To Bee or not to Bee
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookIf you went down to our woods eight years ago you’d have heard and seen ten beehives amongst the birches. […]
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Blog, Features, Articles
Mud and Massacre: Verdun 100 years on
Blog, Features, Articles, FranceFrance and Germany come together today, 29th May 2016, at Verdun to commemorate the centenary of the longest and one
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May Day, rickets, and the Forêt de Brotonne
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookOn May the 1st we took to the woods. If you go down a track in the Forêt de Brotonne
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Kotzebue(ty) in Alaska
Alaska, Blog, Features, ArticlesIt was the 4th of July and we were in the Iñupiat town of Kotzebue, the largest community in Northwest Alaska. Kotzebue is on the Chukchi Sea north of the Bering Sea and opposite Russia, some 50 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. Before the Europeans came it was a major Arctic trading port between the Russians and the Iñupiat Eskimos who traded in fur, skins and seal-oil, and later in gold. Trade increased with the arrival of the whale boats and missionaries.
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Paris a rival for London, Berlin? Les folies de grandeur
Blog, Features, Articles, FranceThe titanic operations to create ‘Grand Paris’ are under way. From now until 2030, a huge new rail infrastructure around Paris linking the suburbs, together with seven new economic ‘clusters’, will be born – – or rather laboured into a very slow birth. Cost: 3 billion euros.
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A Whale of a Time
Alaska, Blog, Features, ArticlesBarrow Whaling Festival: the Nalukataq The fog stretched out like a grey pall beneath us. Visibility was nil; we were
Independent People: Iceland, Fire and (pr)ice
Blog, Features, Articles, Iceland“The love of freedom and independence has always been characteristic of the Icelandic People.” Independent People, by Halldor Laxness, Nobel
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Iceland’s geothermal standard
Blog, Features, Articles, IcelandAfter visiting the geothermal glasshouses in Flúðir, Iceland, and hearing about rising electricity costs despite all the waterfalls and geothermal
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Whaling, ancient and modern
Alaska, Blog, Features, ArticlesMany are familiar with paintings and sketches of men in open boats on high waves hurling harpoons at giant whales.
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Doctor Who?
Blog, Features, Articles, FranceThe medical face of France is changing. General Practitioners are rolling up their stethoscopes. France, known throughout the world for
Leprosy and La Chapelle Saint Thomas
Blog, Features, Articles, France, Normandy NotebookThe small Leper colony in the woods down the hill with its Saint Thomas Chapel dates back to the 12th Century. We have been coming here on our walks for the last 15 years. It is surrounded by a high flint wall now taken over by the rampant vegetation.
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An Orthodox Tlingit in Alaska
Alaska, Blog, Features, ArticlesWe were sitting on the steps of an orthodox church, its gold-tipped dome shimmering like a glorious crown in the
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