Today I’m storming up the M1 with Robert to Swaledale in Yorkshire. Specifically to Keld, the village where Rupert Hart-Davis had so many happy holidays with his mistress. They moved there eventually when he retired and was able to marry her.
I hung around SE Asia in 1989, based in Singapore. Inspired by one of the funniest travel books I have ever read, Into the Heart of Borneo by Redmond O’Hanlon, I spent a long weekend in Sarawak. It was published only six years previously, in 1983, so not much had changed.
One of the pleasures of being in France is getting to know the region; its flora, fauna and vineyards. No sign of a hoopoe yet but plenty of vineyards.
Today’s post is an homage to Robert O’Byrne, The Irish Aesthete. I had the pleasure of meeting Robert in Ireland last weekend; my sister asked him to a merry dinner.
My fishing book does not mention the tarpon I hooked on the Belize River. It kept jumping out of the water and on one of these leaps I lifted the tip of my rod and the dead weight broke the line. It does mention a catch in Ethiopia.
It’s red pin time again. The Owenduff meanders through peat hags in Co Mayo towards the Atlantic. There are clumps of rhododendrons in blossom along its banks. A few scruffy sheep mooch about. The country looks devoid of any human habitation but on inspection there is a sprinkling of small houses.
So long – I’m going west into a Wi-Fi-free area, taking this gadget with me. Just eight inches and with rugged good looks it will turn me into a barista anywhere there is hot water, if Security don’t think it’s a bomb. We meet again towards the end of next week.
Friends have just come back from Jodhpur, known as the Blue City. Another Blue City is Chefchaouen in Morocco. As you know, things often come in threes and the third Blue City is closer to home.
Some years ago, I would need to check an old passport to be more precise, I flew on an airline that had an unfortunate history. In one day in 1968 they lost three Comet 4C’s, two Caravelles, a Boeing 707, and their only Vickers VC10 and Viscount.
I have been at the Cheltenham races this week. The weather was super-sunny and warm on Wednesday – most unusual for the Arctic micro-climate there. The traffic is as well managed as possible in such a rural location, so I choppered in.