It was only towards the end of June that I wrote about Frank Gardner’s memoir, Blood & Sand. I may have omitted to mention that I was given three of Frank Gardner’s books for my birthday this year.
I’m glad because he wasn’t an author on my wish list but now I’m enjoying his next, Far Horizons; I can recommend it. It is not in the absolute top drawer of travel writing, a topic visited here pretty exhaustively by me and readers some years ago, but it is definitely better than Gerald Durrell. My guess is that he kept a diary and, on some trips, was paid to write articles for travel supplements. That’s given him the ammo to make a thoroughly enjoyable book. I have succumbed to his easy self-deprecating wit and charm.
But we have already disasterously digressed. I have found my notes from a short holiday in September 2002 and I want you to read them, edited but not improved except for grammar and spelling. They are perhaps more interesting because of my poor writing style than their content – although I was a grown-up (48).
Meanwhile, I was at the Summer Exhibition yesterday where visitors can take photographs of every exhibit except two by David Hockney. (Could probably go back to snatch a “grab-shot” if you are desperate.) Today back to Masterpiece to show Robert round. One of the exhibits is a waterfall. I have been told it’s an illusion and is really a wall of gas and I can walk through it – so I’ll be the idiot standing in a puddle of water in a wet linen suit.
