abroad thoughts from home

But I might write a song that makes you laugh, now that would be funny
And you could tell your friends in England you'd like that
But now I've chosen aeroplanes and boats to come between us
And a line or two on paper wouldn't go amiss

Spain was just about to go into lock-down. We were in Seville for a few days - our birthday present to each other. We've been back 8 days now so hopefully all's well. Luckily enough we were booked on a flight out on the Friday and Spain was being shut down on the Saturday.

Many shops were closing early that afternoon and the bars and restaurants were fairly empty. We had a coffee and some tapas in a bar under Las Setas de la Encarnación (The Mushrooms of the Incarnation) and our waiter explained what was going on. He told us that normally at that time on a Friday afternoon the whole place would be heaving, all the bars full of weekend-starts-here revellers. He looked forlornly around and told us that the schools were closed as of that day so everyone would be at home looking after the kids. He then went into a diatribe about the Chinese which was uncomfortable but when in Rome . . . or Seville in this case. We were able to get to the airport despite the bus being full as an enterprising taxi driver did a deal for four of us so we got there quite quickly. Empty roads. The other two were a couple of ladies who were flying back to Manchester. The Manchester flight was very busy, much busier than ours to Stansted but both were slightly delayed. My understanding is that Saturday was a lot busier and stressful.

We were home just after midnight. It was Tuesday before we were able to buy toilet rolls. We weren't panic buying, just felt we may need more if we have to self-isolate. The unnecessary shortages could have been easily averted I'm sure. The most cynical thing I've seen so far is the profiteering nature of some of the shops. I feel sorry for families with youngsters that need Calpol but find the prices hiked to nearly £10. On Friday I bought a bottle of wine in our local Spar for £6. On Saturday they were changing the prices of all their wines. The same one was suddenly £7:50. It hadn't been on offer the day before, so it was sheer profiteering as far as I'm concerned. Needless to say I didn't buy it.

Seville itself is a city we'd never been to before and we spent four days there thoroughly enjoying it. Obviously we were tourists and felt we needed to see the sights. We went to the Cathedral which is, evidently, the largest Gothic cathedral in the World. Unfortunately we didn't go up the tower as we thought we had to pay more but it was actually included in the price. Never mind. What we did see though as we wandered around was the disgrace of redundant wealth. The amount of gold on show and 'treasures' (sic) were ostentatious in the extreme. I began to feel a little sickened to be honest. In contrast to that we got up earlier the following day and went to the Alcázar, the palace opposite the cathedral. The elegance and grace of the palace was much more to my taste. Yes, it's a huge palace built for royalty but it was far more impressive. It seemed to me that it was here that would normally show more pomp and flamboyance but, no, the cathedral trumped it completely. The grounds were great too. There was definitely a celebration of Nature here as opposed to just the small orange grove in the grounds of the cathedral. Again, the cathedral was definitely all about humanity and its ability to build needless monuments to its "jealous god" whereas the gardens of the palace seemed more about, yes, taming Nature but enjoying it too. Mind you, back in 1978 I visited the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and was far more impressed with that than any of the Christian churches too. Anyway, no lectures, just an observation.

I have to say that the weather was perfect too. Obviously we hadn't fully prepared but boots, jeans and T-shirts were all we really needed. We enjoyed the Triana market too where we ate Pescado Frito (fried fish). On the whole, Seville seemed fairly quiet so it was easy to get seated and food service was quick. We weren't sure right up until we left on the Tuesday whether or not we'd be able to travel and had been prepared to have the trip cancelled. We were quite lucky I guess. On the other side of the river was the old fish market which is now a gourmet version of the Triana and we visited that on Friday for lunch before we set off home. The river cruise was pleasant and we managed to walk all around the city easily - Mrs Dave's fitbit seemed pleased. Seville seems to be a very beautiful city that enjoys its cultural heritage. A group of buskers performed flamenco at the Plaza de España which was handy as we weren't there long enough to go to an evening performance. Food is a particularly appealing part of a visit. We found a great little bar - and I mean little as it was only about the size of the Nutshell in Bury St Edmunds! The Alfalfa bar was very busy and crowded but everyone was friendly and making the most of the last few evenings of freedom. Or so it seems.

