Sunday, December 11, 2022
It seemed to all be going on at Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon. And perhaps its most famous going-on was the graves of Anne and William Shakespeare. I paid the “concession” (senior citizen) price of one pound to get up to the chancel (in front of the altar) with the tourist crowd to see the […]
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Is breakfasting at Starbucks when abroad really traveling? I ask that myself when I enter one. Believe me, there are plenty of reasons not to enter one. Number one for skipping a Starbucks is that they don’t have scones, at least not in the British Starbucks establishments I’ve been in so far. But, despite this […]
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
The trip was all planned out. Our family would head off to Ireland for two weeks, rent a van, feel the tug of ancestral roots, visit megalithic dolmens and the Cliffs of Moher, eat big Irish fried breakfasts . . . and go caving. As an experienced spelunker, I wasn’t afraid or claustrophobic, it was […]
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Viewing the exquisite craftsmanship of the Four Gospels of Kells Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruptions in March 2010 caused all air traffic in the vicinity to be delayed, including my own flight back from Dublin to Salt Lake City. That delay allowed me three glorious extra days to explore the Irish capital’s cultural landscape, including Trinity […]
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
But there I was in remote and gusty western County Clare Picking my way along the glaciated limestone pavement of the burren Stepping over the vertical grykes, block to block, clint to clint Remembering lines of escape and solitude from Yeats* I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build […]
Saturday, December 3, 2022
On my trip to England in 1997, I was enthusiastic about visiting the town of St. Ives in Cornwall. I wanted to walk down the path to the little village just like the man in the Mother Goose riddle my mother had read to my brothers and me so many years ago. I had also […]
Saturday, December 3, 2022
Spotted dick is a traditional British pudding made from mutton fat mixed with other ingredients, such as baking soda, flour, molasses, corn syrup, or nutmeg. You add raisins or other bits of dried fruit to this dough and you have “spots.” The dish is steamed, boiled, or, as in the recipe below, baked, and served […]
When can you let down your guard when you travel? In your hotel room? On public transport? At passport control? When you’re in a group? Never? The tea was hot, the cream seemed fresh as I shared my digestives with Alec, the terrorist. I’d been waiting for him in the Dover tea shop for twenty […]
These 40 essays, lists, recipes, poems, and songs cover my eleven trips to the United Kingdom and Ireland over 43 years. Perhaps I’ll go again, perhaps not, but I wanted to record what I could remember and while I had a quieter, less-traveled few years to write. My first trip as a recent college graduate […]
A sculpture of three women stands outside a home in a small village on the edge of western England’s Haworth moor. Diane Lawrenson’s life-size bronze sculpture group portrays the Brontë sisters, Anne, Charlotte, and Emily, occupants of that surprisingly creative family parsonage. According to the Brontë Society1 web site (bronte.org.uk), Haworth back in the 1800s […]
