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

Guerilla Gardening

This is just such a wonderful idea to make the places we live in smiley and even productive.  When somewhere is just sitting idle, why not plant something on it?

Weardale

Weardale is a hidden gem in the North Pennines.  It is in County Durham and that might be why it has survived as a wild and remote spot.  People seem to drive past County Durham, perhaps thinking that it is still full of mines and dark pit waste.

Weardale is a farming valley, but farming here is hand to mouth.  It is some of the poorest land in the country.  There were mines here but none of these are still working.  It is possible to see the remains of the pits and the impact this had had on the landscape.

For six years we lived high on the hillside (on the money side of the valley rather than the sunny side).

We experienced all the weather could throw at us but it was always beautiful.

One of the most unusual things about the valley is the haymeadows in the summer.  Haymeadow is a very rare habitat now but many of the remaining fields in England can be found in Weardale.

Other links that are useful:

Killhope Lead Mine

Weardale Museum

High House Chapel

Weardale Ski Club

Weardale Gazette

Durham Mining Museum (Greenlaws mine)

Weardale Way

Weardale Railway

Weardale Eco Village Plans