Archive for the ‘My life & thoughts’ Category


A whole day looking after my baby granddaughter

June 17th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

My new granddaughter Catrin is now exactly five months old. I’ve seen her most weeks, but usually just for a couple of hours when I’ve often taken her out in her pram or more latterly buggy. On two evenings, I have babysat with her to allow her parents to go out together. This week marked […]

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A sleepy day in Abingdon

June 12th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

This weekend, Vee and I made one of our regular trips to see our Chinese ‘family’: Zhihao & Hua and their four-year old son Joshua. They have just moved from Oxford to Abingdon and this was the first time that we had visited their new home. Kung Fu Panda (aka Roger) with an ‘angry’ little […]

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Baby Catrin: progress report (10)

June 11th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

Although a lot of times, I write on this blog about weighty political issues, I know that some of NightHawk’s readers are much more interested in what’s happening to my granddaughter Catrin. Well, she’s almost five months old now and continues to do really well. Since she was born, I’ve managed to see her almost […]

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A weekend visit to our Czech mates: day 2

June 7th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

The reason for our visit to the Czech Republic this time was to attend the second day of an air display at Pardubice where Vee would be awarded a medal to commemorate the wartime exploits of her Czech father Karel Kuttelwascher.  Now Pardubice is 58 miles (94 kms) east of Prague and the organisers had […]

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A weekend visit to our Czech mates: day 1

June 6th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

It’s two years since I’ve been to Prague [my blog posting here], but this weekend I made my 23rd visit in as many years [my notes on city here]. The reason for all these trips is partly that my wife Vee is half Czech and her father was a famous wartime night fighter ace [brief […]

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Oh, what a delicious mess

May 28th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

I do love my desserts as I’ve explained here. This evening, I had dinner with friends and concluded with a dish with the delightful name of Eton mess. In fact, our friend Nina also had the Eton mess but only ate half of it – so I finished her mess as well. We are dinner […]

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How to reduce the risk of a heart disease

May 26th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

For three months in early 2009, I took part in an international trial of something called the “polypill” to test its efficacy in combating heart disease. The pill contains aspirin 75 mg, simvastatin 20 mg, lisinopril 10 mg and hydrochlorothiazide 12.5 mg. I blogged regularly about my experience with a concluding post here. The result […]

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Time with American friends in Dover

May 21st, 2011 by Roger Darlington

The trouble with having friends all around the world is that I don’t see some of them for many years at a time. This is the case with our American friends Michael & Laura Grace who live between Washington DC and Baltimore. So, when we heard that they would be doing a trans-Atlantic cruise that […]

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Baby Catrin: progress report (9)

May 20th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

This week, I had another opportunity to check in on my beautiful granddaughter Catrin who is now four months old. She’s started to teeth and sometimes in distress, poor thing. It was another ‘daddy day’ and daddy was pretty tired, so I took Catrin out for a hour and a half to give daddy the […]

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How diverse is your community?

May 19th, 2011 by Roger Darlington

The UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) has just published new population estimates by ethnic group for England & Wales. The “Guardian” newspaper has an article on the subject which includes access to an interactive map. The headline message is that,  of the 54 million people in England and Wales, the non-white British population has […]

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