The English love their hats. Perhaps nothing represents that better than a scene in the film, the Darkest Hour, when Clemmie says to Churchill: 'Go. Be. Yourself!' then Churchill responds: 'Which self?' and he turns to a wall on…
It has been a few months that I launched a series on Facebook about the Thames Valley Stories. In case you are not following the blog on Facebook, I collected some for you. So here you go Thames Valley…
After the First World War, it became urgent to resolve the housing shortage as no houses were built during the war and there was a shortage in housing in Britain. During the war, sub-standard homes were blamed for men…
Perhaps it is less of a surprise that the English aristocracy is full of eccentrics. Of course, there are eccentrics everywhere in the world, but I could not think of any other country that would be as famous for…
I have been thinking a lot whether to write this post, or not, but in the end I decided to go for it. Those who follow me on Instagram could see that almost 3 weeks ago I stopped posting…
The Thames is the longest river in England with its 346km and the second longest river in the UK after the river Severn. The source of the Thames is in Gloucestershire and enters the North Sea at Southend-on-Sea. The…
Rowing is certainly one of the most British sports. I must admit, rowing always reminds me of the intro of the Persuaders (a 1970s TV Series) where on one side the life of the British Brett Sinclair (starred by…
The English love feeding their wild birds and spend an incredible amount of £200-300 million on bird food per year which is double the amount spent on the continent. Almost every household has a bird feeder and different types…
Perhaps it is not unusual that a medieval church and also St George’s Chapel in Windsor are full of gargoyles. If however, we take a closer look at the walls of Windsor Castle, we realise that it is full…
There are some traditional and less traditional industries in the Thames Valley and the neighbouring Chilterns. Some of them go back for hundreds of years, but the majority were established in Victorian times. 1) Furniture making The Chilterns were…