4 August 2024

     Well, after many years, decades even, of trying to learn the piano, I am happy report real progress.  During the last year I have been trying a different approach from a book found in a random meander in a bookshop and a lucky find in a second hand bookshop.  An adult piano course complemented …

Back to Normal!

With much excitement, I was back at the Norman Lockyer Observatory yesterday evening to help show around a group of 20 young Beavers anc cubs and their helpers. It was a real joy to be talking about the Lockyer telescope and enthusing the group about the achievements of Sir Norman. To add to the excitement, …

January Blues

Last Monday was Blue Monday apparently...yet that was the day I felt ready to begin the new year. The mornings are becoming lighter and we are past the Christmas and New Year disruption. The news is dominated by the post office debacle and the beginnings of electioneering. I drafted out a diagram illustrating the problems with the post …

Sat 6 January

Twelfth Night is a day of mayhem and madness and the first glimmers of the mornings becoming lighter.  And the first stirrings of the new year getting properly underway with the putting away of Christmas decorations. What are my hopes for the new year?  I would love to see more non-fiction, especially popular science on …

Blue Moon

There has been a lot of fuss in the press regarding the blue supermoon...and rightly so! The Moon is a fascinating object and an easy objec to get anyone interested in space and astronomy. I was fortunate to be interviewed on Radio Devon which gave me an opportunity of explaining the phenomenon. When there are …

New Year’s Day 2024

I enter the new year bemused by the reporting of global celebrations as we leave 2023 with wars, cost of living crises, and much uncertainty with forthcoming elections. The increasing commercialisation of bank holidays concerns me as there is always such a build up to Christmas Day with shoppers filling high streets...and then again on Boxing …

w/e 17 September

The week began and ended with a concert to raise funds for Ukraine and a school in Uganda.  I described the earlier concert in my previous notes, with the latter a reprise of the first.  And no less delightful.  In fact, more so, as the pianist was able to use a grand piano rather than …