A bit of background! It is a well known fact that I’ve longed and dreamed of visiting England. To understand how much England meant to me growing up, you need to understand the circumstances of my birth, my upbringing, the influences that shaped my view of the world and gave me the only…
Le Mans Ok, at the outset, I must explain that it is I who was ( and is ) lazy, not the city of Le Mans. How lazy? Well, consider that I made this trip in 2014 in the month of June. Consider also, that I am writing this sentence in July 2018.…
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…
My stay in Chennai was not a very happy one. I was already well-short of being gruntled. ( see history in Part 1 ) I found the ultra-conservative nature of the locals disconcerting. Every light switch, every fan, fan regulator, every keyboard, monitor and tape was (more…)
You may know that I live in the general vicinity of The Great Lakes. A weekend trip to the shores of Lake Huron gave me the chance to try out different settings on the camera. I get the basic idea on f-numbers and aperture settings but do not have a natural instinct for…
I once worked for a very large IT / computer company. This job led to some very strange experiences. A lot of it was due to my inexperience with the world and my lack of communication skills. ( Which continue to plague me to this day... :) ) As a newly wed, I was often…
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…
It's a fact of life that as life goes on we change, we discover new things, try new food items and generally progress from sundried plums with tangy rock salt to gourmet sundried tomatoes. At this point you are wondering, aren't you, why this post is tagged "travel"? Well, maybe you're not or…