The 2nd of May 2025.   Yesterday, of course, was the 1st of May, the day when people celebrate the start of spring.   Or at least they used to until most of them moved into town and cities and forget the countryside.   In Oxford, of course, they do it in a particularly old-fashioned and bafflingly erudite way. They sing Latin hymns and dance fifteenth century dance numbers beneath Magdalen Tower, built in the year Henry VIII came to the throne.    Although the king was to mat

There is the BBC of course. CNN. Reuters. The New York Times. All News, if you will. And then there is real news. Recently, I have taken to walking the dogs up Singing Civet Hill, down the Coconut Gove, through the jungle path and out onto the newly planted Chocolate Walk that links back to the Spice Garden and the estate entrance. I do not apologise for the unmeasurable unimportance of this information. That it should appear inconsequential is all about the expectations of t

It was Mr Wijeratne from the Water Board who brought the missing tiara to mind when he called on us this morning, his beaming presence foretelling progress in our fixed line water connection. He is a generous, positive fellow, little given to jewellery – except for his fingers. These more than make up for any deficit. They carry a rich selection of rings, the most impressive the size of a small calculator, its flat square surface a golden field on which are displayed, in ne

Today is the saddest of days, for Chinta has died. The inexorable world will not stop its spin around the sun, nor Sri Lanka pause to knows this. Even in our little town of Galagedera the news will affect just a few. But here on the estate, we all stop, deeply shocked, barely knowing how to react, or what to do next. Chinta had been away from work for a day, complaining of being a little tired and dizzy, a state that was too easily put down to the occasional colds that come

“It's love,” my music teacher assured us, “that makes the world go round.” He was trying to enforce some degree of harmony in a class burdened by learning yet another Mikado song. He might have cheered us all up had he shared W. S. Gilbert’s other great insight: “Man is nature's sole mistake”. But this he failed to do and so, aged 12, I was left wondering just how on earth the world would motor itself forward, and go round and round, given the unhelpful existence of such he

“Spaghetti,” barked a planter friend, describing Sri Lankan politics. “Noodles. A ball of coir, all entangled. A roll of barbed wire. “ He was on roll himself here. “Pepper vine, “ he finally ventured: “all entangled but makes you sneeze too.” Politics was front of mind today. The country was having a major sneezing fit. Yesterday, London’s Channel 4 Dispatches broadcast a programme that alleged links between Muslim extremists and public figures close to two previous preside

Damnit. I mean honestly. Just damnit. This is the second time in as many weeks. One more such episode and you can call me obsessed; or, at best, dull. Either way, I am due a real wigging. Pining for the fjords. Playing the piper. Deep sixth. Toes up. Terminated. Death is like one of those mildly irritating guests present at most parties, eager to pass on to you the plot for his unpublished novel; his holiday plans and a recent dream involving (of course) his mother

Everyone has their thinking space: the bath, the shower, the treadmill after work. Voltaire had his bed, Dylan Thomas his shed – and I a narrow track of road weaving through jungle hills and valleys. Flame trees and palms line the edges, and beyond stetch plantations of timber, pepper, rubber - and space. A thinking space. And a very agreeable one, as I give four of the five dogs their early morning walk. The only distractions are monkeys, which have the schnauzers pullin

“Thanks for the warning,” came the text from Danby this morning. The message displayed his characteristic linguistic athleticism: lean, economic, pertinent, fully fortified against any misunderstandings, whatsoever. An expatriate, living in a house of books perched above a golden beach, and surrounded by battlements of cinnamon, Danby’s honed lifestyle ought be on school syllabuses. If he is not surfing, or beach combing, he is searching out lost architectural glories in

The kerfuffle in the kitchen has calmed down since I (at last) remembered the old adage about too many cooks spoiling the broth. And acted upon it. Sudeth and Kasun, our (pre) existing chefs, have stepped effortlessly into the gap created by the departure of a big enchilada and the pot is set again to simmer smoothly. Two Commis chefs have joined the team and the kitchen whirls once more with contented, timely creatively – rather than the sultry Gordon Ramsay B Side that is t

At 6 am Mr Goonetilleke the Younger’s workers were already busy tapping the rubber; and as I shot past them, four dogs on a single lead, I waved a good morning. The wave I got back reminded me that hand gestures in Sri Lanka are rarely like this – of the usual kind. Simple, easy to interput, quick to deliver. To mention “Hand Gesture” in England is to imply the semaphoring of indelible insults. The “V;” the single finger, the waggling little finger, the nodding sideways fis

The owl’s hoot kicked it all off. It was 5.49 am and it rang out, sonorous, low, loud but not noisy. Mellow. Rather beautiful. Almost bewitching. A thing of the night, heard in the day. Just like Gay Pride, sounding out exactly where it shouldn’t. This is June, so the season of Pride marches is lighting up so-so diary pages of many souls within the good globe’s silent minority. The owl was certainly late to bed. Most other creatures were already up – excepting the mo

The French condition, “la petit mort” hung in my head as I woke up this morning, for there was a moment, as there is almost every day, when, upon waking, I could so easily fling myself back into sleep. Just like Ghandhi. “Each night, when I go to sleep, I die.” The room is dark, and cool, perfumed faintly of lavender; the bed sheets are soft; the world is barely waking, this being 5, or - at best - 5.15 .am. But Bertie is doing his paw thing, extending it to my nose, a greeti

After days and days of heady sunshine, the rain falls. As ever, spectacular. Within minutes of the monsoon deluge starting, the lawns become shallow green lakes, their surface calm obliterated every millisecond by fat cool rain drops falling like a bedtime story from heavy skies. Cool damp breezes stir and waft across the frangipani garden and into my office where Bertie is asleep on a chair pulled up by the window, his father, mother, and sister asleep on the terrazzo belo

Once, when people still had time for, or a belief in things other than shopping or raw survival, Sundays were special. There was getting up late for one thing - very late perhaps; or not at all. Staying all day in bed was always a wicked though rarely called-upon option. That was the point: getting up when you wanted to. Even if, after that, the day was dotted with destinations. There was church of course - though this was, even in my lifetime, a frail insubstantial affair

H.R. Managers are in their happiest pace when discussing either redundancy terms or the compensation package that will tempt you to leap across to their well-moisturized limb of corporate life, and begin, once again, the ascent up the greasy ladder. There is the salary, of course, sometimes, but not always, cut up into digestible discussable sections, each adorned with dependencies like earnings longing to glitter. Each a niggling dialog. Then there is the bonus: this is al

There’s something very special - in that most ordinary of ways - about walking the dog; or dogs, in my case. It’s taken a few years to understand what the exercise is really about; but I believe that both the hounds and I have now properly taught one another how to behave so we all get the most out of it. For them, it’s about going very, very slowly - so as to allow the appropriate amount of time to sniff at all their usual spots (for purposes of verification); and uncover n