Mustn't grumble!

Ever wondered what it might be like to have a living, breathing Victor Meldrew type living on your doorstep? I have one as a near neighbour, as I'm sure many of you do. But not many local Meldrews are blogging. So, a big hello to Simon Brattlel of the Grumbles blog in Farndon.

Simon has an eclectic line in grumbling and carping, from rodents to capacitors and Tom Cruise to Terry Pratchett (sort of). He's also very funny, with a nice line in dripped sarcasm.

Modern life being as it is, I can identify with quite a few of Simon's rants, as I'm sure many others do.

Simon, any chance you could take a few pops at our local authorities?

Digging up a gem

I really like the Chester Amphitheatre blog. It's not updated terribly frequently - most updates occur in the summer when the excavation work is ongoing.

What marks it out is its connectivity to local life. Chester being a good 2,000+ years old, we are surrounded by history at every step of the way. The Roman settlement here was one of the most important in the UK - Deva very nearly became the Roman capital of our country.

The amphitheatre was half-excavated several decades ago, but a recent grant means that over the last few summers the archaeology team has been in town to do more digging. The blog reports on their progress as well on other Roman-related news.

For Cestrians, the dig and blog are part of the living history around us. I doubt there's a person in Chester who dislikes the amphitheatre - it's a public place where people go to sit in peace or just hang out, or even just walk past it thinking of what had taken place there two millennia ago.

Cats and ducks

Time to shine the spotlight on Cat on the Mac.

This blog is not updated very regularly but it is extremely well written and very witty in places. It's really nice to read about a Chester that the author is so enthusiastic about. My eye is caught by the various foodie posts, as she describes visits to various restaurants in our fair city. As I'm used mainly to reading local food news and views on the excellent website Chester @ Large (dedicated to our pubs and eateries), it's refreshing to see this covered elsewhere. And the duck entry was enlightening! A pity there was no follow-up about the duck meal...