travel-writing

A BOWL OF IRISH CHARMS IN KILLARNEY, CO. KERRY

| sophiekemsley

Before visiting for the first time,  the image in my head of Ireland was always a fusion of greens and greys, Celtic symbols, and a language containing an abundance of b‘s, h‘s, and n‘s strung together in sequences that I have no clue how to pronounce. Shbhnnhsh. All set against some backing music provided by Enya.

Did my trip to Killarney, County Kerry, change any of that? No, but it certainly added a number of new features to that internal vision, and I fell in love with it instantly.

Even as soon as I alighted the plane I sensed something sweet about the place. Literally. The concourse of Cork airport smelled not of aviation fuel but sugar, and I couldn’t work out why. After spending the following days witnessing more rainbows than I’ve ever seen in such quick succession, I deduced that the air was full of Skittles, which we must have been tasting (or smelling), as per the tagline. I’d later find out the real reason and I’ll tell you that later, but in coming to Ireland, I had seemingly dived head first into a sugary bowl of Lucky Charms, and there were lots of those charms to find.

Sally being one. She was the 12 year old piebald horse that clip-clopped our traditional jaunting car through the crispy orange leaves of Killarney National Park under the instruction of her owner, Mikey, who was the third generation of guides in his family.

“She works two days then has a day off”, explained Mikey. I quite liked the sound of Sally’s working pattern, and briefly thought about becoming a horse, before being distracted by the sight of Ross Castle in the distance. There must be people who exist with the name Ross Castle. I expect it drives them around the bend – or moat – when people come to visit, particularly if they start asking about entrance fees.

I doubt that there’s anybody out there called MacGillyCuddy Reeks, though (and if there are I feel more sorry for them than I do Ross Castle). These unusual words form the name of the local mountain range which is home to the highest peak in Ireland, Carrauntoohil. My original plan had been to spend a day scaling Carrauntoohil, but on this occasion I gave in to sense, on account of not being sure if there’d be enough hours of daylight in mid-November to complete it. Instead I settled for Torc Mountain, the just as impressive 329th highest, and home to a waterfall that is one of the many must-see points along the Ring of Kerry, for which Killarney is the perfect place to base oneself for a few days.

The geography informed our choice to come here out of everywhere else in Ireland. People speak of ‘moving mountains’, but it’s always the mountains that move me. They make me weak at the knees, in both senses. On mountains, time disappears. Things disappear. The entirety of the wider world disappears, along with all its ugly parts. It’s just you and the product of a tectonic plate collision that’s been there for a billion years before you, and will be there for billions of years after. The mountains have seen everything there is to see as they look down on us (probably in more ways than one), yet they do not ever judge. Which is very kind of them.

I’m about three quarters of the way up the ‘prolonged climb’ of the Red Trail and starting to wonder if I should have just stayed in the town and drank Murphy’s in one of the warm taverns before I notice some pink writing painted on to one of the large stones that make up the ‘staircase’.

“Never give up”.

Clearly many before me have experienced similar feelings to those I’m feeling now: tempted to retreat back down, get back in the car and go back to bed. There’s comfort in knowing this.

I thank the anonymous scribe and obey the pink scrawl and I’m so glad that I do so, because I’m soon at the top and able to enjoy the plateaued ridge that runs along the top of the mountain affording misty yet magical views of Muckross Lake below. It’s at this point that a particularly heavy rain-shower occurs, and my thoughts immediately turn to the food in my non-waterproof bag, which wouldn’t taste nice wet. Somehow, just somehow, to my right is a stone shelter complete with a bench inside, the only one of its kind that I’ll see along this entire route. Is this what they mean when they talk about Irish Luck? Either way, I’ll take it, and enjoy the shelter for as long as is needed whilst the clouds get the rain out of their system.

The rain would feature a lot during our time in Ireland, as you would expect from an island in the Atlantic, yet Irish people don’t tend to bother with brollies, a stoicism underpinned by the strong winds that render them impractical. The equivalent of trying to heat a house with a single tealight. I overhear a rain-related joke that evening in the pub:

“Who ordered the rain?”
“I don’t know, but send it back”

The women laugh over their Dingle gins, a homegrown product from a peninsular just a bit further north here in County Kerry. Lady 2 is clearly very pleased with her quick-witted reply to her friend, but I get the feeling she’s maybe used it a few times before. There’s regular opportunity to do so in Ireland, afterall.

For every rain shower here on the Emerald Isle though, there seems to be a golden sunshine that enjoys dancing off the orange autumn leaves. That’s how those many rainbows come into being, a fact that always makes me smile as a metaphor for life’s varied paint palette itself. We see another beautiful one as we begin our tour of the Ring of Kerry. At the end of this particular ‘bow sits Kerry Bog Village, a museum in Glenbeigh consisting of a preserved 19th century village where real people lived and worked.

The minibus stops and allows us some time to explore Kerry Bog, and if it weren’t for the host of smartphones being waved about taking photos, we could have quite easily felt that we had stepped back 150 years or so. We venture into each of the buildings, all former homes of workers, and breathe in the surprisingly calming scent of burning peat whilst contemplating what it must have been like to share a kitchen with farm animals and climb up a long ladder to get to bed.

Nearby, an American tourist – one of over a million who visit here each year to connect with their ancestors – is excitedly rolling around on the floor with one of the Irish Wolfhounds. Despite their status as one of the largest and most intimidating of all breeds of dog, this one is looking quite embarrassed by the encounter.

“She said next time she gets a dawwwg, that’s the one she’s gonna get,” I overhear her companion sigh a little while later, as the one-way carry-on carries on in the background with no signs of abating.

These tourists are part of a different group, so I never get to know if they make it back to their bus without a new four-legged addition. Or if they even make it at all. Ireland’s charm is infectious and I wouldn’t hesitate to place a bet on everyone on these buses remembering this day for the rest of their lives. Even the lady behind me, who spends quite some time explaining to her partner – in one of the longest, most mundane conversations ever overheard – that looking at her phone whilst the bus is in motion makes her feel “seasick”.

