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Good evening dear friends,

I wandered the beautiful streets of Stratford upon Avon this evening, venturing into Shakespeare’s churchyard in the dark. I saw a fox, a rat or vole, a frog, a plethora of jackdaws and a merry robin.  The Avon river stretched slickly in front of me as I gazed out to see the church spire peeping through the black trees.   Budgets are sensible, but a surprise upgrade won us a prettiest of Tudor rooms, where a separate space means I can read and rest in peace.  

I had happy exchanges with people and feel the burden of gloom lifting.  However a strong burst of grief engulfed me en route and felt crippling and wretched.  The gap in my life feels strange and bewildering.  

Please do let me know who you are and where you are from if you would like a hello from me on the next Episode.  And I will be sending to one of my subscribers the programme to Edward II that I am watching tomorrow, and will send postcards to those whose name I don’t pull from the beret.  I’ll assume all subscribers who have provided addresses in the past are happy for me to send something.  And a huge thank you once more.  Each day - truly - I turn down ad offers to keep this little effort free from them.  But I would love to eventually build a little endeavour out of these beginnings, and so every little really does help.  

Thank you and good night.   The good guys always, always win in the end.  It just sometimes takes time.  

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Gretel le Maître likes to look for the beauty and curiosities in life, one day at a time. She shares with you snippets from books about history, art and literature and regularly takes you on adventures to new locations, to explore churches, cathedrals and architecture.

Gretel invites you to accompany her as she navigates the world a day at a time; the podcast is unscripted, it’s ad-free.

Gretel loves the world and history, architecture, literature and people. And so is determined to walk this path with light footsteps and with humour and warmth. Let’s gather up the beautiful things and ponder them in our hearts.

Top 10 in Global Rankings according to Listen Notes. I would be so grateful if you would spare the time to give me a kind review and possibly 5 stars (for effort as I realise it’s not deserved for achievement)🥴

Previous guests include historian Tom Holland; Actor Enzo Cilenti; Art historian Philip Mould; Writer David Willem; Composer Matthew Coleridge; Vicar Angela Tilby; Author Bijan Omrani; Journalist and Historian Sir Simon Jenkins; Dorset garden hedgehog family, the Venerable Bede and other guests.

Future guests (all being well) are Tom Holland, John Simpson, Eleanor Parker, Philippa Langley and Katie Channon.

Unpolished and unscripted but no ads and no requests for anything but your company. Trying to make the world a gentler place with literature, history and nature. Please don’t expect to find a poli...