The other thing about Seville is how many parakeets there seem to be. We're used to them on a much lesser scale here in the UK but I was taken aback by just how ubiquitous they are there.I recently saw a small flock of grey parakeets in Manchester and have seen the in London and, even, Ipswich. The noise and sight of these lovely green red-beaked chaps no matter where you go was wonderful. I spent a lot of time looking upwards.That's getting to be a dangerous habit nowadays with so many almost silent electric cars around!

I guess we're all going to have to rely on our memories of trips abroad - or anywhere really - for a while. Mind you, now that exams have been cancelled I won't be marking this year so I probably won't be able to afford to go anywhere for a while.

simple gifts

like pretty birds among the trees I will be all in motion
and skip and dance upon the breeze of love and sweet devotion
for lo it is a happy time, a time of making merry
of heavenly comfort all divine and very cheering, very

It's certainly true that wood-burning stoves are bad for your health. I cleaned ours out and prepared it for our New Year's Eve meal with friends and, somehow, by kneeling down and putting too much weight onto my right foot I managed to cause a hairline fracture of my metatarsal. At least that's what seems to have happened.

It took a day or two before the pain started but it's the only thing I can put this bizarre foot injury down to. I then spent all of January and most of February with a painful and swollen foot. I had a blood test and X-Ray but the Quack was unable to give me any definite answer to what had happened. The blood test was mainly for gout, which I haven't got, thankfully. The X-Ray didn't really show anything and I guess a scan would have been more useful.

So, we enter March. A beautiful Sunday and a chirpier feeling came over me so a walk was just what the doctor could have ordered. The longest walk I'd managed so far this year was a pleasant walk a week back during a short hiatus in the current Monsoon Season up the coast to the Ferry Boat Inn for a spot of lunch. Obviously a pint was called for to mop the solids up. This jaunt by the sea and by the famous Links golf course (as featured in the classic M. R. James story Oh Whistle And I'll Come To You, My Lad although called Burnham rather than Felixstowe) is about two miles away from my house.

On Sunday we decided that another gap between named storms required a walk to commune with Nature. The village of Melton stands just on the outskirts of Woodbridge. We used to walk there quite a lot when our kids were younger so it seemed a perfect easy walk to get me going again. When we used to walk around this area we would stay on the Woodbridge side so this time a wander along the other side of the road would be interesting. We wandered briefly along by the river where a couple of oystercatchers digging for lugworms piped to us to wish us well on our way.

Parking for free in the rather overcrowded Melton Riverside car park we set off across the Wilford Bridge and stumbled along through some reed beds coming out onto a quiet road towards a village called Bromewell. This seemed a little familiar and then I realised that this was a section of the Sandlings Walk. This is a walk that meanders from Ipswich to Southwold and takes in a range of Suffolk's heaths, woodland, farmland and estuaries for some sixty miles. I completed this walk a good few years ago when I was still a useful member of society. Dotted along the walk are various sculptures of nightjars. Incidentally, the only time I have ever seen nightjars in the wild was on the walk, which seems unlikely even now. One of the smaller sculptures resides here at a junction in the village. We took a little detour to check out the church which is named after the patron saint of Suffolk, St Edmund.  It's a nice little church with some fairly recent stained glass. Well I'm guessing they are recent as the WW1 soldier and sailor helping Jesus carry his cross would have raised Time Traveller stories or some von Daniken-type nonsense. We wandered on towards Ufford.

The walk to Ufford was only a one-divorce graded one - that is, there was only one short section of the walk where I misread the directions and we ended up walking around a field rather pointlessly as we needed to be about half a mile away in totally the other direction where we coud cross the train line safely. The grading comes from the amount of arguments such misreadings lead to. The line runs between Ipswich and Lowestoft. Good luck to any passengers as neither is exactly the best Suffolk has to offer. Much of this part of the walk follows the channel of the River Deben which was flowing very freely. In fact, there was an overflow area pumping out into a field where a grey wagtail was bobbing about in its inimitable jerky fashion. A lovely flash of yellow amongst the bushes and branches. This part of the walk seemed like a miniature Louisiana swamp and in the back of my mind I could hear the familiar twang of Ry Cooder's slide guitar. Very Southern Comfort. We don't have too many Cajuns wandering around Suffolk as far as I know but I kept an eye out just to be sure.

