The Canadian Tulip Festival, the largest one of its kind in the world, will be held in Ottawa and neighbouring Gatineau from May 9-19.

My base was the Lastingham Grange Country House Hotel, in the village of Lastingham, at the edge of North York Moors National Park, home to most of the world’s heather. The same family has run the Grange for three generations, which began as a 17th century farmhouse. It now has a sun-drenched rose garden, and its interior is light, airy, and decorated in modern country florals.

It has long been known that erratic animal behaviour often occurs before earthquakes.

The “urban myth” is our culture’s version of Grimm’s fairy tales. We have all heard them, stories about alligators in the sewers of New York City and so on. They are meant to frighten, to make us wary, to make us laugh—nervously.