Well, I guess we are traversing the Wild Atlantic Way…

When we eventually arrive back in the UK, the post holiday blues swallow me up in the way they usually do and I find myself doing the same old things I always do when I feel this way. Searching for documentaries on YouTube about the places recently explored so that I can see even more of them. Listening to Enya and pretending I’m back looking out over the patchwork of greens and golds that make up the beautiful Irish landscape. Carrying out important research on Google…

“Why does Cork airport smell of sweets?”

Well, it turns out that just over the road, as we alighted the plane, 35% of the world’s Tic Tacs were being produced at the Ferrero factory. My theory about Skittles wasn’t far wrong. But I think I prefer my own version of the truth…

Ireland, you were worth the wait, and I’ll be back to collect even more charms someday.

THE “UK’S WORST HOTEL”, A DESERVED TITLE?

| sophiekemsley

I have a really strict criteria when it comes to hotels. Since they’re not cheap, when the rare opportunity arises for me to stay in one, it absolutely has to be one of two things:

A little bit quirky

OR

Have lots of terrible reviews

I know it might seem like I’ve made a typo in the latter, but I mean every word. Unless I’m travelling with friends or family – when I’ll comply with more ‘normal’ choices – I’ll always choose budget and character, over nice, but expensive and boring.

I haven’t always felt this way, but then in 2017 I needed to book into a hotel opposite the train station in Stoke on Trent, and it changed everything. Say what you will about cleanliness and quality (neither of which that hotel particularly had), but I’ve never stayed in a hotel I’ve spoken about more. I can’t even remember most of the others. My stay at the North Stafford Hotel prompted much laughter, and conjured bizarre stories and anecdotes in abundance.

It also gave birth to a dream of visiting terribly rated hotels all over the country and writing a book about them, but I never pursued that dream due to both time and financial constraints. Now, a vast number of writers and YouTubers have beaten me to it, and probably do it better than I could anyway.

But there’s always been one hotel here in Kent that’s been on my list of places to experience before I die. Maybe it would be in poor taste to name it, so let’s just say I’ve been burstin to go ever since I found out it earned the grand title of the ‘UK’s worst hotel’. For several years running. Perfect.

I finally got to tick this item off my bucket list (no, not ‘sick bucket’!) in April 2025, when a Folkestone-based friend was having some birthday drinks. I could have found a way to get home that evening if I’d tried to, but I didn’t try. At all, in fact.

It was time.

Beautiful Folkestone, a town I always enjoy visiting

After a delicious lunch on the Harbour Arm and an hour reading my book on the dreamy seafront, I finally make my way to the hotel to check-in. The automatic door opens, so already my expectations have been exceeded.

“I like your green shoes, love!”

The group of men in the lobby start laughing. Maybe I should be offended, but I’m not. I’m too excited to be fulfilling a dream, and am eager to check-in. The service is friendly, professional, and hassle-free, and this would be the case in every encounter with staff during my stay. Before heading to my room, I take a little tour of the building. It’s everything I hoped it would be. Hypnotic carpets. Worn leather seats. Yellowing ceilings. I feel like I can still smell the many B&H’s that would have been smoked in these rooms in the 1980s, and strangely, I don’t actually dislike that fact.

The whole place brings back memories of some of the best nights out in my life. Only those who attended Lancaster University before 2010 will understand it when I say this is like Morecambe’s Premier Venue – the Carleton (R.I.P) – but for those who didn’t, the Carleton was basically like this, but with stickier floors, cheesy music, and people throwing up everywhere (not always me) after one too many of the venue’s signature cocktails, named ‘stiff’uns‘. Maybe that’s what happens to this place at night, too. That’s something I’ll have to find out next time.

I head to my room and elect to take the stairs over the elevator, on account of only being on the first floor. Room 151. If this was the North Stafford Hotel – which incidentally belongs to the same chain as this one – Room 151 would probably be between rooms 312 and 543 on floor 7, but here, the numbers do seem to run in a logical order. On my floor, at least.

Room 151 is in the very regal sounding ‘C Wing‘, although some odd kerning on the signage makes it read more like ‘C WIN G’. To get to C WIN G I must walk down a very long corridor. A very long corridor.  One which I’m not sure even has an actual ending, and quite possibly doesn’t. I walk along and am enveloped by a smell that evokes memories of visiting my much missed grandmother in her care home shortly before she passed away. It’s both a comfort and a discomfort and it leads me to ruminate, but I’m quickly detracted by a piece of paper stuck to a door on which a note has been scrawled and highlighted with a blue Stabilo marker pen:

“KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING PLEASE“

I make a mental note to keep my door locked, and wonder what sort of commotion has been ensuing along this very long corridor recently.

I enter my room, and am pleasantly surprised. The reviews and articles I’d read had evoked visions of walking into some sort of bog with bricks for beds and stained underwear for curtains. Instead, I walk into a light, bright space which upon first inspection seems clean and tidy, although the artwork is a little terrifying:

Lute, or weapon?

My room is – unfortunately – on the wrong side of the building for a sea view. Instead, I am proffered stunning views of the car park, and the Sunshine Bar and Grill over the road. Still, it’s better than the view of vents and discarded Styrofoam containers I had at the North Stafford. Another thing I have here, which the North Stafford didn’t offer, is a full on ironing board and iron. Just in case I fancy straightening out any creases in my luggage whilst absorbing the beautiful panoramic:

I make myself a coffee and notice what appears to be Pot Noodle dust peppered around the spout of the kettle, but it’s nothing a little wipe can’t fix.

I’d been hoping to use my time pre-party to check out the sauna, but the swimming facilities were closed due to staff sickness, so I decide to have a bath instead. It’s during this initial venture into the bathroom that I discover the previous occupant has failed to flush the loo (I wonder if they had been burstin, and just forgotten to flush in the wake of overwhelming relief), and there is no sign that there has ever been any shower gel in the shower gel receptacle. I draw a bath anyway, and become perplexed at how the bath tap seems to activate the sink tap too. Multitasking! The running water alternates between trickles and full on downpours, but we get there eventually.

