Today was one of those road-trip days when the journey itself turned out to be every bit as interesting as the destination. We left our lovely farmhouse B&B outside Ystad after breakfast and began heading east along Sweden’s southern coast, with Karlskrona as our eventual destination. Our first stop was Ales Stenar, high on the…
Our first full day in Scandinavia began with what, for me at least, was always going to be the day’s biggest challenge: picking up the hire car and remembering that everyone else was driving on the wrong side of the road. Our car for the next few days is an Audi A3, grey and reassuringly…
Birthdays are probably as good a day as any to start a road trip, though for a while this morning it looked as if the M40 had other ideas entirely. We left home with what I thought was a sensible buffer for Heathrow, only to hit delays that were just irritating enough to trigger some…
“Let’s go to Wittenham Clumps,” suggested Mark. He was right. If you are going to watch the most significant solar eclipse visible from Britain for more than 25 years, there can be few better places than one of Oxfordshire’s most familiar landmarks, looking out across the county from a hilltop that people have been climbing…
Over the last couple of days, my inbox has taken an interesting turn. I have received a growing number of emails asking Cats Protection to campaign for the mandatory neutering of owned pet cats. They come from different people and addresses, but the text is identical. This is clearly a coordinated campaign, although despite some…
Today, 8 August, is International Cat Day. Which seems as good an excuse as any to write about Blenheim. Not that I generally need much of an excuse. Living with Blenheim is one of the great joys of my life, but it is also a useful daily reminder that loving an animal and understanding an…
There is something profoundly captivating about standing a few metres from a lion. It is not simply the sheer beauty of the animal, nor even the extraordinary power that seems to ripple through every movement. It is the unmistakable recognition that, despite millions of years of evolution and very different lives, the lion and the…
There is something rather reassuring about arriving at a large Scout camp. Before you have spoken to anyone, before you have seen the programme or unfolded a map, you know roughly what you will find. Leaders wrestling with logistics. Young people laughing, building, exploring and making new friends. Somewhere, someone looking for a missing mallet….
Buckle up. This is an essay, rather than a short read… The Scarf Every year on 1 August I open a drawer containing rather more Scout scarves than any sensible person ought to own and spend a few moments deciding which one to wear. It is never quite as straightforward a decision as it sounds….
Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of visiting WINGS, and I drove home feeling reminded why events like this matter so much. For those who do not know it, WINGS is one of the UK’s largest international Scout and Guide camps. Every few years it brings together thousands of young people from across Britain and…
