After such a long and unplanned absence from these posts, I thought it only fitting to mark the Winter Solstice, the tipping point between the old year and the new, by wishing that we could all manage the sort of peace and contentment displayed by Hallie (our German shepherd) and Jolly (our tuxedo cat) in [...]

Actually, the term “high tea” for the posh afternoon sort of thing with tea and scones is a misnomer, but it worked better in the title than “afternoon tea,” which is the correct term. But since my favorite place for afternoon tea closed, the Basil Street Hotel near Harrod’s, I had been promising myself [...]

Sorry about the pun–couldn’t resist. Nor could I resist putting up more than one photo, as we had an exceptional morning and I couldn’t choose between my favorites. We had three to four inches of snow last night, which for McKinney, Texas, on the 3rd of March is quite something. It was [...]

A beautiful autumn day yesterday. This is a Texan’s reward for suffering through the summer–we breeze through October and early November in seventy-degree bliss, until the first Arctic cold front dips down from Canada (in Texas we call this a Blue Norther, not sure why) and the shorts and flip-flops are abandoned in a scurry [...]