Like mice I do like my cheese, and there's nothing better than an improvised lunch of chunks of cheese washed down with a glass (or two or three?) of Retsina. It's still Easter Sunday; it's still all very peaceful and quiet; and the cat's still away ...
I've been reading Simon Winchester's book of his journeys to the surviving relics of the British Empire: the British Indian Ocean Territory and Diego Garcia, Tristan, Gibraltar, Ascension Island, St Helena, Hong Kong, Bermude, the British West Indies, the Falkland Islands, and Pitcairn, and I did so without any interfering groans of "Not another tropical island!" from You-know-who (she's just rung to say she'll be late; I said "Please take your time!", with a strong emphasis on PLEASE).
"Outposts" is an enlightening and enlightened ramble through the remains of the British Empire. As Simon Winchester puts it in its introduction: "It is at this point that I have to struggle to suppress a certain chauvinism which inevitably rears its head. For it seems to me today, after almost two further decades of hindsight and further wanderings and reflection on matters colonial, that of all the recent European sea-borne Empires - the French, the German, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish and the British - it is, singularly, the British Empire that managed to leave behind the kind of legacy of which, dare one say it, some might still be rightly proud." And so dare say all of us!
Just to confuse Simon Winchester fans, it was also published under the title "The Sun Never Sets" which is where you can find it at archive.org.
Grab a chunk of cheese and a glass of Retsina and I meet you there!
