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Get Ready to Dance to African Music at Union Station Friday Night

BUCA from Soweto

Another Collider is on its way, and that’s a good thing for anyone who loves dancing to highly energetic music from Africa, as two great bands are coming to Northampton’s Union Station on Friday night. BCUC , from South Africa, plays fast-paced Soweto stylings and what can be described as  “afrobeat+afropunk+afropsychedelic […]

Letters that Helped Make Me a Man

Letters from Mom and Dad from 40 years ago.

I have kept a box of letters up in a drawer in my office closet for decades. The last time I put a personal letter in that box was when I got a nice note from a writer last year. Pretty much nobody has written personal letters, on stationery, in […]

Christmas Cocktail Party a Super Success

IMG_4873

It’s time for my post-party wrap up and look back. I am very, very happy with how the Christmas Cocktails party worked out for everyone. I sweat and anguish over party details and so often I think that there isn’t enough food, or not enough booze.  The crowd was just […]

A Touching Memory of Christmas Past

yuletide-handshake

It’s a weirdly warm day, balmy and 51 degrees. It’s hardly the type of weather that makes you feel in the Christmas spirit, though it’s still barrelling down at us and will be upon us next Tuesday.  I am excited that after so many years we are having a cocktail […]

Aldi’s Brings Sanity to the Grocery Aisle

aldi

I’m breathing in a sigh of relief…I can just feel how much I am saving by switching supermarkets to Aldis!  For the past seven years, I’ve been forced to shop at the most expensive store in the world–Whole Foods.  And Trader Joe’s was the second store, but both are not […]

A Christmas Party? Oh Yes!

vince-guaraldi

I’m listening to Vince Guaraldi play his signature piano music that goes with the Charlie Brown television specials….old familiar songs played simply on piano with a bass and drum. Nice and spare, and each song languishes just long enough to feel supple and supine at once. We’re planning a Christmas […]

Thanksgiving 2018: At Home with Love

dinner-table

Thanksgiving a day of traditions This year was different than any year I can recall back to 2006.  That’s because we made Thanksgiving dinner and hosted a few family members here with Rachael and her kids.  I had ceded control of the cooking feasting holiday for so many years I […]

I Miss My Truck

1999 Nissan Frontier Truck

Snow is coming.  These days forecasts have gotten so good that when they say 100 percent, yep, we WILL get snow.  So it’s now the week before Thanksgiving, and the radio says we’ll see 4-6 inches, starting around six pm.  My snowblower is securely stowed down at Bill’s farm, wrapped […]

Wallow Takes You to the Farm then to the Sea

Oxford Brown pigs on Guernsey Island.

We had a rendezvous scheduled with a few dozen Oxford Sandy and Black pigs and piglets who live in small Quonset huts on a hillside overlooking the ocean.  Their master is a pair of Guernsey siblings, Nicola Terry and her brother, who together have begun to offer a combination farm […]

Simon Dufty: A Hotelier’s Hotelier

Simon Duffy, Manager of Le Fregate.

Simon Dufty looks the part of the perfect Englishman, except that no man from Jersey would ever call himself English.  For 40 years, this impeccable and unflappable gentleman has worked in the hospitality business, and today he manages the delightful Le Fregate Hotel in St Peter Port Guernsey. On the weekends […]

Guernsey: A Delightful Bailiwick Well Worth Exploring

A small yacht harbor on Guernsey.

Last night I flew from Gatwick to the Bailiwick of Guernsey, and today I got a chance to tour a bunch of fun places on this 24-square mile island.  Though it’s only five miles long, Guernsey doesn’t feel small…there are many beaches that show off wide swaths of odd-looking rocks […]

World Travel Market Brings Out, Well, The World

WTM-35-reasons-to-attend

I learn so much when I come to London for World Travel Market. There is nothing like it, a convention where every country in the world is actively involved and exhibiting. Just about every US state, too, is represented, and preaching to the 51,000 strong throng and the 5000 exhibitors.  […]

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