Snap and Scribble

[There's no podcast with this post yet. I've got no reason to believe anyone ever listens to them, anyway, but if you do listen and you miss it please let me know.]

The flight from Darwin to Adelaide last Monday left at ten to seven in the morning, which meant i had to get up at half past four. Fortunately i’d managed to catch up on a bit of sleep while i was in Darwin, so getting up at that time wasn’t too painful. The Darwin airport shuttle bus will drop you off anywhere on its route if you get on at the airport, but it only picks up at hotels, motels, backpackers, etc. Luckily, there’s a motel just a few doors away from the house where i was staying. … Read more »

4 Comments » Tags: Travel and Places //

[There's no podcast with this post yet. I've got no reason to believe anyone ever listens to them, anyway, but if you do listen and you miss it please let me know.]

That was the tenth time i’ve done the trip from Europe to Australia (i’ve done it nine times in the other direction as well) and as far as i remember it was the first time i’ve been on a flight that’s been delayed. Although it wasn’t too bad really, this was the worst one of the nineteen journeys. Previous worsts were probably the first one, when we had to run for the plane, and the first one back the other way, when i had to run for the plane again! … Read more »

6 Comments » Tags: Travel and Places //

This is the last part of the four part story of my life in Basque Country, in 1984. Part one is here…

I’m afraid it’s been so long since i wrote part three that if you were following it, you’ve probably lost track.

Anyway, after i got back to Vitoria from the crazed hitchiking trip to Portugal i felt that time was rapidly running out there for me. I’d almost come to the end of my savings and there was no prospect of getting a job. Winter was coming, too - and as Vitoria is high in the mountains, winters there are very cold. It was time to reluctantly pack up my few belongings and head back to London. … Read more »

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The end of Sally Cooper’s book, A Burqa And A Hard Place, made me sad. Not so much because it was about the sad goodbyes when she left Afghanistan, but more because i’d been enjoying reading it and now it was finished.

I had the pleasure of meeting Sally at Sanjar’s birthday party a month or so ago (see my earlier post on that). She knew Sanjar from her days working in community radio in Kabul. I didn’t meet her when i was there, though, as she left Afghanistan a few months before i arrived. … Read more »

1 Comment » Tags: Book Review, Travel and Places //

My father died at the wheel of the Thames sailing barge “Thalatta” twenty one years ago last Sunday. By a strange coincidence, on that day i had a hog roast job at the boatyard at St Osyth, where the Thalatta’s being rebuilt. Naturally, i took the opportunity to go aboard and see how the work was going.

I went there and had a look in early February and work had pretty much come to a halt because of lack of funding. There was still no funding, so nothing much had happened since i saw it last. But this time i went down into the hold, which i hadn’t done before, and got a closer look at what was down there. … Read more »

6 Comments » Tags: Travel and Places //