• Asia,  Independent travel,  Travel Blog,  Vietnam

    Run For Home: When COVID Began

    Many travellers faced a panic run for home as the world shut down as the seriousness of the pandemic began to sink in. This is our own story of March 2020, when COVID began…. We walked hand in hand back from the deserted seafront and past the desolate locked hotels, trying to eke some romance out of the ghost town which surrounded us. Murky grey mists hung over the flat calm sea dotted with idle tour boats anchored out of harm’s way. As we turned the last corner towards the hotel, a figure in the street ahead was gesticulating wildly, arms waving in the air, his movements frantic. It took…

  • England,  Photography,  Walking

    Cold Snap

    Is it just me, or is anyone else irritated by the fact that, in the context of COVID, the world is referring freely to the “British variant” or even more geographically specific, the “Kent variant”, when ex President Trump was consistently vilified for referring to the pandemic as the “Chinese disease”? It’s called “COVID” because phrases like “Asian flu” and “Spanish flu” have been outlawed by the WHO as racially divisive, so how come the “British variant” is acceptable? Maybe it’s just me. Anyway, just as we sit here confined to quarters unable to travel, we get a little bit of the world – indeed a little bit of the…

  • England,  Europe,  Walking

    Dry January And Wet Walks

    Well, it came about like this. When we returned from our 9-week tour of Turkey towards the end of November, we had spent 14 of the preceding 18 weeks out of the UK, bathed in sunshine and lapping up wonderful places, enjoying great food and partaking in the odd sunset beer or two. Put simply, we’d gained a few pounds – not a lot, but enough to make us feel like we wanted to shed them and get a bit fitter, and so for the first 28 days back in the country we ate healthily and abstained from all alcohol. This kind of gave us the incentive to try “dry…

  • England,  Photography,  Travel Blog,  Walking

    Walk On The Wild Side

    There is very little to occupy one’s time during this lockdown, but thankfully the behavioural guidance from the UK Government includes taking outdoor exercise once per day. For us, our daily walk in the countryside is our only escape other than shopping for food, but it’s a very welcome daily event.  Luckily, we live in a village surrounded by attractive countryside and woodland and can walk straight from our house into open country, safe in the knowledge that we will see almost no one and easily practice social distancing. Equally luckily, this period of lockdown has so far coincided with a spell of lovely Spring weather, we’ve had a lot…