Travellers’ tales are giving me the travel fix I need right now. Six months ago, when there seemed little hope of venturing much further than our own front doorsteps, I couldn’t bear to think about the wider world, so wonderful and yet seemingly crushed by the pandemic. Although many countries are still struggling to contain…
Category: Travel
Such a perfect day
Recently I have been thinking about how much time I spend lounging on the sofa watching TV. Just by writing that sentence I have outed myself as a person with too much time on her hands. I loved Call My Agent! – that addictive French series about a talent agency in Paris – but I…
No, I have no plans
Freedom is in the air. People are busy making plans. They’re reserving tables in restaurants, arranging museum visits, reserving hotel rooms and even booking flights. At any other time there would be nothing remarkable about this, but now we live in a different time and there is. I don’t seem to have the will to…
Looking for a new obsession
I have to be honest, I am fretting. We are halfway through the final series of Call My Agent!, the highly entertaining French series about a talent agency in Paris. We have been watching one episode a night for weeks now and I don’t know what I’ll do with myself when it’s finished. Should we…
Emerging into the light
I have been idly wondering if I’ll emerge from lockdown a better person. I’d like to think that I will, but somehow I doubt it. Hardship is supposed to build character, but I have a feeling that when all this is finally over I’ll probably emerge pretty much the same, perhaps a bit podgier. Of…
Do we dare think about travelling again?
When we were first told to stay at home last March, I wasn’t really that bothered. We had recently enjoyed two long holidays in exciting places and I thought that being grounded for a while wasn’t such a bad thing. I was feeling a bit guilty about all those flights and thought that staying in…
My future as a shaman
Further to last week’s blog about growing older and wiser, I’ve decided to pursue a new career. I know that I’m technically retired, but I’m not quite ready to give up on the world of work yet. Paid work that is. I have more than enough unpaid work. I’m thinking about setting myself up as…
Just say no to dry January
Yesterday I was talking to a friend who is counting the days until the end of January. Not because it’s a dark, dank month (although it undeniably is), but because she’s given up alcohol until February 1st. “Why?” I wanted to know. “Why have you decided to give up one of life’s remaining pleasures when…
Where did that travel budget go?
Apparently, there is a lot of unused money swishing about the country in the bank accounts of people who would normally have spent it travelling. I have searched our bank account, but can’t seem to find any trace of it. I don’t think we’ve been the victim of a scam – having resolutely resisted all…
Give us this day
Although not a great poetry fan, I have to admit that some of those poets knew a thing or two. Philip Larkin often has an unexpectedly sideways view of life and I have always enjoyed his lines from the poem Days: ‘What are days for? Days are where we live.’ On one level it looks…