I am waiting for South Island to show me something unlovely. It feels like every part of the countryside here is at least pretty, and at most is breathtakingly beautiful. From Castle Hill we drove south through the Canterbury plains along incredibly straight straight roads that stretched so far into the hot distance they seemed … Continue reading »
Tagged with journey …
A Woman in Damascus 4
And so to everything else (with pictures)… The Ummayed Mosque – a super ancient place, the mosque was a church, and before that was a Roman temple to Saturn and before that was some kind of Hittite place of worship… The stones are all Roman, and on one side there’s an inscription to Christ, partially … Continue reading »
A Woman in Damascus 3
Less of the cross-cultural feminist musings… let’s talk about cake. Well more correctly, sweet things. FF used to have a slogan on her facebook page declaring that she would ‘never hold back on all the sweet things life has to offer’. And in Damascus, it was almost impossible to hold back. This is a city … Continue reading »
A Woman in Damascus 2
The first person I met properly in Damascus was an Englishman called John, who had moved to the city seven yers earlier to work as a photographer. On my first day I walked through the souk and round the back of the Great Umayyed Mosque, towards the Christian Quarter of the old city, where he … Continue reading »
A trip to Damascus (or my life as a media whore)
Before I even begin, I want to make it utterly clear that I know how lucky I am, how unutterably lucky I am. A few weeks ago, we were planning the content for the next issue of one of our magazines and my editor said we needed a travel story. Off the cuff I suggested … Continue reading »
Notes from a road trip: part seven
Shower facilities: 7/10 – extra points for the parrot Self-timer photos taken: 0 – but this one taken by CC’s uncle should count right? The Story: It was with great sadness that we set out from Cerne Abbas. The cloud we were camping in had still not lifted, but our spirits were undampened. We drove … Continue reading »
Notes from a road trip: part six
Shower facilities: 4/10 – 20 pences again… Self-timer photos taken: 1 – CC, me and the giant Novel references: Lorna Doone Number of 1 in 4 slopes ascended and descended: 2 Number of gears tried to drive up the 25 per cent incline: 4 Number of castles we failed to find on a first attempt: … Continue reading »
Notes from a road trip: part five
Shower facilities: Appledore 0/10 – The toilet seat of the one loo was covered with muddy footprints, which meant we hovered rather than sat for our ablutions, and the shower didn’t even bear contemplating. So we didn’t. I’ve seen cleaner outside toilets. Fact. Croyde 8/10 – We used them twice. Enough said. Self-timer photos taken: … Continue reading »
Notes from a road trip: part four
Shower facilities: 4/10 – Warm, and clean and largely dry. But everything, and I mean everything, had a meter begging for 20 pence on it – plug sockets, hairdryers, showers. And given this was also one of the most expensive places we camped, that doesn’t really fly. Self-timer photos taken: 0 (but one at arm’s … Continue reading »
Notes from a road trip: part two
Novel references: 0 Shower facilities: 4/10 Self-timer photos taken: 3 Food and drinks consumed beginning with the letter C: cake, cider, cheese sandwiches The story: We headed to the seaside to begin our meanderings along the south coast, parking up in Bournemouth to read the Sunday papers and people watch. We observed a first date start … Continue reading »