Bathed up and dressed, I decide to head down to the bar area for a coffee. And to be honest, it’s all absolutely fine. It’s busy – proving that even in spite of the reputation, the hotel remains popular – and I appreciate the range of dialects I can overhear. Scottish. Irish. American. I’m proud to live in a county so attractive to tourists. It makes me feel like I’m on holiday, too.

I choose the comfiest looking piece of worn furniture and am shortly joined by a noisy group next to me, where one lady in particular is enjoying herself and appears to be a little inebriated. She starts to empty the contents of her handbag all over the table. One of the items is some lipbalm:

“Sharon’s never seen me without my Carmex, and we’ve been friends for 20 years!“

She then cackles out an incredibly loud innuendo about the lipbalm that’s too filthy to put into print, and people turn to look for from whom that exclamation came from. She doesn’t care, she’s enjoying her own joke too much, and I actually quite admire the hubris. Good for her, I think to myself.

Coffee consumed, I decide to venture out in the sunshine to grab a sweet snack and test my theory that everybody always looks deadly serious when eating ice cream cones. I return a few pounds heavier, having witnessed no challenges to my hypothesis.

Back in my room, I make a phone-call, and whilst gazing ahead notice what appears to be a blob of snot affixed to the wall. Of everything I’ve experienced in this hotel so far, this is the one thing that crosses a line, and makes me physically gag. I reassure myself I’m only here for one night, and by the time I return from the party it’ll be hopefully too dark to see it. Or not. It’s pretty fudging massive, like it came out of the nostril of a hippo, or some other megafauna. It’ll probably even illuminate the room overnight with its green glow, I guess I’ll find out later.

A short while later my ‘neighbours’ arrive. I don’t see them, but I can definitely hear them:

“No, please don’t, you’ll set off the alarm. You’ll set off the alarm. YOU’LL SET OFF THE ALARM!”

“Oh, alright then, I won’t!”

Phew.

I then hear them comment on their impressions of their room. They, too, are in awe of the ironing board. They also rate the beds, and have an early start in the morning. A sheet of toilet paper dividing the rooms – like the one I found in the loo perhaps – would provide more sound insulation than the existing walls, I’m sure.

***************************************

I return from my evening out around 11.30pm and walk over a pile of crushed tortilla crisps that have integrated into the hypnotic carpet. No salsa. The bar is busy and full of life, and accents from all over the world. I love it. It feels like the entire planet has compressed itself into this little tatty cruise ship shaped building in East Kent, frozen in time since the ’80s. The nautical theme also makes it feel like the cross-channel ferries I used to take with my grandparents around the same time, watching the ashes from Nan’s fag drip down into an aluminium ashtray whilst nibbling on a Toblerone too big for my infant-sized mouth.

Back in the present, I hear only laughter, people conversing with strangers, others burstin into song, and the likes of ‘Time of my Life’ emanating from the ballroom. I see people smiling and enjoying themselves within the craziness of it all. I hear an American comment that life is not about money, but community, having fun, and eating tasty food. Last night, he ate the best prawns he’d ever had in his life. He “even took a photo.” I love him.

If this hotel is ‘bad’, then I’m not sure I really care about ‘good’.

Character over perfection, every single time. I’m burstin to tell you, that places like these are so much better than you think they’ll be, and they will almost always make you smile, and even laugh a bit. They’ll also save you a fair amount of money, so you can afford to come back again.

Now there’s an idea…

WANDERING. WONDERING. WHEREVER.

| sophiekemsley

I could try, but I’m not sure I’d ever be able to put it more clearly and succinctly than Jessica Vincent in the opener to ‘The Best British Travel Writing of the 21st Century’:

“The essence of travel isn’t to move, it‘s to feel”

In my younger years, I had a very – in hindsight – generic and somewhat quite privileged view of travel. Get away from Watford! Go as far as you can go! See as much as you can see! Base the bucket list on a collection of landmarks so often read about – Niagara Falls, Angkor Wat et al – all out there to tick off like some kind of checklist from the Dorling Kindersley atlas that had fascinated me as a young child.

Yet, looking back, it was never the famous landmarks or the ‘ticking things off’ that made the biggest impressions during the more intrepid trips of my younger years. More often than not, they were impersonal experiences featuring crowds, tacky souvenirs, and overpriced ice-creams. It took me a long time to understand why these outings – though lovely and memorable in their own way – had seemed a bit underwhelming. I realised that the curated nature of these experiences – all designed to draw in and satisfy baying tourists – had led to an absence of feeling. I saw, but I didn’t really feel, to be honest, as it seemed like all the true facets of the culture I was visiting had been cloaked by consumerism. And for something to make a lasting impression, whatever it is, you need it to be authentic. That’s why nature never fails:

Over time, I’ve realised that distance – and even place – won’t necessarily determine how much of an impact a trip will have.  The only reason we think they do is because invariably when we head further away than what we’re used to, we are more likely to see many landscapes and cultures for the first time, and this evokes the same level of intrigue as when we ever experienced anything else for the first time, home or away. Consider how excitable infants get over the smallest and most mundane things when they first see them – a curtain to hide behind, the way toilet paper unwinds if you roll it along a floor, a lifelike image moving on a flat screen. We get older and these things become less exciting, and it becomes harder to find anything new in the day to day, so instead we might turn to maps and identify all the places we haven’t seen yet.

And to some degree that works, but when it comes to it, it’s never really the places that matter but the special moments they’ve conjured, as those are when you really feel things. Away from home, these moments may look like inspiring conversations with people you’ll probably never see again, the scents of local spices, getting lost at night and managing to navigate your way back to an air bnb with an awkward lock, or the heartbreaking sight of a young mother placing her wailing toddler into the doorway of a bus that sits stationery in the traffic which chokes an Asian capital. She rhythmically shakes a plastic bottle filled with uncooked rice to make her little girl ‘dance’ – although it’s really a tearful stomp – in exchange for cash from commuters who pretend not to notice that either of them are crying.

