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As most of us know holiday plans are being scuppered worldwide, and our cruise in the Med with friends from Chicago whom we met on our last river cruise on the Rhine has been cancelled. I have to say, though, that Viking were generous. They have given us a voucher for 125% of our deposit which...

I didn't lose my hair, I'm not that careless. It deserted me.

Some disappointment, but with a silver lining. We had reservations for one of the André Rieu open air concerts in Maastricht in July, which has become a regular stop for us for some years now. We always reserve the VIP package which apart from a stay in a very luxurious hotel includes a visit...

Life during the lockdown is not quite as busy as before the pandemic began but it’s not exactly boring either. I drove Jackie to the clinic after lunch on Sunday and dropped her off at the entrance. I wasn’t allowed to accompany her inside, nor was I able to visit her during her stay, but we...

Just had the greatest news!!! The lockdown on surgery has just been eased in Luxembourg and certain procedures can begin again from Monday, 4 May and Jackie is scheduled for her knee replacement on Monday morning, which means that she will enter hospital on Sunday evening. At last, an end to her...

With details of the battle in mind I climbed the tower. Jackie was forced by her knee to stay in the car as the climb would have given her almost unbearable pain. I made my way to the top and gazed out at the battlefield. The broad sweep of the sloping ground just ahead of me was plain to see...

I awoke just after 2 a.m. and, as I lay there, I could hear the gusts of wind hitting the seaward side of the building. It was almost high tide now and the roar of the waves was a loud accompaniment. I got out of bed and went to the window and what a spectacle I was faced with. The waves came...

I thought I would treat Jackie for her birthday and take her to one of our favourite restaurants in France at Wimereux. We left on the morning of her birthday, driving through Belgium in the direction of Calais, and then carrying on towards Boulogne. We were too early to check in at the hotel so...

So we found ourselves making our way through Maastricht on a bus. People in the streets kept waving to us as they thought we were the André Rieu orchestra being transported to the concert venue. Since the buses were adorned with the words André Rieu with a large photo of the maestro himself on...

Seven weeks after leaving our Moselle river cruise ship we were on the motorway heading for Maastricht where we had tickets for front row seats at André Rieu’s first Christmas concert. At this time of year previously he toured the UK, but with the confusion surrounding Brexit at the time of...

And now back to the cruise. The next morning we departed Koblenz at 7.30 and made our way onto the Moselle heading for the town of Cochem. This town is not far from Luxembourg and is also a destination where we have taken visitors so we chose the optional Moselle Wine Country tour instead. Our...

Great news! Jackie's surgery went perfectly and she was back in her room by mid-afternoon. When I went in to see her she was still feeling the effects of the anaesthetic but was otherwise bright and chirpy. In addition, the technicians are arranging for her to have her pre-op tests for her knee...

We moored overnight at Wiesbaden, casting off for Koblenz at 8 a.m. We spent the morning with our new friends, Jim and Karen, in the lounge watching the villages and castles of the Rhine Gorge. This stretch of the river is more than familiar to us as it was a regular destination when we lived in...

The main excursion the day following was to Mainz for a walking tour of the city and then to see the European origins of my profession - printing. We had lived within an easy drive of Mainz when working on the US Army newspaper Stars and Stripes but had never visited the city before. The most I...

I'm too late to send you Christmas greetings, but have a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year.

Our first stop the next morning was in Strasbourg, a town I knew fairly well back in the ‘70s when I used to be sent there at least one week in the month to produce the European Parliament’s equivalent of Hansard, a word for word transcript of the proceedings each day. I had been back for...

So 4 days later found us packed and awaiting our train, the TGV to Mulhouse, on Luxembourg station ready to embark on our Basel to Trier cruise on the Rhine and the Moselle. The train arrived on time, we boarded, found our seats, plugged our ipads into the sockets provided and settled down for...

We thought that a drive further down the wine route to the towns of Ribeauvillé and Riquewihr would make a change from visiting monuments, magnificent though they may be. So we set off, heading south, finding light traffic and good weather. Our first stop was at Ribeauvillé, where we settled...

We spent a pleasant day exploring the northern stretch of the wine route which, despite being less inhabited than the southern part, is nevertheless worth seeing. We were a long way from the motorway, its snarled up traffic, and the surrounding roads. After seeing many of the vineyards on that...

Not a scam, but we started receiving calls about a cat, which I couldn't seem to make head nor tail of. It turned out that someone was selling a rag doll cat but the newspaper where the ad appeared printed the wrong number, giving instead my wife's mobile number. We are still receiving calls...