Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category
Holiday in Sri Lanka (5): the road to the hill country
May 14th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Today (Sunday) was very much a travelling day and, boy, did we travel. At 8.30 am, we left our hotel outside Yala National Park and beside the rolling waves of the Indian Ocean. We headed due north, originally on a straight road but then on a steeply winding road that rose higher and higher and […]
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Holiday in Sri Lanka (4): Yala
May 13th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
We all woke tired today (Saturday) because of a broken night’s sleep, mainly because at 4.30 am there were very loud broadcasts of religious chanting from local Hindu temples followed by miscellaneous but similarly disruptive animal noises. However, we paid our bills to a delightful gentleman who seemed to have walked straight off the set […]
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Holiday in Sri Lanka (3): Columbo and Galle
May 12th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
On number of group holidays that I have enjoyed, the arrival point in the country is not really on the tour as such. This was the case with Johannesburg in South Africa and San Jose in Costa Rica. So it proved on this holiday with Colombo being the subject of just a very quick drive-around. […]
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Holiday in Sri Lanka (2): arrival
May 11th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
As we boarded the Sri Lankan Airlines aircraft at London Heathrow, an air hostess welcomed us with palms pressed together and announced “Ayubowan” (“May you have long life”). Our Airbus A300-300 took off at 10.05 pm on a nighttime flight which lasted exactly 10 hours. Since the time in Sri Lanka is currently four and […]
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Holiday in Sri Lanka (1): introduction
May 10th, 2017 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 69 next month and my latest holiday is to my 70th country: the island of Sri Lanka. It is a two-week organised tour with […]
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Remembering one of the most magical days of my life
April 10th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I was saddened to read a report in today’s “Guardian” that explains that, following massive bleaching events in both 2016 and 2017, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is severely damaged along two-thirds of its length and has entered a “terminal stage”. Four years ago, I was fortunate enough to spend a day at the Great Barrier […]
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How many films have you seen?
April 7th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Since childhood, I have been a massive movie fan and, since the age of 13, I’ve kept a diary which includes a record of every film that I’ve seen at the cinema, on rental, or on television (I’m a man – I like counting things!). I’ve just reached the grand total of 2,500. With luck, […]
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From Kathmandu to London
March 25th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
I had a very leisurely lunch today (around three hours) in a Moroccan restaurant called “Sidi Maarouf” on Edgware Road in central London.. I was with my young friend Alexei who is ethnically Russian, was brought up in Moldova, and now lives in Germany. He is such a bright and thoughtful man with a couple […]
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At last, I again have a main computer that works
March 23rd, 2017 by Roger Darlington
You may have read earlier about my travails with my Mac Mini in this blog posting. I can now report that, after two visits from techie friends, two long calls to Mac support experts, two visits to an Authorised Service Provider, two hundred pounds in payments and two weeks with no main computer, my Mac […]
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What do you do when your computer crashes?
March 18th, 2017 by Roger Darlington
Anyone who knows me in the real or the virtual world appreciates that both personally and professionally I depend massively on being connected to the Internet. So, if there is one thing which is guaranteed to raise my stress levels, it is a problem with IT. Five and a half years ago, I switched from […]
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