Let’s go to Australia. We have family in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. We’ll visit the three cities in turn, one week each. We’ll take notes and photographs to document our memories. We’ve been to Sydney and Brisbane, so let’s fly on to Melbourne. You’ll like Melbourne, so said everyone. So we did. There is nothingRead More
Let’s go to Australia. We have family in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. We’ll visit the three cities in turn, one week each. We’ll take notes and photographs to document our memories. Having started with Sydney, let’s fly on to Brisbane. Nothing is more disorienting than to arrive in the middle of an unknown city. EveryoneRead More
Let’s go to Australia. We have family in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. We’ll visit the three cities in turn, one week each. We’ll take notes and photographs to document our memories. We’ll go to Sydney first. First sight, a thin line of sunrise-red stretching along the ocean horizon as we land at Botany Bay. OhRead More
Next up in the reviews of my year is a year in the Lake District. It wasn’t a year as such, but it was five weeks, over three holiday periods, the longest I have spent over twelve months in a part of the country that means a lot to me. Below are favourite photos thatRead More
Walking along some fellside path in the Lake District, grey skies and a gentle drizzle, suddenly I am able to fly upwards. Hovering high above the hills, fields and waters, I can see the lattice-work of tracks, paths and roads that intersect across the land. With this map-like view of the terrain I view acrossRead More
I have many favourite spots in the Lake District, but one stands out above the rest. I treasure Borrowdale, of course; the circuits to be made of Derwentwater, Loweswater and Buttermere; the gentle St John’s in the Vale; the secret lands to the north of Skiddaw (Back’o’Skiddaw); and beautiful Grisedale, which greets climbers descending fromRead More
Some places have so little to tell about themselves, and that can be part of their appeal. Take Egypt Bay, for example. It’s a small bay on the northern coast of the Hoo Peninsula, that overlooked piece of land jutting out of the Kent mainland, caught between Essex and Sheppey. The River Thames flows byRead More
Something in all of us yearns for the sea. I am travelling on a train. I don’t know when exactly; it might be the late 1980s or early 1990s. The train has come from London and is heading along the north Kent coast. I am headed for Whitstable, to see family. It is summertime, andRead More
There are some small out-of-the-way landing-places on the Thames and the Medway, where I do much of my summer idling. Running water is favourable to day-dreams, and a strong tidal river is the best of running water for mine. I wish those words were mine. They fit so precisely with my thoughts and my locationRead More
I was spending two weeks in the Lake District, and I wanted to seek out one of the lakes I had not seen before, despite having visited the area many times. Ennerdale Water is one of the least known and least visited of the lakes, owing to its remote location to the west of theRead More