Prior to the great nose adventure, there was a great outdoors adventure in the Abruzzo National Park. We drove up last Saturday, and coming down the pass from Gioia di Marsi I remarked to myself that the trees seemed to have a wonderful pinky brown tint to their leaves. And that seemed distinctly od...

To England, for a long weekend, and as the plane dropped down towards Birmingham it was plain that people had been right when they told me that this was an extraordinary spring. The hedgerows were white with may blossom, thick and dense, as if it were in fact snowy January. But the fields, even from...

My, but the demands of a loyal readership, no matter how small, can be incessant. I know I haven't been posting here as often as I might. I feel bad about that. Part of the reason -- no excuses mind -- is that I have not done anything very exciting (or even interesting) lately that wasn't also a bit...

Does any other flower have the power to fill the night and day like orange blossom? Rhetorical, of course. But lately some of the orange and lemon trees in the streets around have come into bloom, and it is almost unbearable. Even the little ones on my terrace are in on the act, though their blooms aren't quite plentiful to perfume the air for metres around.

I had a "business" meeting in the city, so I parked where I always do, not quite in the middle of the road because it is a big old square with loads of dead space around the corners. Not at the kerb though either. But definitely not in anybody's way. None of us -- there were half a dozen cars in the...