Actually, the notes are not early. They're late. Late by about 19 years now, will be exactly 19 years late on the 2nd of June 2016. Yes, you are very correct in your maths. I arrived in the great country of Canada on the 2nd of June, 1997. ( Sorry. I wrote this when…
So here we go again. Another travelogue. This time to a hunting cottage of the Kings of France. Now if you're thinking about a run down, ramshackle wooden cabin in the woods, remember: This is France It had a Revolution ( The Revolution ) yup! Capital T, Capital R. Long before the Ruskies, the…
I'd known about the walking bit. In fact, I'd gone out of my way to buy some comfortable walking shoes. But, as the poet Burns said, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley. It was entirely my fault and the fault of my map-reading skills. Apparently, I'd forgotten a…
Introduction I had lunch with a celebrity. This happened completely by accident. I've met very few celebrities. I did shake hands with Vijay Amritraj and sat next to Kevin Wright once. ( ** see footnotes below ) Now, Michael Lang may not be your idea of a celebrity and lunch with him isn't strictly accurate…
Day 9 of The Great Trip dawned bright, sunny and warm and off we went in our Renault 308 to Mont St Michel on the first leg of our Normandy trip. From the Paris suburb of Neuilly-Plaisance to Mont St Michel is a good 4 hour drive. We took the slightly northern route that…
Yes, that’s the colour ( color, if American ) of spring and to prove it I’m going to show you a set of pictures with lovely hues of blue. First though, lets start with this one.
As you can see, not only are the arms of the bush a brilliant red, the jacket of the old lady sitting sunning herself is also red. But the recycle bin is blue, the garbage bin is grey and if you examine the (more…)
This is the concluding part of the Normandy sub-series within the Punjabi in Paris series. You can, of course, read Part 1 and Part 2. Part 2 has more pictures and even, hold your breath for this one, shaky videos!! We left Ste Mere Eglise after a late lunch / tea of fries,…
The Story so far This is where we left off at the end of the first part of the Normandy Notes 1: We'd missed the morning's parachute drop re-enactment after an exciting and exhausting drive in. I was thinking wistfully about the stained glass windows of the church in Ste Mere Eglise. One…
So I'm back from Kolkata or Calcutta, as it used to be and will ever be for some, like me. It was a crowded trip, with remembrance services, weddings, school and college reunions interspersed with sporadic maintenance shopping. ( I'll have to explain that some other day, that "maintenance" thing.) It was three…
The phone rang in the very early morning hours of Dec 17th, a Sunday. In the USA it was still Saturday, Dec 16th. I rose from the warm bed and padded out into the cold hall to the phone. I heard the pips that foretold a transatlantic call, waited for my oldest brother's…