The Ashmolean Museum rooftop restaurant is the perfect setting to enjoy a selection of Greek-inspired highlights to enjoy to tie in with the LABYRINTH: Knossos, Myth & Reality exhibition until the end of July.
I’ve often thought that the rooftop restaurant on top of the Ashmolean – the world’s oldest museum, no less – occupies the most impressive spot in the city.
Perched high above the Dreaming Spires, within spitting distance of the grand old Randolph Hotel, it’s a dreamy space of blonde wood, fluffy globe lighting & trippy round window holes that’s bright, breezy & rather fabulous, even on a drizzy winter’s day.
So it’s wonderful that the new menu buzzes with Greek pizazz to tie in with the fabulous current exhibition centred on Knossos, especially that mythic beast The Minotaur.
Want to keep reading?
Download the FREE Round & About App to view the full article.
The #1 podcaster & author of bestseller What A Flanker will deliver his debut comedy show at Oxford’s O2 Academy on 16th March
James, the star of The Good, the Bad and the Rugby podcast, is back on the road again with his new stage show Sex, Tries and Videotape.
This show chart James’ journey from his early days as mischievous schoolboy through his time as a professional rugby player, having played around the world including at Wasps, Northampton, Stade Francais, The Ricoh Black Rams, and The Highlanders.
“The idea to do a full tour came about after I did a five-date run and really enjoyed it, basically,” he says. “I’ve had lots of adventures in my career, which was very colourful to say the least. I worked under five different England managers, played in multiple different countries, I’m married to Richard and Judy’s daughter, I’m a DJ and producer, I host multiple different podcasts and obviously I’ve gotten myself into a fair bit of scandal over the years, so there’s quite a lot to talk about I think! So it’s a nice opportunity to entertain people and make them laugh. It’s not meant to be overly serious, but it’s a true reflection on my career, but just focusing on the funny bits!
“A lot of me setting the record straight was done in the book, to be honest. Obviously I’m going to touch on the fact that I’m a new dad, that I live with my in-laws and that I’ve been a victim of the media at times and I’ve caused trouble with them myself at times. So I’m not lecturing, I’m just giving people an idea of what I’m like. The real life stories might be shocking and even unbelievable, but they actually all happened and that’s what I’ll be telling people about.
“I do a lot of speaking and I’ve always been fascinated by comedians, so any time I talk I’m usually trying to make people laugh. There was an opportunity to do this podcast, which would be ten episodes and an eight-minute stand up, then followed by another series of ten and do a 20-minute warm-up for Russel Kane in a comedy club, so I was really keen to do it. It was quite scary, but not completely out of the realm of what I’ve already been doing. Obviously if you’re recording the whole journey, it makes it a bit harder as if you end up failing and you bomb, which happens to all of us at some point, it’s out there for everyone to see, but it’s went really well so far. I’ve just started the second season and it’s been a great adventure, but it’s also been the most nervous I’ve been to do anything for a long time, which makes you feel alive!”
Celebrate the season in the great outdoors at Hill End centre just outside the city
Escape the hullabaloo of Christmas preparations with a day in nature to help you reconnect and chill out at a family forest day at Hill End. The outdoor activities base just outside Oxford city centre has been inviting people to take part in unique outdoor learning experiences for just over 100 years.
And at this chaotic time of year what could be better than releasing in the open air with the chance for children to run free and play games, follow the winter trail as a family, make creative crafts using natural materials and just sit around the campfire and toast marshmallows.
Enjoy the Christmas holiday fun on Tuesday 20th from 1pm to 5pm and on Wednesday 21st from 10am to 2pm.
These self-led open days are just £8.50 per person and include a jacket potato or soup and hot drinks in the Friends of Hill End pop-up café.
The month starts with a fun evening keeping warm by the fire, singing carols and Christmas songs and festive story time on Friday, 2nd December from 4:30pm to 6:30pm.
Tickets, £6 Friends adult member / £3 child and £8 non-Friends / £6 child, include hot drinks, marshmallows and mince pies. Booking essential in advance, visit https://hill-end.org/news/christmas-sing-along/
A visit to Hill End offers visit the opportunity to be closer to nature, with the space and time to explore and appreciate the wonders of the natural environment.
Dr Seema Warner, skin expert & founder of Oxford’s YourSkinStory, explains why a holistic approach will add that vital glow to your skin
Your skin….
