Reasons for Reasons
I was ‘raised’ – to use a phrase from our American friends – in south Lakeland and it has always remained home. Even though I left to study when I was 18 and didn’t return untill September 2010. A lot of years.
During those interim years I have had a great life, travelled and met some wonderful people and also have a managed to bring up my son fairly successfully. So, it although it was sort of ‘on the plan’, my move back North was not without trepidation.
As part of my ‘self affirmation’ that I had made the right decision I started a Facebook album ‘Reasons To Move North’. This has had wonderful comments from my friends but I never had the courage to make it public. Then recently I went on a Travel Writing Course with Zoe ,and much to my delight and surprise received more affirmation from positive comments on my travel writing. Something else which has always remained strictly within closed leaves.
A mindful review of my first year here followed and I realised that I had had an amazing twelve months. Yes, I have travelled away, but I have also done more here in the North West than I would have previously thought possible. And I have had so many visitors! People like it here! I have become a guide for friends and acquaintances who then spread the word about how wonderful the Lake District is. This led to my providing itineraries for weekends or longer visits. Some I accompanied, others I simply provided a ‘bespoke’ itinerary, with or with accommodation booked.
So, now it’s time to go Global!
And now I have built my own blog I have used my technical, from a previous life in IT, to build one for the Howgill Harriers. If you would like one put together then please contact me for a quote.
Isle of Skye; Back to the Blog
Things seem to be balancing into a ‘new normality’. I still feel anxious it will disappear, the moments with friends not seen seem so precious, not just because they have been missed, but in case they disappear once more. Travel is still curtailed but I am, like many, learning more about the near rather than the far. May, as soon as ‘permitted’ I headed for the Highlands, and my first ever visit to Skye. When consulting the weather forecast on the first day, we realised with, that it was barely going to rain. Coming from the...
read moreRecollections of my COVID Year
Back in 2012 I put a blog together along the lines of ‘Twelve for 2012’, I’ve been posting that long! Recently not very frequently. Travel often prompted me to write, this year, travel has not really happened. Despite all the downs, there have been some ups. Twenty pictures for 2020 could be stretching a point, so I’ll stick with twelve and peg on a few words. A year with much gloom, made me some good memories. January and I went to London. The millennium bridge. A visit to see my son before my much planned and...
read moreWaterfalls
Since the typical Cumbrian weather returned. There was no point wishing for those long, clear blue days of lock down. Instead I wandered out to find waterfalls. Ingleton waterfalls walk being somewhere I’ve been going to since I was bribed with an ice cream ‘at the top of the hill’. Similar arrangements were made between myself and my son. The ice cream van is still there to provide suitable ammunition for enthusiastic parents and reluctant offspring. There was a lot of water And time to play with shutter speeds and try to decide, slow? Or...
read moreComing out of Lockdown in Buttermere
The weather came out of lockdown with a vengeance. As pubs and shops and campsites opened high winds and torrential rain tore through the Lake District. Deterring all but the most hardened from the hills. I decided sometime ago that high winds and hills were two thing which really shouldn’t be combined, especially if you have a camera fetish. Hard to hold a camera still. There are deep, sheltered valleys between the steep hills here, so I headed to Buttermere to walk low level round Buttermere and Crummock water. ...
read moreApril 2020 – COVID Spring
There has been a perverseness to spring this year. While many have been locked indoors, unable to escape, spring has hurtled through April with, officially, the most sunshine on record. Easter heralds the start of the tourist season and with weather such as we’ve had the mountains and footpaths of Cumbria should have thronged with visitors, but not this year! Cumbria is closed. I count my blessings and my luck at living, where walking from my door, there are woodlands and the outlying Cunswick Scar, high enough within twenty minutes to...
read moreAgra
Think India think Taj Mahal. It is on the ‘must do’ list of many. Thousands flock there on a Golden Triangle tour. Visit Delhi, Agra and Jaipur and you’ve ‘done’ India. Or so it seemed by the proportion of Europeans who never went much further. Contrary to this Vic, who was travelling with me for a few days, was quite adamant he wasn’t going to the Taj. Why? When it could be seen, so books will tell you, from perfectly good vantage points in rooftop restaurants. I figured I’d flown thousands of miles, not to...
read moreDelhi
My first two days in India were in Delhi. A somewhat crazy city with its daunting reputation of crime and pollution preceding it. Unsafe for women, rampant with pickpockets and thick with pollution. Obviously I survived well beyond the two days. Armed guards at ATMs was a little daunting at first, but add this to being pushed to the front of the queue because I was a women, and it really did become a surreal experience Cutting through that heavy grey air on my first morning I set out to meet Adivida my guide from...
read moreLiving in Lockdown
Since coming back from India, just over three weeks ago the world has slowly ground to a halt. The past 24 hours seem to have taken an age. Like never ending childhood summers, without the fun. I read somewhere that because those days were so packed with new experiences and our brains had so much to do, and it was this that made time expand. Now that everything is ‘unknown’. Each day is different. There is no normal. My brain has clearly had so much to do it feels time is standing still. Today, the first...
read moreRajasthan by Rail
India has been on my ‘travel list’ for some time, but I’d had concerns about going solo. A throw away comment from a friend saying her husband was going to be in India, Rajasthan in particular, was the catalyst I needed to get my brain in gear and go. It’s a big place but at least someone I knew would be on the same continent. Train travel? Well I’d seen all those crazy films with goats, chickens and people hanging from windows and heaped on roofs. My climate guilt at taking a flight, as opposed to a slow container ship,...
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