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Welcome To Padstow
In truth it feels more like “welcome home”, so often have we visited this lovely place down the years that returning to Padstow often feels like coming home. To get here is a 320-mile, five and a half hour drive from our actual home but our drive down was stress free and sunshine virtually all the way, and arriving to see the picturesque estuary and harbour bathed in the afternoon sun was a treat. The current COVID restrictions mean that only outdoor catering is permitted, and a quick reconnaissance around the harbour established that just 2 of Padstow’s 6 pubs are open, augmented by a number of eateries serving outdoor…
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Cornwall Calling
We aren’t yet in a position to organise any foreign trips but with COVID restrictions easing we can at least now travel within the UK and so tomorrow we head off down to Cornwall, where we will be based in Padstow for the next ten days. We are fortunate enough to own a property in Padstow itself, which we rarely get to visit in high season as in normal times it is used as a holiday let to provide some income in our retirement, but this year we are so starved of travel that we’ve snaffled a few weeks for our own use – in fact we will be there…
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Photographic Memories #23
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With lockdown incomplete and travel still on hold for a while, we currently have no new adventures to blog; we do though have many such memories… Photo #23: Huskies This is the last in our Photographic Memories series at least for now. Spending time in a “proper” winter environment affords opportunities for activities different from the norm, so during our break in Tallinn in 2015 we enjoyed several experiences for the first time. One such was dog sledding. It was quite an exhilarating feeling to be pulled across the snow by the…
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Travel Stories: Camels And Khaled
Having already handed over the money for the camel ride, we weren’t unduly worried by the fact that Khaled was now negotiating a fee with the animals’ handler and obviously taking a cut for himself, what concerned us far more was that Khaled appeared in the midst of a deal with a boy aged about eleven. “Come” said Khaled, “we are ready.” As we mounted the camels, Khaled was clearly giving the boy directions back to our camp, which, given the expanse of empty desert between our current location at the Lawrence Spring and Eid’s camp several miles away, was another worry. But in the flick of a camel’s eyelash…
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Boris Johnson: His Role In Our Life Story
Given that we retired at the end of 2019 with the sole aim of travelling the world only to have our lifetime dream snatched away by the pandemic, it’s not so surprising that we’re hanging on to every word of the UK Government just now, looking for our next opportunity to travel. So currently, every time Boris or one of his cohorts talk to the press – or indeed manipulate one of those infuriating “leaks”- we sit up and take notice, and start to work out how Boris now affects Phil & Michaela. Although there’s going to be a bit of a minefield to work through, the mist is clearing…
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When I’m 64…..
Will you still need me, will you still feed me…so went the Beatles lyric. Well, I’m about to find out whether Michaela will still need and feed, birthday greetings, bottle of wine, and all of those things, because I am actually 64 today, and “celebrating” (if that’s the right word) a second successive lockdown birthday. I don’t think we really thought, on my 63rd, that we would be back in the same situation a year later. There have been some rather more exotic locations for our previous birthdays, most notably the year before COVID, on the occasion of my 62nd, when we were staying with a Bedouin family in their…
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Beautiful Places #8: Elba
The large house you can see on the headland in the picture above is reputed to be the site of Napoleon’s exile to Elba. When you think of exile, you might imagine imprisonment, but, in his case, Napoleon had the freedom of this beautiful island and lived in opulent luxury in this castle with a view. You might reflect that being in enforced exile on an island like Elba is an awful lot better than the last twelve months have been for many people. Even getting to Elba was special, flying in to Pisa and then taking the train out to the ferry port at Piombino from where the “Moby”…
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Photographic Memories #22
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With lockdown incomplete and travel still on hold for a while, we currently have no new adventures to blog; we do though have many such memories… Photo #22: Folegandros We all have a liking for photographs of old buildings, dilapidated walls, tumbledown doors and the like, and pretty much all travellers have a growing collection of such shots. This one captures something slightly different for, as you can see, the building is for the most part well maintained, but has a down at heel section which oozes considerably more character than the…
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Tanzania Tales #4: Welcome To Dar
By now we were nearing the end of our Tanzania and Zanzibar adventure, looking to spend the last few days exploring the bustling and chaotic former capital city of Dar-Es-Salaam. The crossing from Zanzibar back to Dar had been noteworthy mainly because at least half of our fellow passengers were seasick on a journey where we had simply enjoyed the movement of the boat and certainly didn’t think it was a rough crossing. Dar, hot, dusty and humid, isn’t a place where traipsing around loaded with backpacks and struggling to find your hotel is an attractive prospect and we were just getting a little fractious when a skinny, swarthy individual…
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Markets: Look Away Now (Maybe)
Now, we know this set of photographs won’t meet with everyone’s approval, so just a quick warning: if you find pictures of animals in markets offensive or revolting, you might want to look away. But the truth is, markets across the world are fascinating places, and part of that fascination is in seeing things you wouldn’t see back home, even if some do have a certain yuk quality. Like lots of travellers we seem to have amassed a rather large collection of market shots, but these are some of the more “out there” ones from our archives…. Live eels, Riga…. Edible bugs, Oaxaca…. Delicious chocolate drink (despite appearances!), Ocotlan, Mexico……
