Month: August 2026

For some months now I have been bothered by the barking of dogs near my home. I sometimes wonder whether their owners realise just how intrusive persistent barking can be, particularly in what is normally a peaceful part of Midsomer Norton. There are two dogs in particular that bark at me on sight whenever I walk down the road. There is another that apparently spots me through the curtains and...

Thoreau and the Art of Stepping Away On July 4, 1845, while America celebrated its independence, 28-year-old Harvard graduate Henry David Thoreau walked into the woods outside Concord, Massachusetts, and began an experiment that would change how we think about living. He built a small cabin near Walden Pond, planted beans, chopped wood and kept a journal. He stayed for two years, two months and...

We drove around today visiting Poundbury, a town created by Prince Charles. More of that later.  On our return we passed by Castle Carey and visited the museum The visit to Castle Cary Museum provided a lively introduction to the history and character of the town, from prehistoric times through to the present day. The museum itself is deliberately traditional — more a “cabinet of curiosities”...

I know people who ‘read’ enormously, book for book, letter for letter, yet whom I would not describe as ‘well-read.’ True, they possess a mass of ‘knowledge,’ but their brain is unable to organize and register the material they have taken in. They lack the art of sifting what is valuable for them in a book from that which is without value, of retaining the one forever, and, if possible, not even...