After crossing the pretty red-brick Ufford bridge with a natural pool beneath we turned left and were greeted with the sight of a village pub with its own microbrewery. Blimey! An unexpected bonus. As it was gone two o'clock and we were getting rather peckish having foolishly gone for walk on fairly empty stomachs, it seemed churlish not to pop in. The White Lion at Ufford is well-worth visiting. Obviously the first thing that happened was a friend of Mrs Dave's was sitting there having Sunday lunch* as she lives in the village. The place is full of cds and old vinyl and there's a Community Pub of the year award (a few years ago now but it has a nice ambience). I tried the local brew, Longship Bitter which, at 4.7%abv can't be considered a good driving beer by any standard, but was an excellent very bitter Bitter indeed. We ordered food - Cajun chicken curiously enough - but had a long wait. By the time I asked where the food was I had had another pint. It would seem the lad who took the order must have enjoyed the night before but wasn't quite so sure about today. The food was very good and they gave us a free bowl of chips as a way of apologising for the wait. It was time to move on.

We visited the church which has an unusual font cover - the second tallest in England evidently. Standing at eighteen feet it does seem rather unnecessary but it does help to remember that East Anglia was once a very wealthy county due to the wool industry. There is a set of stocks by the front gate but unlike places where they usually have old stocks, you can't use them as a photo opportunity, not that we did.

By now we were heading back towards Melton and were warned by some locals that the road was covered by a large puddle and we should use the golf course instead. We ignored them and put our Goretex boots to good use, as for "puddle" read "ford".  We passed yet another church but this one was a redundant church. Still well-kept but we couldn't enter it. As we passed through some woodland along a lengthy track we passed a large body of water with a pair of mute swans that watched us wander by. Evidently they are called mute because they are less vocal than other swans. Well, these were certainly mute on Sunday. We passed an unusual Nissen hut that had been converted into a cottage, named Nissen Cottage needless to say. It looked a bit like a place you might find an old crone from Hansel and Gretel but there were no obvious signs of breadcrumb trails. Mind you, the bird life was quite active and the many robins and chaffinches probably had them anyway.

Suddenly we were at the Wilford Bridge near the car park and the road was pretty busy. We crossed over and wandered back to the car. Among the trees I topped to jettison the two pints I'd taken on board. Whilst so engaged the call of a Curlew sounded close by, I looked up and it flew over as if to wish us a farewell, thanks for calling. And homeward we wended.

All in all, a great first decent walk for the year amongst the simple gifts that Mother Nature offers us; and we certainly had our moments of what the Japanese call shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) to set us up both psychologically and physiologically. Which is just as well given that every day seems to bring worse news than the one before.

* For some reason we seem to bump into people wherever we are in the World. I once bumped into someone who knew me whilst sitting outside a restaurant in the middle of absolutely Nowhere, Utah. It was someone who had worked in the same school as me a few years beforehand. I had just said to the family, "well, at least we won't bump into anyone we know here!"

looking for someone

nobody needs to discover me - I'm back again
you feel the ashes from the fire that kept you warm
its comfort disappears
and still the only friend I know
will never tell me where to go

It's been two years to the month since I last wrote on here. Sometimes I thought I'd never come back to it but there was always a nagging feeling that there was unfinished business.

When I started writing this blog back in 2010 I enjoyed the freedom it allowed me to get my thoughts down about any old crap really. It was exciting and when people started reading it and making comments on it, I realised that it was a worthwhile thing for me to be writing it. I guess it was started as a way of trying to keep myself a bit sane during those last few years of my working life. Actually, that's not really fully over as I still mark Film Studies exams every year but how much longer for, I don't know. Those last five years of working were not easy years. I'm not going to write about them as they are far behind me now and I still get fed up when I think about it. The education system is still constantly used as a playground for inept politicians so I'll move on as I've been out of it for a good four and a half years now. I'll say no more about it.

The World moves on and changes quickly. It seems to have changed massively in the two years since I last wrote anything here. When I retired I assumed I would have more time to write. I did, I suppose, but the madness of the job was behind me and gradually other things took over. Some other interests. Also, as I'm officially a grandad now life has definitely changed! However, whilst the World still turns and newfangled ways of tricking us and grinding us down have come along, a new sense of purpose has been building up in me. I still have some projects in mind. Also, many of the interests I had are still interests now. So, whilst walking, music, very amateur nature writing/bird watching and, of course, the drinking culture I grew up with are still very much part of my life, I do occasionally take up other interests.

So, this is a brief hello - shouting into the wind probably. I realise that writing this blog is still just an opportunity for me to get thoughts down. I know some of the few readers I had will still tag along for the ride once they become aware I'm active again. I hope so.