It is your barrier to the outside world. Standing up to attack from UV rays, pollution, bacteria, pathogens, dirt and grime and environmental toxins. It’s a powerhouse of immunity making hormones that are important for defence and physically keeping our internal environment of blood, tissues and cells protected. It has the power to change how we feel about ourselves. We wear it every day and if we don’t care for it, it won’t be able to care for us. The power of healthy, beautiful skin goes beyond just a great selfie – although that’s always a bonus!
“The power of healthy, beautiful skin goes beyond just a great selfie – although that’s always a bonus!”
Your skin is unique to you. Holding within it cells responsible for oil production, pigment, cell repair and turnover, as well as its own population of bacteria and microbiota known as your skin microbiome. No one else has skin like yours or receives the same sensory input, external stimuli or nutrition as you do. Which is why it’s so important to treat it individually with a personalised approach that fits into your life and addresses your unique make up. It is yours and yours alone.
We need to stop seeing skin as detached from the rest of our body. It’s very much part of our whole body. Blood flow, lymphatics and nerve cells ensure that there’s a constant connection between our internal environment and that of our skin. If skin care is not integrated, we are not treating our skin fully or adequately. We need to step back and see the whole picture. If you’ve seen the difference a really good night’s sleep can make to your skin, then you’ve already seen the power of integrating skin health care!
Get in touch
If you’ve tried many skin products with no luck or simply don’t know where to start. I’d love to help you find the ideal routine for your skin. Or if you’ve struggled with a skin issue that will not respond to other treatments or are interested in healing from the inside and out, please do get in touch. I run online skin programmes to help you virtually through product, nutrition and lifestyle advice, as well as treatment programmes from my Oxford clinic. I make my advice as practical as possible and personalised to your skin, body and lifestyle so you can put things into practice in a way that makes sense to you. Skin treatments focus on skin health as well as results and emotional well-being to give you whole body results.
New scientific research is emerging every day, with the realisation that we can control our health more than we initially thought. That although we’re born with a specific set of genes, it’s our environment and lifestyle that modify and switch these on or off. And that we’re connected throughout our body with an incredibly sophisticated system that relies on each aspect supporting the other. Each day will bring new elements for your body to manage and so your skin will change to accommodate this. It will tell the story of you and your life. It is your skin story.
Well done to all the wildlife lovers who took part in the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) competition who snapped some beautiful sights at local nature reserves and green spaces and showed how nature can help our mental health
Winning entries include this stunning shot of a buzzard in flight, this pin-sharp picture of a tiny shield bug emerging from a garden flower and a portrait of a pensive kingfisher.
The winner of this year’s children’s category was eight-year-old Roly Lewis from Oxford. The North Hinksey Primary School pupil took his fantastic photo of a shield bug, poking its head out of a flower in his own front garden.
Roly said: “I wanted to enter the competition, so I took lots of wildlife pictures all spring and summer. I thought this photo was my best one because the blossom was a nice background, and the shield bug had an amazing colour and pattern. This made me look closely at shield bugs which are really amazing. My mum told me I had won when I came out of school, and I was so excited I jumped up and down. I really wanted to win but I thought there would be so many good photos that I wouldn’t.”
Children Winner – Roly Lewis (8) (Sheildbug)Children Runner Up – Hayden Denham (7) (Hummingbird Hawkmoth)
The Wildlife Trust restarted its popular photo competition this summer after a three-year break because of the pandemic. The charity, which manages more than 80 nature reserves across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, challenged everyone aged six and over to take fantastic photos of plants, animals and fungi at its sites, or to capture action for wildlife in their local area.
Roy McDonald took first place with his crystal-clear shot of a buzzard in mid-air at the Trust’s College Lake reserve near Tring. The 45-year-old former courier driver from Berkhamstead revealed after winning the contest that he has struggled with his mental health for some years, and that wildlife photography had helped. He said: “Nature helps me so much, it’s honest and calming and it doesn’t judge you, and just sometimes, if you are calm and patient, it will allow you to get up close into their world. I always take great pleasure when a creature trusts you enough to not scurry or fly away. But you don’t have to take photos: just being in nature and observing it can give you something to focus on.
“I had my encounter with a majestic buzzard on a cold and beautiful winter day. I had seconds to react once I spotted it, and just as my focus locked on, it spotted me and flew directly across my path. So close to me. I chose the first image of the sequence because it had the most amount of action and sense of place. It is by far and away the best shot of a buzzard I have ever managed. They have eluded me for years. I’m quite stunned and delighted to have won.”
