PEDDARS WAY – late April 2016  DAY ONE It’s not obvious from the road, the start of the Peddars Way.   We whiz past it, then drive back and get out of the car and see the signpost – Icknield Way to south, Peddars Way north.  So cheerio to Mike (thank you Mike!) and off we set.  The Peddars Way is a Roman road, marching from the middle of Norfolk near Thetford to the edge of the Wash.  I don’t know what they called it, but by Tudor times it got its present name, presumably from the latin pedes, foot.  Ann has arranged where we stay, and for the transfer of our bags by...

  The serenity of temples in Thailand, their sense of happiness!   Buddha is the focus, like the cross in a church.  He may be bronze and shining, green glass or jade, or brick covered with stucco, or painted gold.  He’s duplicated many times, and surrounded by  male followers.  He’s curiously androgynous.  If you look at him with his rounded visage and body, his swelling breasts and slim waist, his hair in a topknot, you can imagine him as a capable headmistress, firm but kind, sympathetic but very much in charge.  (There’s something androgynous about all charismatic figures,...

These Buddhist temples glitter like a fairground mirrors.  Gold everywhere.  They are fun – they’re holy but there’s also jolliness, unlike the basic sadness of Christianity and its churches.  The roofs of the main vihara or preaching hall are orange edged with blackest blue and yellow tiles, and they are not straightforward; they look as if a smaller temple has been built over by a later temple, and then a further temple, all overlapping like a house of cards.  This lets in the breeze but keeps out the rain?  All traditional buildings have this complex format. At the centre of the wat...

Just catch someone’s eye, even a passing motor cyclist, and they smile.  Westerners scowl.    This may be partly the weather, weeks of cold rain freezing faces into disappointment.   We fly from Heathrow.  The relief of getting in the plane and sitting down.  The man in front of me has biceps tattooed with a glaring skull.  The plane bumpily trundles along, trying to get up speed, it’s not going to make it then miraculously it rises and we are off.  By night we are flying over the snowy mountains of Asia, and at a dawn of khaki and rose we are over Burma, with dazzling gold domes and...

January 3rd. Wet and warm. Rains every day. Since I have had my cataracts lasered off I can actually see! And drops do not dribble down or mist up my specs because I don’t wear them. Best, I can see the row of hellebores among emergent bluebells along the narrow path to the gate – already out at the end of December. Most are still pearls hugging the earth, but one is fully out, petals with coarse maroon flecks and, another, most precious of all because it is self-sown and therefore like nothing else and totally mine, is one which is palest shell pink with a delicate dusting of freckles. ...