Increasingly, I am staying in B&Bs as I travel round the UK, rather than booking into predictable and boring international hotels. With the help of a quirky directory, Mona has found me some brilliant places to spend the night. And if, occasionally, the house doesn’t live up to its hype, well, that can be an…
Today the Career Academy staff team (or at least those who could travel, due to the appalling weather) decamped to Cambridge for a day out. We went punting on theriver, enjoyed a wonderful picnic and I was able to have a blistering argument witha tea shop proprietor who wouldn’t let us sit together… All in…
After last week’s debacle, I was a bit worried about today’s long run – one of two I need to complete before the Berlin Marathon at the end of September. But I need not have worried. It was hard work, but actually quite fun. I ran the same route as a couple of weeks ago,…
Despite living in London on and off for all my life, I have never visited Kenwood House. I still haven’t actually, but I did join a group of friends in its grounds tonight for a wonderful ‘Last Night of the Proms’ concert and picnic. The weather was kind. The food was delicious. The PA announcements…
And then, on my birthday, I ran away again, this time on the Standish Woodland Chase, a multi-terrain race of nearly ten miles through woods on the Cotswolds escarpment above Stroud and Stonehouse. It was hell. The first mile and a half was uphill. Not just uphill, but up a very steep hill. I never…
“So what are you doing for your birthday weekend then, John?”, I was asked by someone at work earlier this week. Well, on the Saturday evening, oh reader, I ran away to the circus. I try to do this every year. It is not, of course, just any old circus. It is the magnificent and…
It is always good to see Joe and Trish in Edinburgh, but this year it was especially nice, because, of course, I could see my nephew too. I was able to see Joe performing on the High Street and in the Grassmarket. His show really is excellent now and was very well received by the…
Three weeks of running in humid conditions meant that I was both well and ill prepared for today’s race. Well prepared because running in light drizzle was actually rather pleasurable. Ill prepared because I simply haven’t racked up enough miles recently to get round a half marathon easily. I reached the halfway point of a…
Having done Disney, it was now time to do another great American export that Japan loves: Baseball. Tokyo’s ‘dome’ is enormous and it was pretty full for a very exciting match between the Giants and the Swallows. I managed to find myself sitting next to a group of students learning to speak Japanese – from…