, I want…’ list at Christmas. Other toys delivered more immediate rewards. Star Wars, Action Force, Evel…

The year is 50 BC. Gaul is entirely occupied by the Romans. Well, not entirely… Roll back to my early teenage years in Cambridge where Saturday lunchtimes meant a sortie to the public lending library. My hunt was laser like and specific. The Asterix books were always lined up along the large window overlooking Lion…

Sunday morning, but not any old Sunday. Father’s Day! Permission granted to slumber. My slumbering isn’t so deep that I am not aware of the birdsong tweeting into the house. The windows left open to let in the cool air of the night. It is Father’s Day again. Only this year is different, dad isn’t…

“Hey Siri, what am I doing tomorrow?” “Hey Siri, remind me to put the bins out, oh, and then book that swimming lesson.“ “Hey Siri, ….” It’s not always easy to tell when Science Fiction is reality. We quickly get habitualized to  technological innovation, to the point of taking it for granted. Is it too…

What is Gagagubby? I am not even sure that is how you spell it. It could be Gaagaagubby, or maybe Gahgahgubby. It is a word that does not want to exist on paper. There are a lot of things we don’t know in life and this is just another one of those things. You won’t…

The guy sitting next to me is snoozing, his book Claudius the God lays untouched on the flip down table in front of him. I love those Penguin classic covers. Out of the window a very green Mam Tor glides by. My gaze traces that ridge line which I have ridden now many times in…