Growing up in 1960s London suburbia my imagination was fired by all I saw and heard about hippies. Their lifestyle, their messages of peace, their long flowing skirts and yes, flowers in their hair. So much more appealing than my bottle green school uniform with its regulation skirts just above the knee!
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After a day with lots of rain in Paris, followed by one with none at all, today’s forecast was for sunshine and showers. We decided on another walk, with the possibility of a couple of small museums for shelter if the rain became too much.
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We enjoyed our first visit to San Francisco back in 1991 so on this California trip included a day there at the start. After some early morning fog we enjoyed a beautifully sunny day, although the clouds descended again briefly in the afternoon, just in time for us to get some atmospheric shots from the viewing area on the north side of the bridge, near Sausalito.
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They say we should never go back. And yes, sometimes when we visit old half-remembered haunts we can be disappointed. They may have changed, and we almost certainly have done so. How pleasing when instead of disappointment we find delight!
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We finished our recent California road trip with a couple of nights in Las Vegas, a city which like New York can claim to ‘never sleep'. I was reminded of this song because we stayed in the New York New York hotel and casino.
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The centre of Cagliari is divided into four districts. While Castello was traditionally the home of the city's nobles, neighbouring Stampace at the foot of the hill was home to its merchants.
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Jean De La Bruyere, French philosopher, said that, 'We come too late to say anything which has not been said already', but I am hopeful that I am better late than never.
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While not exactly stormy, spring this year has definitely been wet and quite often cooler than normal. Yes, there have been odd days when it felt like winter was well behind us, with warm sunshine giving us all a lift. But within a couple of days the clouds had descended, the thermometer dropped, and the rain returned.
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Sitting on the plane that brought us home from Mexico we were congratulating ourselves on our timing. Tomorrow would be the first of March, and spring, we thought, just around the corner. We should have known better! Although in the fairly recent past (most notably the lockdown spring of 2020) we’ve had some wonderful March weather, this time last year I was writing that, ‘With a slow start to the spring this year it’s felt at times as if March was coming in more like a polar bear than a lion!’ And so it was again this year.
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Desmond Morris famously said that, ‘The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo’. Yes, the people make the city, but when it comes to appreciating a city as a whole, rather than its individual streets and buildings (some of which may be beautiful, others less so), nothing beats getting up high.
