I sent my son to his grandparents last Thursday. Unfortunately he’ll be returning to us tomorrow. Why do grandparents only keep their ‘charming, polite, delightful’ grandchildren for just a few days?
The summer holiday has just started and we have made 4 trips on the train – to Eastleigh, Winchester, Woking, and London. I thought it’s a good idea to show you what a staycation looks like. [Read more…] about Summer Train Journeys
So it’s the summer holiday with my most anticipated movie of the year (Guardians of the Galaxy) days away and my favourite TV show (Doctor Who, like you didn’t know that) 28 days away, it’s pretty much confirmed that this holiday will be awesome.
Last Friday the awesomeness started when my mum and I went to London for a pretty eventful day. [Read more…] about An Eventful Day To Shakespeare’s Globe
Not as big an event as in Glasgow but Hillwood College Sports Day for the Nursery and Playgroup was great fun.
We knew we were to be invited but when the invitation came it specified us as “special guests” and that, before the prizes were distributed the special guests would make a speech. We thought we had better try to speak in Sinhala. How would you do it? [Read more…] about Commonwealth Games In Kandy
Anuradhapura is about 100 miles from Kandy. On our travels, Bernard, our driver, advised us that we passed through the best area in Sri Lanka for mango.
He sampled a few before advising us which to buy at 12p each. The farmers are keen to sell at the roadside stalls. If they sell wholesale they get only 2.5p each. Six weeks later the season was almost over and the price was 25p each. Never mind, they are still very good. [Read more…] about Life On The Road
The ubiquitous tuk-tuk makes Asia work. Just a motorised Rickshaw, a driver, a bench seat for 2 passengers and an engine. No doors, no safety belts, no baggage space, no in car entertainments but what a lot of fun.
The warm air blows around you, when stuck in traffic you can strike up a conversation with the people in the tuk tuk alongside you. [Read more…] about Tuk-tuk: My Transport Of Delight
No, not Orlando Gibbons’ anthem of John the Baptist, but another John who served his community in Sri Lanka for 15 years and what happened to him next.
Who was John?
Three cities, Kandy, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa form the three angles of the Cutural Triangle.
Kandy has Temple of The Tooth, Anuradhapura is the site of an ancient kingdom dating back to 600 BC and is the site of arrival of Buddhism about 200 years BC. [Read more…] about The Cultural Triangle Of Sri Lanka
“…That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England…”
(Poem by Rupert Brooke)
A heavy tropical rainfall had snarled-up the traffic on the road so my driver took an unfamiliar detour. The narrow road twisted and turned alongside the river and was hemmed in by jungle trees and elephant grass. [Read more…] about There’s Some Corner Of A Foreign Field
Sri Lanka is not a place for haute cuisine but if you enjoy fresh and exotic fruits and the complex favours of curries you will be happy with the culinary experience.
Thanks to a homesick Victorian Scottish tea estate manager, there are all the familiar European vegetables grown in the highland area around Nuwara Eliya where the climate, at 5000 feet above sea level is similar to UK. [Read more…] about Sri Lankan Food
This was a big wedding even by Sri Lankan standards.
Some 480 guest met to celebrate the nuptials of Pavithi Weerasinghe with Udara Rajanayake, both physics graduates from the University of Peradeniya. [Read more…] about Sri Lankan Wedding
My wife Lyn and I worked at Glastonbury for a charity called Festival Medical Services (FMS). I worked as a driver and Lyn a first aider.
FMS are responsible for providing medical services ranging from first-aid and paramedic to surgery and psychiatry. [Read more…] about Glastonbury 2014 Ramblings
While in Sri Lanka, quite by chance we came across a party of ex-pats calling themselves the ‘Discovery’ group. They meet once a month and go off to explore a hidden part of Sri Lanka. Hidden to tourists and even most Sri Lankans that is.
Today a convoy of 6 vehicles left Kandy for the south and we soon turned off the main road to an un-named village in the jungle.
What does community mean to you? A trip to Pirbright village in Surrey revealed a connected community.
At the Pirbright Scarecrow Festival last weekend, the Pirbright Historians had a brilliant display of local family history and the Pirbright history during WW1. [Read more…] about The Pirbright Historians
I had never seen so many scarecrows in my life. I had a tour of medieval and modern history through scarecrows in Pirbright village in Surrey last weekend.
The scarecrows in the Pirbright Church (St Michael & All Angels) portraying the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket were so real that the atmosphere was rather eerie. [Read more…] about Pirbright Scarecrow Festival Highlights
Mum and I were in the car yesterday listening to Shakespeare (we were going somewhere, we weren’t just sitting in the car), and she asked “What episode of history is this play based on?”
This led me to think of a TV show where every episode is based off an important event in history. So here we go… [Read more…] about History: The TV Show
Sunday morning in Kandy, Sri Lanka, time to walk out around the lake looking smart, long trousers of course; only tourists wear shorts. On an energetic day we walk to town but this means braving ‘The Tunnel’.
The tunnel is dark, damp and has deep drainage channels on both sides. Water drips from the roof and there is barely room for pedestrians and cars. [Read more…] about Kandy Lake vs Chandler’s Ford Lakes
During my time at Southampton General Hospital we always had a junior doctor from Sri Lanka in training. Some of them worked with me and many became friends.
After retirement my wife and I decided to go and live in another culture for a while; Sri Lanka was the obvious choice. What was it like? What happened to us? What are the differences compared with Chandler’s Ford? Here are a series of blog posts for anyone interested. [Read more…] about Dispatches From Sri Lanka
Two years ago there was a Scarecrow Festival in Chandler’s Ford, at St. Boniface church.
I always thought scarecrows only existed in children’s stories or places like Midsomer where DCI Tom Barnaby (or DCI John Barnaby) ran around solving triple murders in the quaint English village. I’m not sure why, but I’m pretty scared of scarecrows. [Read more…] about Pirbright Scarecrow Festival
Today my mum was upset because our cat Billy has caused some problems in the neighbourhood. Billy keeps running away and stealing food.
I told my mum not to be worried as cats are wild and impossible to properly train. This reminds me of a blog post I wrote 2 years ago when I was 11 years old. [Read more…] about The Psycology of Cats
The head of my department at the University took on two foreign students but he did not have the patience to supervise them. He wondered how the young, green lecturer would cope. I came to be supervisor of two Egyptian men ‘of mature years’ as it is quaintly put. That is, older than most students reading for higher degrees.
It took them a while to overcome the culture shock and get their English up to a reasonable standard. [Read more…] about Immigrants