Flora and fauna Winner (and overall winner) – Ray McDonald (buzzard in flight) taken at College LakeFlora and fauna Runner Up – Adrianna Bielobradek (Poppy seedhead) taken at Buckleberry Common)
As overall winner, Mr McDonald won a top-of-the-range Panasonic Lumix digital camera and a wildlife photography masterclass. As well as receiving a printed canvas of his picture and having it appear in BBOWT’s 2023 calendar.
This year’s contest had six new categories: flora and fauna; nature reserve landscapes; people in nature; children’s category (ages 6-12), teenagers (ages 13-19) and Team Wilder, for shots of action for nature in the community. Helen Touchard-Paxton, a mum who lives Buckinghamshire, won the Team Wilder category with a snap of a frog in a garden pond that she and her family dug during the coronavirus lockdown.
She said: “I believe this photo shows that you don’t need acres of land to create a successful wildlife area: if you are interested – no matter how small your space – just have a go and see what works. I don’t have high-end expensive equipment, and I have no idea how to use photo editing software – the photo is very much ‘as taken’. I was absolutely amazed to have won the Team Wilder category.”
Team Wilder Winner – Helen Touchard-Paxton (frog)Team Wilder Runner Up – Peter Massam (bug hotel)
The Trust received hundreds of entries, creating an extremely difficult job for this year’s judges. BBOWT communications officer Kate Titford, Trust magazine editor Ben Vanheems and professional photographer Steve Gozdz, who runs local nature safaris in Berkshire through his business GG Wildlife Experiences.
Teenagers Winner – Zachary Osbourne (14) Kingfisher Teenagers Runner Up – Lucy Colston (17) (marbled white on scabious)
Mr Vanheems said: “It’s been a really laborious process with lots of debate going on because we want to get it right, but the competition entrants haven’t exactly made it easy for us.”
People in Nature Winner – Petra Mohr (girl on decking) taken at Weston Turville ReserviorPeople in Nature Runner Up – Lorraine Clarke (man in hide) taken at College Lake
Mr Gozdz added: “What I was looking for was composition, good use of light – an action shot would have been fantastic. What we’ve found is something quite stunning. A real in-the-moment shot with perfect angles and perfect light, and actually something I would have been very happy to have taken myself. In fact, when I first saw it I was quite jealous.”
Landscape Winner – Charlotte Day (sunrise landscape) taken at Cholsey MarshLandscape Runner Up – John Kearns (Warburg trees) taken at Warburg
The trust is grateful to GG Wildlife Experiences, Panasonic and Chroma for sponsoring this year’s competition.
The winner of a competition to design a logo to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the opening of Westgate Oxford has been unveiled – 10-year-old Tamsin Taylor from Oxford beat entrants from across the region.
Ahead of its 5th birthday celebration on Monday 24th October, Westgate Oxford supported by Experience Oxfordshire, invited local children in the region to design an emblem which will be used online, across social media and on a specially-made birthday cake.
The winning design, which features a shopper celebrating with a cake and balloons, will be seen at a birthday party event attended by the Lord Mayor of Oxford James Fry this Monday.
Tamsin Taylor, the winner of Westgate Oxford’s logo competition, said: “I am amazed and really excited to have won the competition. I love drawing and design and worked really hard on the logo. I can’t believe it!”
Brendan Hattam, Centre Director at Westgate Oxford, said: “We are delighted to be celebrating five fantastic years since the launch of the redeveloped Westgate Oxford, and we are proud to mark the occasion by unveiling this incredible artwork.
“We have some amazing artistic talent in the region leading to a very tough judging session. But, I think we can agree that our birthday emblem is a worthy winner – well done to Tamsin and thank you to everyone who sent in entries.”
Birthday celebrations will take place at 11am on Monday, 24th October.
It’s bottoms-up time down the rabbit hole! To celebrate English Wine Week (18th – 26th June) and to champion English producers, The Alice – Oxford’s all-day dining restaurant and bar set within The Randolph Hotel by Graduate Hotels® – is hosting a series of intimate Wine and Dine events and a special Wine Flight tasting menu in collaboration with Balfour Winery and Coates & Seely.
Taking place on Tuesday 21st June at 7pm, The Alice will be collaborating with Coates & Seely, a quintessential English Sparkling Winery to co-host a fun, blind tasting of French vs English Sparkling Wines. Hosted in The Alice’s beautiful private dining room, each wine will be paired with a curated four-course dinner by executive chef Chris Emery, including canapés to start.
