This essay was partly written in August 2020 before a likely relocation to Switzerland and was intended to be an account of my previous 6 months in Thailand as the world faced the challenges of a global pandemic.

As it happened I remained in Pattaya a further two months where I was largely distracted by some work challenges in the UK, and in Thailand until mid December although much of my last seven weeks was spent on three road trips visiting different parts of ‘the Land of Smiles.’ Continue reading →

Coming soon March – April 2022

The famed Golden Triangle is a region of Northern Thailand close to Myanmar and Laos.

Like most regions it is not delineated by lines on a map but is an area associated with a way of life or historical events. In a similar manner you will find no lines on a map marking America’s ‘Rust Belt’ or the ‘Midwest’, England’s ‘Wessex’ or the ‘Scottish Highlands’ but everyone knows where they are there because of either a distinct way of life or an association with past events. Continue reading →

Coming soon March – April 2022

My Canadian nephew Daniel recently stayed with me in Mürren, Switzerland for 12 nights. It was his fifth visit, as he first stayed with us when he was 9, again at 18 not long before we climbed Kilimanjaro with our daughter Lisa. He returned again when he was 23 and 29. I think we worked out he had spent almost two months in Mürren, although his father and my brother-in-law Wayne has yet to make a visit! Continue reading →

I have had a close affinity with Canada for over half of my life, being married in British Columbia, or more specifically in New Westminster, either an independent town (or small city as defined in Canada) or a suburb of Vancouver, depending on your viewpoint. Continue reading →

At the age of 69 I had considered that my days of Himalayan trekking were long since past  so how did November 25 2018 find me bouncing around in a minibus heading north from the Nepalese lakeside town of Pokhara to the trailhead at Kande for a 12 day return trek into the magnificent Annapurna Sanctuary? Continue reading →

With the exception of two 12-day trips to Spain and three 48-hour visits back to the UK for minor surgery (and follow up) on my left eye, I consider myself immensely fortunate to have spent most of the period from mid-June to mid-November this year based in the Swiss Alps. Continue reading →

Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal

I am starting this article at Boulogne-Billancourt in the suburbs of Paris just hours after watching Rafael Nadal win the men’s single title at the French Open Tennis Championships for the 11^th time in the last 14 years.

Of all the sports played in the world today I think that tennis has a very strong claim for being the home of not just the world’s most pre-eminent sports personality Roger Federer, but also the sporting world’s two finest exponents of sportsmanship in Federer and his nemesis Rafael Nadal. Continue reading →