These moments affect us because they stretch our senses to places they’ve never been, and see things in a way we’ve never seen. These moments are – as Vincent describes – ‘the essence of travel’, when it’s not just our feet that our moving but most crucially our minds, too.

And when you put it this way, it’s not wrong to think that ‘traveling’ should be about going somewhere far away, but it’s also not wrong to think that you can experience it much closer to home, too. Even from your lounge. An open mind and a few dashes of curiosity is all it takes. A willingness to let those same senses be stretched, even if it’s uncomfortable at times.

To open the eyes to their fullest. To welcome in sights and sounds that may forever change the way you think. To never say never, and to keep wanting to see more in order to open up these opportunities.

Because, like Vincent says, if travel isn’t about movement but about feeling, then let’s go and feel it all, now, wherever we are.

Song of the Day: Hey Marseilles – Rio

I think this is a really beautiful song and probably one of my all time favourites. I first came across it many years ago and loved what I interpreted it to mean. Older now, I interpret the meaning in a different way – which closely aligns with the content of this month’s post – and love it even more.

“EUROPE’S MOST BORING DESTINATION”? THE SURPRISE OF PODGORICA

| sophiekemsley

It’s not that I suddenly shot up in bed one night with a burning urge to visit Podgorica. In fact, prior to this year, I’d never even heard of it, and probably would have assumed it was some kind of jolly eastern European wafer snack as opposed to the Montenegrin capital.

Our chance encounter occurred because I’d booked onto a group trip to explore the Durmitor National Park to the north of the country, and was advised that I should fly into Podgorica airport to join the starting point. Not knowing much about Montenegro at all, I thought it’d make sense to spend a couple of days in the capital before beginning the trip. The first impressions were good, as I booked a lovely looking hotel in the heart of the city for a mere £38 a night. With the accommodation arranged, I started to do a bit more research.

To say the results yielded from internet searches were disparaging about the place would be a complete understatement. Apparently, I’d just booked a couple of nights in ‘Europe’s most boring destination’, a ‘not particularly interesting’ place to visit, and – better yet – ‘Podgorica is a hole!’.
Well. Happy holidays to me! But none of these articles succeeded in convincing me to change my itinerary. Opinions are just opinions, I wanted to see it for myself.

The plane descended from above red-roofed houses that looked like Monopoly hotels scattered over a green mattress and touched down into the airport on one hot Monday in July. The first thing that struck me upon landing was the smell of cigarettes. With the terminal building seeming to be only the size of a saucer, I wondered if I’d landed in an ashtray as opposed to an airport. After the shortest passport control line ever, I stepped outside into stifling heat – a welcome break from the exceptionally wet British Summer – and spotted a guy who looked like a Montenegrin version of Harold Bishop from Neighbours holding my name on a piece of paper. The hotel had arranged a taxi for me, and here was my driver. He walked me over to the taxi and offered me a cigarette on the way, to which I shook my head. At least, I think that’s what he was doing. If he was checking that I was okay with the smoke in the car, he certainly wasn’t paying any attention to my headshake, but – terrible though smoking is – there was something somewhat endearing about the casual nature of it all. I held my breath and gazed out the window at signs adorned in unfamiliar Cyrillic script, and thought to myself, “I have officially arrived in a place some consider to be the most boring in Europe. Hello, Podgorica!” It will take me a few days to learn that the correct pronounciation rhymes with ‘pizza’.

As we reach the city centre, I begin to hear a growing chorus of car horns, and Harold does not hold back either. Beep beep beeeeeeep. We stop in a random street, where another vehicle is blocking the layby Harold wants to pull into, and I realise we have arrived at my hotel. Harold presses his horn firmly, but the driver in the vehicle ahead is playing on a tablet, and has no intention to move. This goes on for a while until Harold is within a fingernail of the rear bumper, which is the same point I notice large dents in virtually all the vehicles around us, including one with its entire front grille peeled off. It doesn’t take long to identify that this is not a city in which I would wish to drive.

Parking melee eventually overcome, Harold kindly carries my suitcase to the hotel reception where I am surprised to see a doppelganger of somebody I work with at the front desk.
“Oh, hi! Sorry I haven’t replied to your e-mail yet” I start to say. Well – not really – but it wouldn’t have felt too amiss if I had. Nonetheless, there’s something comforting about this small fraction of familiarity. Entering a new country for the first time can sometimes feel incredibly strange at first, and this was no different, but it would very soon fade.

The receptionist’s name is Teodora, and she is very helpful. Treating her a bit like a genie arising from a magic lamp, I am keen to restrict my number of questions / wishes to three. Not being able to speak a word of Montenegrin, I am reliant upon her years of studying English for our communication to be a success, and don’t want to take advantage of that. I die a little inside every time I see a British person abroad start reeling off demands with no attempt to check that the recipient understands English, and I don’t want to be ‘that person’. I select my questions carefully. Teodora says that yes, I can leave my luggage at the front desk whilst I go and explore, as it’s too early to check into my room, and yes there’s WiFi, but no, they don’t have any print-out maps. I have many more questions, like where’s the best place for a wander, but feel I’ve put Teodora through enough, and head out to work the rest of it out for myself.

I step outside and having no map – either physical or on my phone – make a mental note of whereabouts I am: downtown Podgorica, right opposite Independence Square. I head down a busy road which from memory of Google Maps would take me towards the old town, something I’ve read up on as a place to see. After some welcome moments under the shade of trees in Kings Park – built to commemorate the coronation of Nicholas I in Montenegro – I follow a stony staircase down towards the Moraca River and cross a bridge from which I see bathers dipping into the water. I make a mental note to return here after my trip to the old town, which is now only a few hundred metres away, up another stony staircase.

