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Shakespeare-Bill Bryson/Book Review
I was watching the programme ‘Antiques Roadshow’ this evening, and an interesting item was discussed; a little booklet written by an anonymous writer during Elizabethan times. It was extremely valuable, mainly because it contemporaneously mentions quotes from many Shakespeare plays; valuable to scholars of the playwright and the times he lived in, as such documents are in short supply. This in turn made me think about a book I have read more than once, by Bill Bryson, called ‘Shakespeare’. The book emphasises the fact that very little is known about William Shakespeare, what he looked like, his personality or his childhood. Bryson has written a very clever book here, discussing evidence that has been…
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Blogger Shout Outs!
I had a bit of time on my hands a couple of weeks ago, and I decided to post a tweet declaring that I would comment and share all blog links that were published on the thread. I thought I’d get around 30. I was pleasantly surprised to notice that in the next 24 hours I had received 190 or thereabouts. I’d made a promise, and I fulfilled it. I thought it would take me quite a while to visit that amount of blogs. It took around 2 weeks, which I think was good going. It served many great purposes too. I have accumulated a wealth of new ideas and…
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Skills to Aid a Successful Relationship
I’ve not had good experiences in my life over the years to be frank when it comes to relationships. I was in a marriage that was incredibly painful and mentally cruel. A few relationships that were, what I’d call plodding, not really getting anywhere. It could be me, it may be, or I probably have just never clicked with the right person. I’m in a good place now. I live alone. I enjoy making decisions based on my own choices and values, and I no longer feel guilty for it. That I feel will always be me , but then again if I met someone that inspired me , I…
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Lockdown Poem
I was sitting reflecting on my Lockdown (Yes, I’m in it! My town is still in it!) and the stuff I’ve been up to since the 3rd week of March, 2020. I have now reached the point of no return I think. I must have walked my dog about 13,000 miles, baked enough cakes to fatten me up for the next 50 years and sanded enough wood to cover me in a haze of dust 1 metre thick. And now I’ve become irritated to the extreme and have begun to swear at the most trivial things. And what makes it extremely challenging, is that the rest of the country are…
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Lesson of the Day / Car Park Vexation
I lose my car all the time! Yesterday I was panic stricken with it, wandering up and down examining rows and rows of cars, the majority of them the same colour as mine and made a mental note, upon finding it, to never let myself go through this trauma again. Apparently, I am not the only one that experiences this – many friends of mine have this same problem, and it’s quite humorous to observe that you will see countless souls wandering around looking as lost as I do. You might be thinking that only an idiot would overlook the simple process of noting where they left their own car,…
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Pip’s Beef Cannelloni
My children have never been particularly forthcoming with praise in regard to anything that requires cooking on a hob or in the oven. This Cannelloni, (I never knew how hard it was to spell this pesky word, 3 n’s and 2 l’s) brings out utterances of pure pleasure from them. Which is saying something, because they are usually monosyllabic until around 5 pm. Drum roll….. Ingredients: 1 tablespoon of oil 400g beef mince 1 large onion 2 garlic cloves 2, 500g cartons or jars of passata 1 dessert spoon of sugar dried cannelloni tubes to line your dish Topping: 50g butter or margarine 50 g plain flour 600ml milk 140g…
