Thomas Reilly

The rain was falling as I left the house. I had the forethought to put both waterproof jacket and umbrella in the car. And I was very glad I did. / By the time we got to Tour Hassan Mosque, it was tipping down. Puddles were forming on the floor as the masses poured through […]

It is at once an immense honour and a surreal experience being an Ambassador.  Sometimes, you have to pinch yourself to remember that it is all real.  And last month began with one of those moments: a visit to which I had been looking forward for some time. Dame Mary Beard and her equally erudite […]

Behind us the mayhem of bucking and rearing horses and their falling riders continued unabated – the wind kicking up their tempers as easily as it picked up the fine dust of the Sahara. In front of us, Leah and her team slowly rode into the swirl of the sand-storm. Until, like half-imagined phantoms, they […]

Leaving the beautiful Kasbah Toubkal, like the Last Homely House at Rivendell we walked off into the hills, over low-slung bridges, the brown flood-water gurgling round their feet along increasingly muddy paths, past villages clinging impossibly to terraces hanging off vertiginous cliffs, the mules carrying our trekking sacks and climbing gear making easy going of […]

It was raining by the time we got to Marrakesh. The long-threatened storm had held off as we had forged our way across the flat desert that forms the northern hinterland boundary to the magical city. But the rain teemed down as we wound our way slowly through the traffic and out beyond the city […]