The old town really is an old town, but not quite the sequence of cobbled squares and Lipton parasols in which I’d been expecting to enjoy some sort of luminous, carbonated citrus beverage. Instead, it’s a scattered arrangement of small houses – some of which are completely dilapidated – and a couple of mosques. I later find out that this is an Ottoman-era neighbourhood which served as the hub of the city between the 15th and 19th centuries before being heavily bombed during World War II. I am struck by the amount of Argentinian-themed murals on display, including a homage to Diego Maradona captioned, ‘Adios El Pibe De Oro’. It transpires that the two countries have long-standing good relations, and that the South American country has the largest communities of Montenegrins outside of Europe. This isn’t something I’d ever have imagined to be the case, but feel so grateful to learn.



The heat is immense and I can start to feel sweat beads roll like rivers down my back, so take temporary solace in a nearby supermarket to stand near a fridge. I use this as an opportunity to officially the declare the start of ‘Crisps Around the World’, which is basically a fancy name I give to the act of ogling savoury snacks in foreign supermarkets and trying to select the most bizarre and unusual to try. Within a few moments of reviewing the offerings I feel I’d have more choice if I were playing a tobacco-themed version of the game… and there are plenty of crisps on display, just none that seem particularly novel. I wander out of the supermarket and begin to worry that I may have lost my bearings, until I see The Hilton hotel up ahead, which I recall passing on my way here. ‘Good old Paris and family‘, I think to myself in a moment of relief. I’m reassured by the fact that if I were to get completely lost and need to ask someone for directions, there’s at least one building here that I know how to pronounce.

I stop in the city centre for a tasty lunch of beef cream soup, bread and Montenegrin Niksicko beer that come served with a bonus waft of Lovcen cigarettes from the people next to me. Again, though part of me thinks it disgusting, another welcomes the sensory reminder of a bygone era, when all holidays smelt like sunshine, chips, and tobacco. I look back over Independence Square and wonder what the name means. Montenegro is a tiny country which could fit into the UK 18 times. Its population is only a little bit over that of Leeds, at 617 thousand. Surely a country of this size has a history small enough to quickly digest? Well – yes and no – but in its briefest form, it was part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia for most of the 20th century. When the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was dissolved in 1992, Montenegro joined hands with Serbia to become the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, later known cunningly as ‘Serbia and Montenegro’ from 2003. In 2006, a referendum of Montenegrin independence took place with the results in favour of the country breaking off from Serbia, and in the Summer of that year it joined the UN as its 192nd member state.

After going back to my hotel to officially check-in and change attire, I head for another walk around the city. Njegoseva Street is where it all appears to be happening, and I stop off to refresh and do some journaling in a random bar with a waitress who looks less than thrilled to see me but is polite enough. I find myself thinking back to the spot by the Moraca River where people had set up a makeshift beach and feel it’s time to go back and check it out properly. I’m so glad that I do. By the time I return, the numbers have grown, the music is in full flow, and a bar framed in fairy lights has started selling drinks and t-shirts. A number of people – including some German tourists – swim in the river towards the Blazo Jovanovic bridge whilst their friends sit on the shingle smoking cigarettes, sunbathing, and enjoying loud conversations. A guy with dark, deep set eyes – like that of an albatross – serves me a Niksicko before returning to the riverbank to fish for trout – a favourite on Montenegrin dinner tables – and I sit on a stone wall, taking it all in. It’s strange to think I was waking up in an airport near Horley this morning. Right now, I couldn’t feel further away. The soft air, the excitable tingle from strange surroundings, the setting sun shimmering on the water – this is peace.

I think about what those Google searches said about Podgorica, and already I’m coming to the conclusion that they were a load of rubbish. I fully admit that what I’m experiencing is no Paris, no London, no New York, but there is still something quite sublime here – a city making the best of itself, in an understated yet enjoyable way. I walk back to my hotel via the 17th century clock tower that was framed as one of the key sights to see in Podgorica, a symbol of historic Turkish rule. As with many famous landmarks, it’s somewhat underwhelming, looking exactly the same in real life as it does on Google. You’ll visit Podgorica for reasons beyond this, I swear.

It’s the end of day 1 in Podgorica. Am I bored? No. Do I think it’s “a hole”? Absolutely not.

Day 2 starts with a hotel breakfast of random cold meats, cheeses, olives and pickles. The weather is slightly cooler than yesterday, and I choose to head to Gorica Park, a massive forested hill in the north of the city from which Podgorica gets its name (‘under the hill’). I am quite taken by Gorica Park. There is something quite alluring about its range of green shades and panoramic views of the city, reached by its seemingly endless trail paths. A wire-fenced, brutalist looking football pitch sits at the brow of the hill and opposite is an outdoor gym formed from corroded iron bars affixed to trees, looking a little like something straight out of Pripyat. I give a couple of the pieces of equipment a go before concluding that I should desist; I’ve a physically demanding week ahead, and shouldn’t go breaking my ankles on the second day.

Before long, there are flashes of lightning, and heavy rain sets in. Becoming a bit scared, I retrace my footsteps for about thirty minutes, back to the log-cabin style cafe in the centre of the park where I can take shelter with an apple and peach juice recommended by the English-speaking waiter. Heavy flumes of rain cascade from the awning and a ferocious wind blows menus across the outdoor seating area. It’s quite a contrast to yesterday’s heat, and an ever so slightly welcome one. Likewise, when the heat returns, it will be welcome back, and maybe there’s room in life for both. I sit tending my juice for an hour or so, literally waiting for a storm to pass, and think about how a swooshy font somewhere on Instagram is telling me I should be dancing in the rain. Although that’s a lovely sentiment, in these conditions it’s a pretty dangerous one. It later transpires that two men – one a Turkish construction worker in Canj, and another a Montenegrin enjoying a game of golf on the coastal Lustica bay – are killed by the lightning I watch from the safety of the cafe.

