Hazel’s birthday this month gave us a good excuse to re-visit Bruges for a nice change of scenery, even if we did get snow! In addition to our normal long walks round the inner city (and some bars of course) the cold gave us reason to visit some galleries and displays, such as the amazing […]

On the cover page of my book Ice to Athelstan, a small crown sits above the ‘A’ of Athelstan. This is picked  up in the strapline at the foot of the page, which refers to Athelstan as ‘England’s first Crowned King.’  This raises at least three questions: what makes a king; did England exist at

Loki, shown here in Kelly’s photo, is now 18 in human years. She is thus very much my senior in cat years, and in this post she represents the animal kingdom going back to one of the earliest comments on my book when my friend Richard said: ‘I read the first few chapters of your

The book is now out – and five of these six sold yesterday!  Some events coming up in Thame and surrounds with details to follow. 

History can help us make sense of traditions that have their roots in the past but have become something rather different over the ages. And this massive spider in a small front garden in Whitstable on the Kent coast got me thinking about why we associate spiders with Halloween. The name itself is a contraction

A couple of days after our Dover Castle visit, we drove east along the north Kent coast, beyond Herne Bay, to Reculver Towers. Quite apart from the stunning remains, the site itself has a rich history. Just as the Pharos lighthouse at Dover (see previous post) highlights the Romans’ wish to keep a watch over

One thing that fascinates me about our history is how it ‘fits together’ and underlies our present. That’s why Ice to Athelstan – The Emergence of England, and hopefully its sequels, seeks to follow the landscape and the visible signs of history that remain accessible today. One such area is Dover at the far south-east