Tristram Coates from Coates & Seely (representing England) and Gemma from Palmer & Co (representing France), will guide guests through the four-course dinner as they blind taste a range of sparkling wines. There will also be plenty of time to learn more about English Wines as they share stories and history of Sparkling Winemaking, before the sparkling wines are revealed at the end of the meal for the moment of truth.
Guests will be treated to a selection of seasonal canapés, followed by four-courses including tempting dishes of Roast Quail with melted onions & morels and a Strawberry, Champagne Syllabub & Verbena Tart.
For more information and to book, please visit the link here. Tickets are £95pp. A vegetarian menu is also available.
Wine & Dine Series at The Alice: Best of Balfour Wine Pairing Dinner
Taking place on Thursday 23rd June at 7pm, The Alice will be collaborating with award-winning Balfour Winery to host an exclusive Wine & Dine four-course dinner curated by Executive Chef Chris Emery, showcasing the best of seasonal British produce and English wine.
Hosted in The Alice’s whimsical private dining room, Janina Doyle, Brand Ambassador of Balfour Winery, will guide guests through the menu as they enjoy each course paired with a sparkling, white or red wine. There will also be plenty of time to learn more about English Wines as she shares the story of the wine harvest and history of Balfour Wine.
Guests will be welcomed with a selection of canapés, followed by a special four-course menu, each course paired with a Balfour wine. Guests can expect dishes including Sole Agnolotti, Sorrel Butter Sauce & Exmoor Caviar paired with Springfield Chardonnay 2018 and Romney Marsh Lamb, Melted Onions, Girolles & Peas paired with Luke’s Pinot Noir 2020.
For more information, including detail on the celebrated Balfour Winery and to book, please visit the link here. Tickets are priced at £75pp. A vegetarian menu is also available.
Introducing The Alice’s Wine Flight Trio
To celebrate English Wine Week, The Alice is also showcasing a limited selection of English wines from Balfour Winery, set on the beautiful Hush Heath Estate. Surrounded by ancient woodlands and wildflower meadows, Balfour was one of the first to be awarded the WineGB Sustainability Certification.
Available throughout the month of June in the main restaurant, guests who dine at The Alice will be able to enjoy an exclusive wine flight trio from Balfour Winery, priced at £12, including Balfour Skye’s Chardonnay, Nannette’s Rose and Luke’s Pinot Noir.
For more information and to book, please visit The Alice’s website here.
On a windy day in May 1954, a 25-year-old medical student broke track and field’s most famous barrier – the four-minute mile. Roger Bannister won fame at Oxford’s Iffley Road track, with a time of 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds.
Bannister, who’d been born into a working-class family, showed promise in education as well as running. After retiring from athletics, he enjoyed a long and distinguished career as a neurologist. He made the Queen’s Honours list twice for his contributions to sport. Then, in his 70s, he returned to his studies – by taking short courses at Oxford University’s Department for Continuing Education.
Bannister knew that mental fitness carries many of the same benefits as physical fitness, including improved health, mental resilience and longevity. As a research neurologist, he would have understood brain plasticity – how a stimulated brain forms new synaptic connections at any age. Many studies (including one published in The Lancet in July 2017) cites educational attainment and lifelong learning as among the most important factors in preventing one-third of future dementia cases.
Among the topics Bannister explored as an adult learner were the philosophies of Hegel and Wittgenstein, the politics of Asia and America, the making of modern Europe, the history of the Cold War, and the archaeology of Roman Britain.
He went on to complete a longer course too – an Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing. Bannister joked with his poetry tutor that writing a villanelle was harder to achieve than breaking the four-minute mile.
For most of us, breaking a record in track and field is off the table – but lifelong learning is always well within reach. You can follow Sir Roger Bannister’s example at Oxford, choosing from more than 1000 short courses and longer programmes, taught both in Oxford and online.
From Thursday 17th March, Lush will be offering an immersive pop-up experience in the lead up to Mother’s Day at Oxford’s Westgate shopping centre.
There will be Lush gift concierges and product experts on-site to help customers handpick the perfect ethical gift for every need and guide them through the Lush Sleepy & Spa Pop-Up.
Running until Sunday 27th March the activation is just in time for National Sleep Day on Friday 18th March when customers and their mother figures will be able to find a place to relax and unwind.
