Mead fit for a king
‘Turbulent old time, the 17th century. It was the age of characters like Cardinal Richelieu and the Duke of Buckingham; of Oliver Cromwell, Galileo and Guy Fawkes; of civil war,…
No place like home
I’ve fluked some grand assignments in my time, but there’s nothing quite like writing about home. I moved up to North Yorkshire full-time three and a half years ago, but…
Faces from the past
When I moved north, most of the stuff from my London flat went into a lockup in Scarborough. It was a temporary measure to begin with, but life developments since…
Century-old life advice
I came across an interesting object while I was ferreting through a box of memorabilia just now. It’s a letter, sent exactly 99 years ago, by my great-grandfather to his…
The Zillertal Alps with Peter Habeler
The Ramblers always give me the best jobs. First there was Bavaria, then the Dolomites, then Matt, the editor, got in touch asking if I might fancy going to the…
The Pennine Way
The reason we had trouble finding the entrance to our campsite was because you had to go through a working scrapyard. As you emerged from the piles of crumpled Mondeos…
Destination: Dolomites
A few months back I was lucky enough to be thrown a last-minute gig by Matt at walk magazine, writing about a week-long walking holiday in the Italian Dolomites. It…
Sunset raids on the North Sea
It’s been an unusual summer. Apart from a couple of wonderful weeks tramping the Pennine Way with the brother and the dog (more of that to come), I seem to…
A quick jaunt up to Weardale
Among the ever-expanding collection of schemes scrawled into my notebook in the past year, one was to become better acquainted with the North Pennines. It’s an area that’s intrigued me…
Upcoming articles in Ernest journal
It’s been a quiet time on the blog recently. Partly it’s because work has picked up a bit, so some of the stuff I might have blogged about has found…
