Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
China for the New Year (8): more Yichang and more Zigui
February 16th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Today was the Chinese New Year and, on our trip to China, it was very much a day of two halves. The morning was spent in Yichang, mainly in the 22nd floor flat of Hua’s relatives, but we did go for a walk to a local hypermarket which seemed to stock absolutely everything including fruits […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
China for the New Year (7): Yichang and Zigui
February 15th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
I am now half way through my two-week trip to China to coincide with the Chinese New Year and today was New Year’s Eve. The Chinese New Year sees the largest annual mass human migration in the world. China’s Ministry of Transport has estimated that almost three billion individual journeys will be made as part […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
China for the New Year (6): Yichang
February 14th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
After just one night in Hua’s home city of Wuhan, we travelled by train to the smaller city of Yichang where most of Hua’s mother’s relatives live and where we will celebrate the Chinese New Year. When I made this journey in 2010, the station in Wuhan was old and dark and seething with humanity […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (2)
China for the New Year (5): Wuhan
February 13th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
On our two-week trip to China, after three nights in the capital Beijing, we flew – a flight of one hour 40 minutes – to Wuhan, the home town of my Chinese ‘daughter’ Hua. Wuhan is one of the largest cities in the world of which you have never heard. It lies at the intersection […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
China for the New Year (4): more Beijing
February 12th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Still in Beijing, in total contrast to our first night here – when I was awake with jet lag – I slept well. So well in fact that, when my alarm failed to go off at 7.30 am because the battery in the iPhone ran out, I did not wake up until Joshua banged on […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
China for the New Year (3): Beijing
February 11th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
On our first full day in Beijing, we visited two major locations in and around the enormously expansive Tiananmen Square. The security in the square is phenomenal: one can only enter through guarded points where Chinese citizens have their identity cards electronically scanned; at a further security point, all bags are x-rayed; and everywhere there are […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
China for the New Year (2): arrival
February 10th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
My two-week trip to China began with some problematic flights with Air France. Thanks to snow in northern France, our flight from London Heathrow to Paris Clarke de Gaulle was delayed by about three quarters of an hour and we worried if we would make our connecting flight. We did – but only just. Then […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
China for the New Year (1): introduction
February 9th, 2018 by Roger Darlington
Top of my bucket list is the wish – so long as I have reasonable health and adequate wealth – to have visited as many countries as my age. I am currently 69 and I have visited 71 countries. Outside of Europe and the United States, it is unusual for me to visit a country […]
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
A review of the remarkable documentary “Naples ’44”
November 29th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
On Sunday evening, BBC Four broadcast an 80-minute documentary entitled “Naples ’44: A Wartime Diary” [if you’re in Britain, you can find it on iPlayer]. I recorded it and watched it last night and I’m still haunted by it. The documentary has a powerful personal resonance for me because my Italian mother was born in […]
Posted in History, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
The great storm in south-east England in 1987
October 16th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Thirty years ago today, a great storm unexpectedly hit the south-east of England (coincidentally a similar storm is hitting Ireland today and Scotland tomorrow). I’ve kept a daily diary since I was 13 (I’m now 69) and I’ve looked up what I wrote for Friday, 16 October 1987: “I was awakened about 4.30 am by […]
Posted in History, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)