It was in September 2019 that my relationship to other fans of the TV show, “Doc Martin,” and my life changed. I had already joined several Facebook groups, “Doc Martin (Martin Clunes) Fan Club,” “Doc Martin Fans,” “Season 9 and 10 Doc Martin Spoilers” etc. and was happy to see other people’s posts about the… Read More Doc Martin fans — Reunion!
It was bad enough that the total flying time from Honolulu to London was 15 hours, plus a 2-1/2 hour layover in San Francisco. On Thursday morning, I got up at 5:00 am to be ready for a morning flight to SFO, and arrived the next day about 1:00 pm London time—watching two movies and… Read More Sleepless in the U.K.
From time to time, I have mentioned the name of my Swiss friend, Vreni Griffith. I first noticed her unusual name when I used to stick name labels on our music mailings for the Lutheran Church of Honolulu—that was probably in the early 90s. I later found out “Vreni” was a shortened version of “Varena”… Read More ¡Muchísimas gracias!
Since I can’t travel to Europe at this time, I’m continuing the long process of updating my old posts to relink the photos, a time-consuming task but one which is bringing back many wonderful memories. In many cases, I’m adding even more pictures to those I had posted previously. Luckily, every one of my 43,000… Read More Armchair traveling
If you are a Facebook user, from time to time you will be reminded by your past in a feature called “On this day.” I was reminded of Christmas 2009 when this post from 11 years ago popped up: And just for fun, I called up the music list of all the music we performed… Read More Remembrance of Christmas past
Since it was our last day in France, we decided to go for one more adventure — to see the cathedral in Orléans, about 64 miles from our hotel in Tours. We checked out of the hotel, ate a quick breakfast and were on our way by 8:40 am. Then the fun began. Always when… Read More Orléans Cathedral and Tarte Tatin
The weather was absolutely gorgeous when we woke up this morning with clear blue skies and a light breeze — just perfect. We had quite a long metro ride into town, including two transfers, but emerged from the subway to see the vaulted back of St Eustache straight ahead. It, like many of the churches… Read More Spectacular St Eustache and Cité de la Musique
We packed our bags and checked out of the hotel before spending the morning at McDonald’s. Our final concert was two more Graupner and Bach cantatas, again sung with stellar soloists, Dorothee Mields, Damien Guillon and Peter Kooij. The chorus was just 12 singers, as before, and Carl says this is the ideal number for… Read More Bach to Paris — a comedy of errors!
We started out our day at the local McDonald’s (!) only for coffee and internet access. We were unwilling to pay the $10/hr the hotel was charging, so our access to the internet has been very catch-as-catch-can in cafes. I must say, though, the McDonald’s here in Saintes is very upscale, and nicer than any… Read More Our last full day in Saintes
Up to now, we have enjoyed having our days free with the major concerts happening at night. That has left us time to do some exploring of some of the cities around Saintes. I’ve already written about our day trips to Cognac, La Rochelle and Bordeaux. I’ve been very drawn to the beautiful countryside here,… Read More Great artists, great people