In the afternoon, once the rain has subsided and sunshine returned, I head back to the ‘beach’ at the Moraca River. My new happy place. I sit in a small cove, welcoming its shade, and write whilst looking out over the water. I am very tempted to swim, but on this occasion the voice of caution within prevails. The water moves rapidly, and though it looks nice and clean, I don’t know enough about what’s in it or how fast the current moves. Instead, I watch as a small turtle crawls over the pebbles, basking in the heat. A lady in floral dress then passes by, looking very wistful.

“She’s having a nice moment”, I think to myself, before seeing her partner following a few metres behind her, recording her with his phone.

Instagram influencer.

As for me, I’m just a novice writer whose most regular reader is my mum. I can’t influence you in the same way these perfectly curated Instagrammers can, but hey, at least I can give you a .JPG of Podgorica’s most famous attraction that you can print and pin on your fridge if you feel so particularly inclined.

At this reflective moment, a massive filling dislodges and I have to take a temporary return to reality in order to arrange a dentist’s appointment for soon after I return home. It wouldn’t be a holiday of mine without a dental-related drama! I purchase Panadol and mouthwash and hope for the best for now.

That evening, I head for a dinner of chicken in hazelnut sauce in Njegoseva Street before returning to Gorica Park. It’s still light and the settings are ripe for a beautiful sunset walk, especially with the storm having finished. I am surprised to see another turtle, a Hermann’s tortoise, crossing a path near to the ironwork gym I’d sampled earlier. Gorica Park is full of surprises, and I find myself liking the place more and more. It’s mysterious, it’s understated, and it’s beautiful. As I later make my way out of the park, I notice a small cafe bar – Klub Bocara – decked out in fairy lights and showing the Netherlands vs Romania game, and identify it as a perfect pit-stop. I sit on a table next to two girls who are smoking and playing a game of poker dice, and sip on another fresh, cold Niksicko lager. This place has a real vibe, one that just clicks. The evening warmth, the international football, the multiple languages being spoken, the fairy lights, the swing jazz on the radio, and A CAT! I stay there for a lot longer than planned just taking it all in and absorbing the moment (and taking every opportunity I can to stroke the cat). There’s tonnes I need to do to prepare for the next few days, but it can all wait.

Prior to moving on in the morning I reflect upon the last two days in Podgorica, and think back to those Google reviews. Is Podgorica the most vibrant, exciting place in the world? No. It’s not even the most vibrant and exciting place in Montenegro, as later trips to Durmitor and Budva alone would attest. But, does that mean it’s boring? Certainly not. And it’s certainly no ‘hole’. I’d go as far to wager that if you think that strongly about a place, it’s probably not the place that’s boring, but you. A lot of tourists need to understand that places don’t necessarily have to peacock to please those that visit. If they did, they’d all start looking the same, losing their unique identities to whatever algorithms constitute ‘amazing cities‘. Instead, it’s far better to take the time to really explore somewhere, and see and appreciate it for what it really is. What I particularly liked about Podgorica was that it didn’t pretend to be something it wasn’t. If it did, it probably would have felt like a lot of other places in the world.

Instead, it felt like Podgorica, Montenegro. And I absolutely loved it for that.

DELIGHTING IN FRENCH DE-LIGHT

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One of the most endearing experiences of natural light I’ve ever come across occurred last weekend, not far from Calais, France. A friend and I had some time to spare before catching our ferry back to England, and thought we should use the time to try and juice being abroad as much as possible, and see as much of it as we could see.

It was a Sunday, and most of France was typically shut beyond some vague signs of life at Cite Europe, a shopping estate reminiscent of a bunch of metal shipping hangars with an enormous car park where the painted arrows seem to have a mind of their own. We browsed around and found only a couple of uninspiring English-themed pubs and a Thai cafe – where we ended up ordering a quick snack from a very unobliging waitress – open.

It’s fair to say – after we finally received our food – that this experience wasn’t making us feel that we were making the most Frenchy use of France, so we took a look at Google maps and noticed an appealing streak of yellow on the coastline a twenty minute drive away. A drive there followed by a quick walk on the beach would then set us up nicely to get back to the port in time to catch our boat.

As we drove to Plage de Strouanne near the small town of Wissant, the enormous grey constructs of Cite Europe became smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror and were replaced with some of the brightest greens and blues I had seen in a while. The small village of Peuplingues that we went through en-route could have been right in the very heart of France, since it felt so far removed from the industrial environment we had been sitting in just a few minutes and kilometres earlier.

We were making our journey during that magical window of time just before the sun starts to set, a time when it seems to be saying to itself, “I know I’m about to disappear for a few hours, so let’s leave them all with a little parting gift.” The golden gloss it had lacquered across the French hills was accompanied by a rainbow that seemed to last for about twenty minutes. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a rainbow as close to a sunset before, but it was the most perfect fusion of lighting and colour.

When we reached Plage de Strouanne we parked up and followed the footpath towards the water, eventually working our way down a steep set of sand dunes to reach the beach itself. From here the panoramics were pretty incredible, and though the photos don’t do it justice, I hope they’re enough to make you consider taking a little detour here if ever you have some time to spare before catching a ferry from Calais.

No sooner had we driven away to make our way to the port, dusk set in, the blinding lights of the A16 no patch on the natural lighting we had just experienced.

We reached the ferry port, took it in turns to seriously believe we had lost our passports evoking much panic, and then ate far too many Kinder Schoko-Bons in quick succession to heal said panic before catching the ferry home across a pitch black channel.

It had been a detour well worth making, and I was strangely thankful for the fact everything else had been closed.

Song of the Day: Siriusmo – Gummiband

Sticking with a continental theme for this month’s post I’m sharing this track from Berlin-based electronic whizz Siriusmo.