The Sleepy & Spa pop-up will host a tunnel where visitors can take a moment to immerse themselves into the space and learn practices to help them feel more calm and grounded. The journey will be an introduction to mindfulness including a complimentary hand and arm massage area for visitors to sit and relax with a Lush Spa therapist who will be teaching self-massage techniques. It’s time to slow down to speed up!
Lush Sleepy Range and limited products
Alongside Lush’s popular Sleepy range, customers will have access to purchase a limited amount of the Sleepy Candle, the Sleeping Giant Bombshell that is only available in Lush Anchor shops and Dreamtime Temple Balm, only found in Lush Spa locations.
Customers will also be able to purchase vouchers for Lush Spa treatments.
Lush Spa Treatments
Created to transform mind and body, Lush’s luxuriously pampering spa treatments are the perfect way to rejuvenate and revive. With eight Lush Spas to choose from and with treatment vouchers available in Lush shops nationwide, you could say that the Lush Spa is Lush’s best-kept secret.
Broadcaster, artist & dad Timmy Mallett, who turns 66 this month, tells Liz Nicholls about family, football, art and his new book Utterly Brilliant – My Life’s Journey
Q. Hello Timmy. It’s wonderful to speak to you & I’ve really enjoyed your book, in fact I cried reading it! Are you pleased with it? “That’s very kind of you, I’m pleased it resonates. I’m proud of it, yes. You don’t know when you write a book how it’s going to go down. I wanted to combine the story of an adventure, a big personal challenge, with memoirs of Wacaday and my radio days and career and things I’ve done over the years, and my love of history and art. How do you do that? And I remember my editor saying: ‘you start at the beginning and crack on and see how it goes’. Haha!”
Q. I loved your drawings at the start of each chapter. “Part of that is to stop and look at where you’ve stopped. I say it in the book: work on the assumption you’re only going to do this once, you’re not going to come back and do it again with more time. It’s not every day can you devote masses of time to drawing so give it all you can in the moment. Sitting down and drawing or sketching or painting is a way of thinking about at the place you’re at and absorbing it. And that’s the nice thing about taking the bike, because you have to think about what you’re going to take. In a car you chuck everything in, but on the bike, you have to be quite precise. It seemed to work.”
Q. Your late brother Martin sounds so inspirational. Do you still talk to him, as you do in the book, and feel he’s still with you? “Thank you. Yes I do, it happens every day, Liz. Every day I have those little conversations with him. He pops up in what we’re doing. I remember when I was planning the adventure I was thinking about Martin and how he reached his potential. It takes the pressure off, in some ways. You haven’t got to be the best or the fastest… you’ve just got to be the best you can be. And Martin, with his language and learning difficulties, showed me how to do that, just by being absorbed and interested in everything he was doing. As brothers sometimes it was a little bit annoying that it wasn’t at the same speed, but he was always in the moment, he lived his life in the moment and his time scale was different. We often judge things as ‘life will be good when… lockdown’s over or when I get the new job, when I move house, when I go on holiday, get the new outfit…’ Well, what’s wrong with now? Now’s the moment. Everything’s got a time limit hasn’t it? We think everything’s going to carry on forever, like this lovely warm hot sunny day. Tomorrow we will need a jumper on!”
Q. What do you love about living here? “I moved into this house 30 years ago this Christmas and my son Billy, who’s grown up here, and was born here, is a gardener in the neighbourhood; he speaks with a Berkshire burr. The thing I love about it is the people; it’s great for families. It’s a lovely place to live. I’m passionate about my cycling and there’s some great cycle routes, either out southwards to Windsor or north into the Chilterns. I’ve got good friends here, I play five-a-side football, tennis. There’s good pubs and restaurants. I ring the bells at Holy Trinity church; I like the involvement. The fact I’ve put down roots, haha! This is the longest I’ve lived anywhere and it’s got something special about it. Then seeing the way Billy has taken to being a gardener. He knows the Latin names, the nicknames and the proper names of every plant in the garden as well as every football team in the country. I like the fact that when I’m out and about people say ‘hello Timmy!’”
