I once nearly caused a major incident involving our new King. On that distant day, there was no sign of the petulance Charles, now King, showed when his pen recently spilled out ink (which he quickly handed it to Camilla, who suffered the same fate). Poor man, what pressure he’s under. When your mother dies the world turns upside down and his private mourning is invaded by constant filming. However, it must be said, this is a man capable of anger when an egg isn’t boiled to h

Camilla rushes in, there’s a bumble bee stranded on the pavement. Victim, we assume, of one of the cars streaking past too forcefully for its fragile wings to have handled, causing it to tumble and fall and get struck. She quickly used an envelope to pick up the deliciously fat and furry little ball of yellow and black. She laid it on soft tissue upon the slate table in our street-side courtyard and we fed it liquid honey from a spoon, but noticed its right wing and middle ri

As the sun’s warmth soothes my skin here upon a beach in East Devon, it feels impossible that people are suffering, that individuals as lively as me are being killed in Eastern Europe. That one of history’s turning points is underway. That the East has started to dominate the West; the great chess player Putin stated this is how the game is unfolding. And Xi of China agrees. I pick up a pebble, enjoy its quartzite hardness smoothed millennia ago and marvel that it’s history

It suits him to use his past as currency, just as Prince Harry does. Unlike the Prince who works for charities, he doesn’t work, unlike Harry, he hasn’t got much money for it suits him to do nothing. Fit as a fiddle, it surprises me that he’s unemployed, relying on government money. Unlike Harry, he doesn’t do anything for society, he simply sits at home growing fat on a lazy existence and he justifies this parasitical existence by saying that at school he was bullied hence h

They’re harping on about Mindfulness, it’s one of the buzz-words and last week there was a Mindfulness Day as part of Mental Health Week. So what is the fuss all about? To be sure, we need something to counter what’s termed Western Civilisation. You don’t need to look far to see what I mean. Peep across the English Channel (or what the French stubbornly call La Manche) and drive south to the Pyrenean slopes where a pre-consumerist way of life lives on. Almost. But thanks to t

The world we knew one year ago has gone. None of us know when, or even if, it will return. What is certain is that uncertainty rules. Ironically, the Chinese, where this virus originated, say that when we realise that uncertainty is the universal norm, for everything is always in a state of flux, and when we live in the ‘flow’, wisdom becomes ours. Applying this to our every day reality may feel strange, for we’ve been educated since birth to adhere to stability, to generate

Those bells! they clang loud and clear every quarter of an hour. All night long! I’m a light sleeper and we are close to the minster’s elegant honey-stone tower. Pulled from deep sleep, I curse them. It doesn’t help that I’ve always slept with the window open, even mid-winter in the Pyrenees. Nor that bad health’s made me sensitive to noise. Tossing and turning, I’m exasperated. I regret having paid lawyers, surveyors and structural engineers to start the process of buying a

Today is my birthday. I have already exceed my father by five years, but have another five to reach my mother’s age and another fifteen to reach male life expectancy in Britain. Five or fifteen years, blimey. Not bad, considering my recent and past history for I’m really lucky to be here now, but it still draws you up when put like this. Death is avoided by our culture, neighbours we got on with crossed the street or turned the other way when my mother, who lived with us, die

Have you noticed any changes in the past week? You would have thought the world would be in panic-mode since Wednesday’s declaration by the UN that the window was closing for action against Global Warming. It certainly hit my gut, even though on that specific day my health prospects were dire and I was struggling. Nobody is discussing it. People are continuing with their ordinary lives as if our future was bright and cheerful. OK, here in the UK we have a vague excuse because

She looked worried as she exclaimed, "They had to close the pub last night due to Gypsies!" Warnings of a Gypsy wedding in a market town five minutes drive away had closed many pubs within ten miles. Communities often react in this way to Gypsies. Staying with friends on their old family farm, early one morning a phone call warned of Gypsies sweeping the area for a place to camp. Gates were hastily closed, calls went out on the telephone-tree. Perhaps we are afraid because Gy

We adults are still the children within, changed, but still the being who was formed by life's initial struggles.Take this long-legged lad riding a humpbacked 'Boran' bull with a razor sharp sword strung to his waist, unfortunately, he has become me, an adult who on the surface seems so very different. As this bush-boy escaped the tensions at home by wandering the savannah with the fierce Nandi who tended grazing cattle, ever watchful for leopard and other dangers, including

Finding this stone coffin in a local church, I couldn’t resist testing it out and as you can see, had I had medieval spurs on, it could have been chiselled out for me five hundred years ago! Today I jokingly said to a friend, “Welcome to The Death Club!” because two days ago he was minutes away from dying. He’d been out walking and was bothered by a bee. Knowing he reacts badly, he had swiped at the insect and, frightened, it’d naturally stung him. Within a minute he could fe