SHOPPING IN JAKARTA (2015)

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‘Indonesia’ – a name that will immediately evoke images of the exotic.  An archipelago characterised by colour: blue seas, white sands, lush green palms and dazzling yellows of Durian flesh alongside the ravishing reds of the ‘rambutan’ (it means ‘hairy fruit’). Not to mention, of course, the ‘Angkots’, which are painted in bright purples, blues and oranges and zip dozens of huddled passengers wearing colourful hijabs round dusty streets whilst blaring out that same old D’Bagindas album from 2010 through speakers that crackle under the pressure of the driver’s desired volume. Sun-faded knick-kacks, accumulated over decades of travel, dance around on the dashboard, never failing to resist gravity with each sharp turn the vehicle makes.

…And the ominous dark grey skies that hang over the nation’s capital, Jakarta, as I sit alone inside a fast-food outlet at Arion Mall in the east of the city.  Outside, the rain hammers down on traffic that will choke up the streets for hours to come, but the inevitable arrangement of horns thankfully cannot be heard from the refuge provided by this Mall.  Instead, I am heckled by a quartet of teenage girls who marvel at the colour of my skin.  Tourists don’t really come to these parts.  I am here visiting friends who grew up in neighbourhoods not far from here, and if it weren’t for them, I doubt I would have come here either.

The young girls ask me a series of questions and take it in turns to pose with me in a picture. Picture after picture.  The forced smile slowly dwindling into complete lack of expression with each flash from a Blackberry emblazoned with emoji stickers.  I have humoured this contact for a while, but now I really just want to be finishing the half-eaten plate of fried chicken that sits before me.  The girls ask for my Instagram username and when I eventually return to a place with WiFi I’ll suddenly see that I have four new followers.  They’ll upload the photos from our meeting and decorate the captions with #foreigner.

Before I leave the Mall, I decide that it’s time to buy some Batik garments.  I have always liked Batik, with its bright, bold colours and patterns.  The clothes are always so unusual, and so unmistakably representative of the country I have come to love since completing a voluntary internship in 2010. An assistant with a huge smile approaches me.  He is wearing a waistcoat and looks like he could be about to break into song.  “Hello Miiiiss, can I help you?”

I immediately reply in basic and broken yet better-than-nothing Bahasa Indonesian that, “I like Batik.  I look for Batik”

The assistant’s smile extends further and he begins to rifle through the collections passing me every single item of Batik to try on.  He’s a natural salesman who no doubt has Rupiahs flashing in his eyes as I strenuously attempt to voice my approval of each piece using a very limited vocabulary of “Saya suka” (“I like”) or “Bagus” (“good”).  Having trialled around a dozen or so garments, I eventually emerge from the changing rooms with the couple of dresses I have selected to go on and buy.  The assistant eagerly waits by the door, enthused to hear about how I got on.  He is pleased with the items I’ve chosen, but is also keen that I reconsider my decision not to buy a surprisingly rather dreadful-looking black and red piece.  Whilst watching him redundantly point out all of its merits another dress catches my eye, and it looks like the size I see on display would fit me perfectly.  I go and take a closer look.

“Errr maybe not this dress for you Miiiiiss as we only have this size, and errr you have fat”

For a second I take offence though it’s hard to continue to do so when it’s clear that none was meant.  What amuses me most is the way in which a steadily growing rapport could suddenly cease due to a moment of lingual naivety. I smile at my new friend – my new attentive stylist – as he goes on to initiate the payment process before we bid one another Selamat Tinggal (goodbye) forever. Who could’ve guessed that this inconsequential scene, which lasted only 20 minutes and involved a man whose name I can’t even remember, nor probably never even knew in the first place, would’ve stayed in mind in the way it has all these years later? What is it about the characters we meet when travelling? Is it something to do with the language barriers, and how they enable us to view people in different ways? The smiles, the looks, the way in which any verbal exchange ends up holding considerably more weight because it took more effort? Maybe it’s to do with the scope for brutal honesty that is actually somewhat refreshing, for it is harder to maintain tact when you can only speak a few words of the language.

I go out into the rain and join the traffic on the Transjakarta busway back to my friend’s house.  A five minute journey takes half an hour due to the clogged nature of the traffic.  Equatorial rule dictates that daylight is limited, and so it’s already dark outside.  It’s September 2015 and this is worlds away from the Indonesian experience of 2010, where I taught English to orphans in the beachside city of Padang, West Sumatra. Padang hosted a landscape much more reminiscent of the opening paragraph to this piece, but it doesn’t matter, because these real, rugged, unfiltered experiences are all just a part of the world I love. A world that hides beneath a map. A world that doesn’t make the guide-books because it’s not always deemed interesting enough, but a world that’s real and which leaves a permanent impression in the mind of a 29 year old (back then!) woman who originally set off only to eat some fried chicken in order to pass the time whilst waiting for a friend to finish work.

Song of the Day: D’Bagindas – Apa Yang Terjadi

The most apt choice. It would feel impossible not to hear this song at least five times a day whilst out and about in Indonesia, impressively during each of my visits there (2010, 2012 and 2015).

Four Airports

| sophiekemsley

Gatwick airport

Not many kinds of building will evoke emotions quite like an airport.

Primarily, airports, to me, equate to long-distance travel, and that is always a good thing, right?

Of course.  You cannot travel to the other side of the world without visiting an airport first, but instead of always wanting to celebrate their existence there’s something about them that seems so wrenching to me when they come to mind.

I’ve noticed that my emotions never feel truly balanced on each and any occasion I’m in an airport, and I think it’s that – moreso than the widely maligned concept of queues and customs – that makes my stomach feel so heavy when I think about them.   There’s always a hello or a goodbye involved.  There’s always distance involved.

I do think there is a massive difference in one’s perception of the airport depending on whether they are travelling alone or with others.  When you’re travelling alone, you have no other option but to spectate and truly absorb what’s going on around you, whereas amongst company the trajectory of thought is decided for you by your companions – conversations about what so and so said or whether or not we’ve packed enough soap.  The naked intensity of the airport is tranquilised by the presence of familiar faces and discussions reflecting day-to-day life…but you don’t have that if you’re alone.

The following observations stem from my experiences of travelling solo.