Q. And Oxford United? “I love Oxford I’ve been a passionate fan of them since the 1990s when I worked at Radio Oxford when they soared. I watched how when the football went well, the town did well, there was a bounce in the air and people were inspired. I have two teams now – I have Oxford and also Maidenhead Utd who have the oldest football ground in the world. With both my teams, I like the ambition at the start of the season. Pre-season in these friendlies, new players are coming in you’re thinking ‘are they any good? Are they going to be better than the last lot? Are they going to set us alight and entertain us?’ Then, 45 minutes in, they’re 3-0 down and you’re like ‘arrrgh where are my hopes and dreams?!’ It’s about enjoying the ride. I don’t judge the season by whether they get promoted. No: it might be a great season if they stay up! If they stay in the midst of it all with great games or a great run. All those things are to be celebrated and you’re seeing players giving their best and trying their hardest. All these ups & downs are to be celebrated.”
Q. What are your favourite songs? “Anything by the Beatles. I often have Band On The Run by Paul McCartney & Wings playing loudly in the house, and The Stranger by Billy Joel. Lovely haunting melodies in there. And The Bluebells’ Young At Heart. Pop music is your personal diary isn’t it?”
Q. What’s your first memory of music? “My mum playing the piano. Pop music was always really important, too. Listening to Alan Freeman on Pick Of The Charts each week. The charts mattered – whether they went up or down. How they did in the league. We used to love that. When I was at boarding school my brother used to send me lists of the charts and what he thought they should be. We had a little pop group, me and my brothers. Paul couldn’t remember the words, Martin couldn’t say the words so I made them up. We were called the Kettleholders. Singing and pretending to be pop stars!”
Q. Which artists inspire you? “I really like the impressionists – I like Dutch 17th century artists like Vermeer and modern artists like David Hockney who rejoices in painting the seasons.”
Q. Do you have any favourite local galleries? “Nova in Marlow, Lemongrove in Henley and Whitewall galleries have all supported my art. I like going to visit some of the weird and wonderful museums we have in the Thames Valley – the chair museum in Wycombe! Wow! Bizarre! Reading Museum in the old town hall which has a copy of the Bayeux Tapestry. I like the Ashmolean museum in Oxford. I like the Bodgers exhibit in the Turvill Church, in the vestry. The Bodgers lived and worked making chair spindles in the 19th century. I like the Heritage Centre in Maidenhead. And if you want to see more of my art look at Mallettspallette.co.uk
Q. Who would be your dream party guests? “Eleanor of Aquitaine, an impressive woman in a man’s world. Tom Hanks, particularly because I love his character’s line in Castaway; ‘all we have to do is keep breathing because tomorrow the sun will rise & you never know what the tide will bring in’. I’d have Gareth Southgate. Also, I’ve been watching The Kominsky Method on Netflix and Michael Douglas seems like good value. And my mate Michaela Strachan who makes me laugh.”
Q. Do you get any weird fan mail or attention? “Fan mail is interesting because I get it just as regularly now as in the Wacaday days. It doesn’t surprise me when a message comes via social media or actual letters. Everyone has their memory of Wacaday, like you Liz, when you said you and your sister used to watch it. I was in the British Museum and someone shouted ‘Tony! You’re Tony Robinson, wow!’ I reminded him of Baldrick, obviously. Some people want a pinky-punky mallet, so I brought out a 30th anniversary edition which people can buy.”
Q. If you had a magic wand, as well as your mallet, what would you wish for the world? “I feel as though climate change is fixable, all we have to do is put our minds to it. I’ve done this in a small way in my own house. If I could have a domestic wind turbine on the roof, I would do. I’d find a way to make where I live work harder. I reckon it’s doable in the bigger picture. I’m optimistic.”
Q. You’ve done so much in your varied career! Anything in the pipeline? “These are the golden years to make the most of what you’ve got and make it happen. One of the things I was surprised about, researching the Camino, was how much connection there was with the Thames Valley. Santiago de Compostela is where you go to see the tomb of St James the Apostle, where all of him is buried except for his left hand, which is in Marlow, at St Peter’s. Then when I was planning my trip, I contacted my MP who said I want to hear more about this, so the PM came to my house to hear about the camino. Then there’s the Bishop of Oxford who didn’t know about any of it. All these little connections putting people together. Your story is part of the thousands of ‘Camino’ journeys that happen every year. There’s probably another adventure to do on my bike. And there’s another big idea which I’m trying to persuade Mrs Mallett about, so I don’t feel it’s fair to tell you first, Liz, until she’s on board! At the moment she’s like; ‘you’re going to do what?!’ I want to do more cycling and painting – that suits me. Meeting people, hearing their stories, sharing some tales would be a good thing to do. Always take that inspiration of brother Martin, with the smile on his face and a warm embrace.”
