Category: Holiday
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It’s Christmas in Heaven
by Sheldon And so closes another year. A year that seems to have robbed us of more heroes and icons than usual. Our post detailing the loss of Bowie, it seems, was a warning call for 2016 – Prince, Muhammed Ali, Gene Wilder – all people who have massively influenced culture in the past few…
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Outside London: Neon Churches in Bermuda
by Christina Cremation is illegal on the island of Bermuda (actually 180 tiny islands). This is one of the first things the taxi driver told me on our way from the airport to where I was staying in the capital city of Hamilton. I asked why and she said ‘we didn’t want the chemicals and…
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I Shot the Sheriff and Other Stories from the Wild West
by Christina Rumaldo and Juanita Gonzales are buried in the Fort Sumner Military Cemetery in rural New Mexico. Frugal looking wooden crosses mark the approximate spots where they lie, and it looks like, more recently, they have been given a stone plaque with their names and dates on. The juxtaposition between the old and…
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By the Shores of Loch Broom: The Fowlers’ Retreat
Somewhere deep in the Scottish Highlands was the retreat of one of the greatest engineers this country has ever produced. This is Braemore House near Ullapool, north-west Scotland. Constructed out of gneiss stone (a blue-coloured rock which comes from the north of Scotland) and edged with durable sandstone from Glasgow, like many things in the…
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Outside London – Going to Graceland, Graceland, Memphis Tennessee
by Christina People make pilgrimages all the time. Some people make religious pilgrimages, but I am not particularly religious (I go to church sometimes, and have done since I was 9. My Grandpa was a Reverend, and my mother is one too. And I’ve been to Jerusalem, and stood at the Wailing Wall, and written…
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Closed for the Holidays
by Christina As Sheldon struggles with the Curse of The Cranky Christmas Shopper (that should totally be a film), I’m off to spend Christmas and all the days surrounding it driving a big yellow van and collecting Quality Street chocolates from every open tin I happen to see lying around. Neither of us get to…
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A Lesson In Simplicity
Owing to a looming deadline for Sheldon’s tour-guiding studies, today’s entry is written by Ian Brentnall. Ian is a Choirmaster and Organist who has over thirty years experience of working with choirs and choral societies. He very kindly offered to write an entry detailing a recent visit he made to France where the legacy of…
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The Greatest Cemetery of All
In London you’re never too far from a Cemetery. Mausolea, monuments and headstones galore. Brompton was the first of the Magnificent Seven that I had the pleasure to visit (and only then in response to the horror evident on Sheldon’s face when he realised I’d visited none thus far). Surprised as I was at…
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Outside London – Childhood Memories By The Sea
by Christina I don’t know if it’s because I was born and raised on an island (albeit not near a coast) but I like staring out to sea. It also terrifies me (I try not to actually go in it if at all possible) but it fascinates me. Joseph Conrad wrote “As if it were too…
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Of Letters and Ruins
by Sheldon My quest to discover the ‘true’ Norfolk Churches came when I had but a morning left to spend up in this tranquil part of our shores. The coach was due to leave Norwich at half past three that afternoon, so time was against me in visiting the choice of churches there are up…
Cemetery Club 