David Coveney

Archives

All the posts below have been tagged with father.

30 May, 2024

Taller buildings let us design better towns

I lived in a range of places as a kid, partly because my father was a bit of an itinerant who didn’t know what he wanted in life, other than that I mustn’t live with my mother. Go figure. Eventually I got to settle down with my grandmother, but in the process I learned a […]

Read the whole post

3 May, 2024

A little change on this website

In the past, this website was sort of my place to keep family and friends in touch. I first set it up in 2005, just before going away to Peru on travels. It was a great. Facebook had been invented but wasn’t generally available or popular yet, other platforms weren’t well thought through or scattered, […]

Read the whole post

4 September, 2022

Steps and missteps on my path out of poverty

At 18 I was skint and got made homeless. It took a lot of graft, patience and mistakes to get out of that and into a moderate middle class lifestyle. Here’s how.

Read the whole post

25 February, 2016

Staleys in the Isle of Man

One of the funny things about children and their memories is just how fallible they are. Full of false memories and forgotten realities. I lived, for a while, somewhere on the outskirts of Douglas on the Isle of Man, when I was about nine years old. The family I stayed in had a boy about […]

Read the whole post

22 February, 2013

Finding a missing person in South America (and elsewhere)

I promised, ages ago, that I’d write up some tips on how to find somebody who’d gone missing in South America. Recently I had an email from somebody in the same situation which has spurred me into action. Since 1997 I’ve found or been found by my mother, my brothers and my sister. Here I’m […]

Read the whole post

31 August, 2010

Off to San Pedro

Just about to start packing for San Pedro de Atacama. I’ve been there before, so it’s a relatively familiar spot, though I didn’t spend long in the town.  So this time I’m going to explore the locality a little more.  I’m even thinking of sticking with it for a week or so and treating as […]

Read the whole post

Dad´s Headstone

Had my father’s headstone delivered and installed yesterday. It was a fairly sombre moment, and my last goodbye to him.  I won’t go back soon. Unfortunately the computer I’m trying to upload my photos to won’t play ball, so no pictures for the moment.  Sorry.  Maybe tomorrow when I get to San Pedro de Atacama. […]

Read the whole post

29 August, 2010

Quiet Weekend in Arica

I’m staying put while I wait for the headstone to be finished and fitted, and consequently got to see an Arican weekend. There’s not a lot for me to do in many ways, so yesterday I spent some time going through all of my father’s papers and notebooks.  I found evidence of one email address […]

Read the whole post

Food!

Oh seriously, sometimes, when you travel the food is amazing. Sometimes, it looks like it might be a danger to your health…

Read the whole post

28 August, 2010

The Story of Juanito

Here’s something… a smiling, happy and charming man who knew my father in Arica, lives just around the corner from the hotel I’m staying at. He actually lives in the cabin that guards a car park.  Just him.  He’s been married twice, I believe, but that’s all I know. So how can I tell his […]

Read the whole post

Arrangements, part dos

Anyone who’s experienced the death of someone close to them will know that there is often a lot to do.  No exceptions here, plus the added pressure of limited time.  However, I’m not entirely unhappy about the time thing… makes me get things done. Cementaria Parque de Arica So, following the funeral I went yesterday […]

Read the whole post

27 August, 2010

The Funeral

And so it came.  In a way it’s weird… I always felt there were only two likely things to happen. First, I would find my father (or he would find me) and a period of reconciliation may take place.  Closeness, perhaps never, but reconciliation would be fine. Second, I would never find him, and that […]

Read the whole post

25 August, 2010

Arica – Day 1 – Arrangements

Phew… so what a day.  It started off with a cold shower and a blandly unsatisfying breakfast of a cheese sandwich, juice and tea.  But whilst eating a man came up to me and introduced himself as Joaquin Alvarez… the Honorary British Consul in Arica!  It was an unexpected surprise… I thought I was meeting […]

Read the whole post

Arica – Day 1

For no obvious reason I’ve woken up really early today.  Maybe it’s something to do with the herd of elephants that evidently checked in around 1am.  Or the, ahem, charmingly rustic plumbing that means the noise levels in here pick up markedly as the hotel awakes. But it’s not a bad hotel, the Hotel Amaru, […]

Read the whole post

24 August, 2010

Chris Coveney…the Introduction

I’ve started writing this post in Amsterdam airport…I’m on my way to Arica in Chile where I’ll be (hopefully) burying my father, Chris, who died on the 19th of July. I say hopefully not because this is something I’m looking forward to but because I face a number of legal and monetary issues with the […]

Read the whole post

5 August, 2010

Lima, again.

A smidge under five years ago I created my first blog post as I started preparations for travel to South America.  Today I’m preparing to travel to more or less the same destinations…but for sadder reasons. Two weeks ago my father died. A week ago a police officer knocked on my door to tell me […]

Read the whole post

6 January, 2007

Christopher Coveney

I’m trying to trace a chap called Christopher Coveney, also known as Chris Coveney, Cristobal Coveney, C.T.T.Coveney and in full, Christopher Tregay Trott Coveney. I’ve put this page up in the knowledge that if anyone’s searching for his name on Google, MSN or Yahoo, there’s a high chance this page will come up top of […]

Read the whole post