A charming guest blog from Susy Smith, Editor of Country Living Magazine
To coincide with the launch of our special places to stay in Britain for garden lovers booklet in the latest issue of Country Living magazine, Susy Smith the editor has written us a charming guest blog…
Calling all foodies in the Cotswolds – BITE Festival 2013
In our latest guest blog writer and broadcaster Henrietta Green, widely regarded as Britain’s leading expert on speciality food and drink, gives her thoughts on this year’s BITE Festival…
Trends in travel for 2013
Alastair’s take on the year’s most exciting trends in travel, according to Sawday’s, from the AirBnB effect to the Scottish Isles via the best of British pubs and some wacky structures to stay in…
Alastair's Christmas Message
We have got Christmas off to a delightful start with a carol concert in the exquisitely lovely Norman church of St James, oddly close to the new bus station in Bristol. The carols were sung by Exultate, directed by David Ogden; it is my favourite Bristol choir. Our spirits were raised to the roof. We witnessed the limitless ability of human beings to reward and entertain when working together with love and discipline.
The Bristol Mayoral Election by Alastair Sawday
Alastair Sawday
Bristol was the only UK city to vote, in a referendum this year, to elect a Mayor with new powers. I suspect that the vote was borne of despair at the mediocrity and ineptitude of our Council – for too long riven by petty party bickering and divisions whose feet are in the clay of a distant mercantile past. Curiously, however, we have a deep affection for our city and wouldn’t live anywhere else. We flourish and prosper to a large extent in spite of our governance. But we seem to be hankering, now, for a new vision. Will the new Mayor provide it?
Alastair's Tour of Britain - Dorset
We roamed the rocks as the tide retreated, picking winkles, Mermaid's Hair and lava. The harvest was enough for our supper, but the potential was vast – the seaweed covered huge stretches of rock and the winkles – cavorting among the limpets – seemed to be competing for our attention.
We're celebrating our 18th birthday
We began on a whim - and a prayer. I had spent many happy nights in farmhouse B&Bs in France, the children looked after by kindly farmers’ wives - and by their animals too - and the idea of encouraging more of this had taken root. I had even appreciated the way my errant younger son had been controlled by gentle electric shocks from the farmyard fence. And then, after running walking and cycling tours throughout France and building up a network of friends and fascinating places, I resolved in 1994 to publish a book about Special Places.
Alastair: I'd love the Olympics if only...
they weren’t so hyped, star-struck, money-drenched and over the top. Give me the original games in Greece, with naked men competing for honour and a bit of fun – not a square inch of designer-kit for the sponsors. Or the first Games after the war when the athletes had to pay for their own food and doss down wherever they could find a bed.
Alastair's Tour of Britain: Devon
"Is it surfing that turns an ordinary man into a handsome, bleached, chilled and rugged nomad?" asks Alastair.
‘Cotty’ is a 32-year-old Devon plumber, married and with two kids, a Devon man to the soles of his feet. But he is also a devoted, almost messianic, surfer, eyes turned to the sea and the first flicker of a wave’s swell sensed in his fibre.
