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Final Day

We commenced with a tour of  the Vatican Gardens. This had to be conducted by a Vatican guide, a friendly Italian blonde woman with much cosmetic surgery. It was raining heavily and the group looked rather disconsolate. The garden tour took far too long which made the final part ending in the St [...]

February 28, 2016 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard: Day Three

The meal at the Mirabelle restaurant of the Hotel Splendie Royale was sensational. It countered my theory of beware the restaurant with panoramic views. Our table was situated by a terrace that overlooked the Borghese Gardesns. Stefano was an exquisite host. Why does he have to be gay!!!? I had the [...]

February 27, 2016 // 0 Comments

Day One

From a commercial point of view it seems to me that the new owner of the Sir Christopher Wren hotel has a difficult decision. An old main building needs expensive refurbishment which you would do out of season but with less revenues from bookings or events. Still it was convenient for Heathrow and [...]

February 25, 2016 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard: all aboard

  The National Rust travelling quartet of Bob Tickler, Alice Mansfield, Nancy Bright Thompson and myself are Rome bound for a short tour of Michelangelo’s works in the Eternal City in which our very own Stefano is one of the lecturers. Because of an early flight from Heathrow today we [...]

February 24, 2016 // 0 Comments

A trip to the West End

Yesterday I travelled by train and then the Tube into central London to attend a reunion, a thing I rarely do these days – travelling to that part of the metropolis I mean, not so much the reunion. The occasion was a quarterly lunch that we’ve informally arranged – one of those inherently [...]

February 4, 2016 // 0 Comments

A la Colthard

Thanks to the good offices of Bob we were upgraded to first class but I can’t say I was overly impressed. BA is over categorised: first, premium, club world, world traveller and standard. I was told that first class provided a 6 foot bed with a hostess each side which no doubt was behind [...]

January 9, 2016 // 0 Comments

A visit to the Vineyard

On the last full day of the tour Allan Lamb had organised a visit to the Welbedacht  Vineyards in Wellington, a 90 minute drive away. These vineyards normally have a restaurant and wine tasting areas with breathtaking views and this was no exception. See here for a link to their website – [...]

January 8, 2016 // 0 Comments

Second day/ a la Colthard

I too was pleased to  be the vocalist of the National Rust jazz touring quartet. My last visit to Cape Town was seven years ago and I was interested to see how tourism has fared post-Mandela. I certainly endorsed Bob’s critique of business travel and the price charged, £3500, for a return [...]

January 1, 2016 // 0 Comments

Day One/ National Rust Tour to South Africa

I felt honoured to make up the quartet of National Rusters going to Cape Town – with Daphne Colthard, Tom Hollingworth and Douglas Heath – to cover the second test and give our impressions sporting and otherwise of the rainbow nation. This is my fifth visit to South Africa, my first [...]

December 31, 2015 // 0 Comments

Peake of achievement

Yesterday, almost by chance, I watched the take-off of the Russian spacecraft from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan that took with it the European Space agency British astronaut Major Tim Peake to a rendezvous with the International Space Station. I had been out shopping and, upon returning, [...]

December 16, 2015 // 0 Comments

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