Before We Leave

Totally irrelavant photo but it just makes me smile anyway.

Here are some thoughts by other thinkers about tavel and why to bother:

'Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour.  catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover.'

Mark Twain

'Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accouts.  Braod, wholesome, cahritable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.'

Mark Twain

'All travel has its advatages.  If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.'

Samuel Johnson

'For my part, I travel not to go anywhere but to go.  I travel for travel's sake.

The great affair is to move.

Robert Louis Stevenson

'A traveller without observation is like a bird without wings.'

Moslih Eddin Saadi

'Embrace the detours.'

Kevin Charbonneau

'Not bound to swear allegiance to any master, wherever the wind takes me I travel as a visitor. Drop the question of what tomorrow may bring, and count as profit every day Fate allows you.

Horace

'Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods.'

Japanese proverb

'The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.'

St Augustine

'We live in a world of beauty, charm and adventure.  There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.'

Jawaharial Nehru

'Do not follow where the path may lead.  Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.'

Ralph Waldo Emerson

'Travel and change of place impart new vigour to the mind.'

Seneca

'Bizzare travel plans are dancing lessons from God.'

Kurt Vonnegut

'I haven't been everywhere but it's on my list.'

Susan Sonntag.

'Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you travelled.'

Mohammed

'The traveller sees what he sees.  The tourist sees what he has come to see.'

G K Chesterton

'All that is gold does not glitter; not all those who wander are lost.

Tolkein

'Decide how you want to feel and go wherever it takes to feel that way.'

Andy Hayes

'Laugh a lot and when you are older all your wrikles will be in the right places.'

Anon

'When you travel remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable.  It is designed to make its own people comfortable.'

Clifton Fadiman

Champagne

The last evening before we go and a bottle of champagne later so tonight's post is about that.

When we came back from travelling last time we happened to be drinking a bottle of champagne on the evening of a full moon.  We agreed that we didn't drink enough champagne and on that day decided that we would have a bottle on every full moon.  We have done that for the last ten years and have the corks to prove it.

Our preferred champagne for these occasions is Laurent Perrier.  This year is their 200th Anniversary as the house was founded in 1812.

If we could afford it we would buy the pink champagne whenever we could,  but we save that for special occasions and look forward to drinking some when we return.

Washing on the Line

There is just something so satisfying and pleasing about hanging your washing outside to dry.  It comes in smelling of fresh air and it looks marvellous while it is out there.

The images in the Simon Armitage poem are really effective.

Cataract Operation

The sun comes like a head
through last night's turtleneck.
A pigeon in the yard turns tail
and offers me a card. Any card.

From pillar to post, a pantomime
of damp, forgotten washing

on the washing line.
So, in the breeze:

the olé of a crimson towel.
the cancan of a ra ra skirt,

the monkey business of a shirt
pegged only by its sleeve,

the cheerio
of a handkerchief.

I drop the blind
but not before a company

of half a dozen hens
struts through the gate,

looks round the courtyard
for a contact lens.

Simon Armitage

Swimming in Spain

Ok, so it wasn't quite this beach but sort of similar and remembering it recently gave me a great whoosh of  happiness.  In Spain, last Spring, Ann and I went through a little valley to a hidden beach where we swam in turquoise sea.  Then, because there was no one else there, for the first time in my life I skinny dipped and when getting out waved my wonky boobs at the world and felt completely liberated!

Hummerbeck Summer sec

So tonight's smile - Nick has just invented a cocktail for a sunny evening in Hummerbeck - A Hummerbeck Summer Sec.  The recipe, which it might be impossible to replicate - one splosh Midori, one splosh Crème de Cassis, one splosh Strawberry Vodka and one splosh Crème de Banane topped up with Tonic water in a highball glass. (Nick says part/jigger/splosh/ etc are interchangeable so make your own decisions on that...)  Just missing a mix of chopped up fruit/ cucumber/mint etc etc as you like.

Torch Relay Day 4

Hope you are following the torch relay.  Some pics here but the BBC link site is great for video, photos, articles and minute by minute tweets and commentary.  Have a look.

The sun is shining and the crowds are proving the cynics wrong.  It'll definitely make you smile.

Olympic Bid Win

Going for a bit of a theme with the posts today, starting with a piece of video that never ceases to make me smile, not necessarily because Britain won, but how can you not smile along with people when they are sooo happy and ecstatic in their response after all of their hard work.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

So while drafting the last post I came across this which is good for today's smile.

The website is fun.  Check it out here.

Manchester City win at the last moment

I have to start by saying that I am a dyed in the wool Tottenham supporter and am very happy that they have come fourth in the Premier League this season,  but the drama of the last few minutes of the matches yesterday was wonderful.  It went right down to extra time when they scored two goals to win the title and to pip Manchester United to the top spot.

You couldn't help but smile at the overwhelming joy of the fans which went from this:

To this:

The fans had waited 44 years to have this win and the team and manager seemed pretty happy too:

Don't you just love seeing people smiling and don't you know that this morning their cheeks will be aching (and probaly their heads as well after the clebrations last night!)

But I'll finish off with this one, which makes you smile for different reasons:

Read all about it here.

Words to savour

I love words.  For a number of different reasons.  This one because I love the way that modern Welsh has to accomodate new technologies.  Just spend the day trying this out in your mouth!

Pets at Home Advert

There seems to be a run of happy animal adverts at the moment in our recession ridden society.  Thank goodness.

Enjoy!  (And look out for the frog...)

La Rosa Hotel and Campsite

I first came across La Rosa in an article in a Yorkshire lifestyle magazine that I read while at the Turkish Baths in Harrogate that first time for Iona's birthday.

The article described the campsite that had been set up in the Yorkshire Moors National Park near Whitby and the pictures showed a quirky, colourful and whcky place that I immediately wanted to visit, but then I was diagnosed and everything was put on hold.  When I started getting better I needed something to look forward to and even though I was still having chemo I arranged for Nick and I to stay at the campsite in one of the caravans and discovered that they had also opened a hotel on the cliff in Whitby. 

We arranged to stay there as well, in the La Rosa room with its huge window looking out across the harbour to Whitby Abbey on the opposite cliff.

The style of each room is individual and La Rosa was all about swans and roses. It made us smile straight away. The key was wonderful, the mirror spectacular and the bedclothes decadent. In the morning there wasn't a conventional breakfast, rather we had a basket delivered to the door with hot cheese scones and the wherewithal to make coffee.

The hotel also has a tea room which can be used by anyone.  It was the firs time I had come across glitter on cakes.  Same ecclectic style with plenty to fill up your eyes while scoffing your cake.

Then a couple of days later we moved to the campsite and the Tinkers van:

Loved the compost loo in the gypsy caravan.  Singing was the way to warn people you were in there.  The shower barn with the double shower and wind up gramaphone was also wonderful, especially with the candles.  We didn't get to try the outside bath, while looking at the stars but that could be  for a different time.  We did love the odd bits and pieces in the trees, the lights up the pathways and the dressing up tent.