"Had we but world enough and time,This coyness, Lady, were no crime,We would sit down, and think, which wayTo walk, and pass our long love's day.Thou by the Indian Ganges' sideShould'st rubies find; I by the tideof Humber would complain."Andrew Marvell, To His Coy Mistress We crossed the Humber bridge mid-morning in October, the sun [...]
It is always an absolute pleasure to drive through drive through Essex. Despite the popular media image of the county, it is heart-achingly beautiful, with it's pretty little villages with chocolate box thatched cottages. Mrs. P and I, along with a couple of young friends of ours, went touring this much overlooked county last summer. [...]
Kirkcudbright, (or 'Kirkubree') is a very picturesque, small fishing town on the South Coast of Galloway in Scotland. Daniel Defoe, when visiting this area in 1778, described it as: ... a pleasant situation, and yet nothing pleasant to be seen. Here is a harbour without ships, a port without trade, a fishery without nets, a [...]
I didn't have very much time to spend in Rugby but I was determined to visit as the little midlands town was home to one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, along with a great deal more literary history, much of it connected to the large public school that dominates the town. We [...]
I've always liked Coventry. I first came here for a work conference at the University of Warwick. A slow afternoon had me catching a bus into town and taking a look around. In the 1940s, Coventry was home to a number of light engineering and armament factories. Between 1940 and 1941 the Luftwaffe attempted to [...]
In which I venture out alone into the Hertfordshire countryside...
In which I discover the hidden gardens of Easton Lodge...
In which I go on a pilgrimage through Bedfordshire to discover John Bunyan...
In which I travel from horses to Horsey.
William Shakespeare, 1564-1616
Literary Britain 