We start with airport number 1.  Our origin, gateway to a dream.  Upon entrance our minds are full of the half a dozen things we are sure we must have forgotten to pack.  We work out whereabouts we’re meant to stand and then we queue.  We say sayonara to our luggage and use our newly free hands to go and  grab a coffee.  We wait. We watch.  We look at all of the other people in the airport and wonder where they’re going and for what reason.  The airport is a microcosm of diversity and we are surrounded by skins of all shades, hear voices of all accents and see whole varieties of dress.  We are mesmerised by it.  We remember how big the world is and smile to ourselves.

The excitement of impending departure causes us to be restless, and we pin our eyes to the Departure boards dreading the sudden emergence of bright red text next to the name of our destination which will signify that there is a problem with our flight.

Things become more real once we are motioned to the gate.  We familiarise with the departure lounge and finally allow the feeling of excitement to pulsate through every single cell in our body.  We think about all of the memorable things we’re going to be doing in the days ahead.  New places to discover.  New people to meet.  New feelings to feel.

The second airport.  “Finally!!” We arrive.  We are jet-lagged.  Turbulence has left us unable to hear a thing and the bright lights which we saw mapping out the city below us have left us feeling romanticised and our hearts beating faster.  This is it.  We are here.  Exiting the plane, sounds become muffled.  Everything seems so much more luminous.  We are tired, but we are excited.  Our mouths are dry and we look haggard but the thrill of being somewhere new is shuffling us towards border control.

Hello there, stern-faced man at the barriers.  The first person I will speak to in this new country.  Here is my passport, there is my nut on the page so that you can verify it’s me – adhering to regulations by looking completely blank and expressionless. No hair over the face.  No headwear.  No glasses.  You look at me intensely to check it’s really me, and then you motion me onward, over to baggage reclaim, where I wait.  For an eternity.  Dreading that mine will be the last case to come out, or that it won’t come out at all.

Just like the panic in Jakarta July 2012, when that hand-drawn sign saying ‘End’ appeared on the conveyer belt but my suitcase was nowhere to be seen.  There was panicked jumping onto the belt to expediate my journey to the other side of the room where I thought I could see my bag, security chastising me for this, but it didn’t matter because I was happy to have located my suitcase, unrecognisable from losing it’s multi-coloured strap I put there for identity purposes.  Thank Heavens, they’ll get their presents, and I have enough underwear to last the trip.

And then: We leave.  Out into the open air.  The foreign air.  The foreign smells.  The foreign noises.
That wonderful feeling of not knowing where you are… and it is a wonderful feeling despite not sounding so, because it ensures that everything that is about to happen to us will be a complete surprise.  We bathe in the blood-rush and this new wave of excitement will be both the fuel and the guide that our jet-lagged bodies need to reach the hotel,  The adventure begins.

These first two airports of the journey will represent the best memories and emotions of the lot.

But then there’s the return, a journey we will eventually have to make, when the airport takes on a completely new context, and emanates a completely different vibe.  Airport number three is the worst one. We turn up tired and the building is no longer a gateway to new dreams and memories, but an arduous formality that stinks of cleaning fluids and concentrated clusters of fast-food outlets.  But we don’t really notice any of that because our thoughts and emotions have been sidetracked by a feeling of hollowness.  A feeling as though we are missing something.  A feeling as though we have left something remarkable behind.  It could be a person.  It could be a place.  It could be an over-friendly street-cat that you passed each morning on your way to the market, or it could be the wistful way that the man selling roti by the side of the road looked at you in hope of your custom as he sat alongside a dozen others selling the same thing.  Whatever it is, you can almost find yourself searching for it in your handbag, because it feels like it should be with you.

Airport number three brings out the worst in us.  It was a hard goodbye to people who are no longer by our sides.  This is the worst thing about travelling alone.  At least when you’re with
other people, you can commiserate one another and reminisce the trip.  When you’re alone and you’ve passed through those doors, that’s it.  You have a long-haul journey ahead of you
in which you will speak to nobody… bar maybe the flight attendant when you confirm you want the chicken option, or the person next to you when you need to pass them in order to get to the toilet.  That’s it.

I have to say… sometimes the goodbyes have been so hard to do that it’s made a small part of me wonder if things would’ve been easier had I not gone at all.  Airports can make that moment so much worse.
The harsh bright lights shining over your sole suitcase.
The doors, heavy and damning.
New friends waving… and then disappearing, gone, from view.
Sitting having a coffee alone trying to use up the last of your foreign notes and the tears are welling up, but you’re more exposed when you’re crying alone.  You cannot bury your head into the shoulder of a friend.  Strangers stare at you with that expression of awkward sympathy.

When the plane takes off you look at the labyrinth-of-a-city below and wonder if the things you will always remember from that place will remember you too, or whether or not you’ll
be forgotten just as soon as the next visitor touches down.  You wonder if you’ll ever set foot on those streets again and possibly find yourself promising to yourself that you will.  A coping mechanism that will make this departure a little easier to bear.  You get your camera out from your handbag and browse through all the photos you took just to keep the flame of this trip burning for that little bit longer.

After what seems like an eternity of floating around in the troposphere, we eventually reach airport number four.  How you feel about that one depends on how long you’ve been away.  If it’s been a considerable amount of time, airport number four is the emblem of a homecoming enriched with pride and excitement.  Visions attached to the warming thoughts of roast dinners, hot water, English pubs and timber-framed buildings with uneven floorboards.  The smell of cloves and potpourri.  Family and friends.

However, if your absence has been much shorter term, we tend to attach thoughts of all the negative parts about the homeland.  Rain.  Dark Monday evenings in Winter.  A conservative society in which saying hello to stranger as you pass them on the street is considered abnormal or overbearing.  Documentaries about our binge-drinking culture.  Formalities.
We still love home, of course, but it lacks that element of surprise.  We know it too well.  Too often it slips into the rhythm of repetitive routine, because we allow it to.

And the fourth airport is the damning rubber stamp to this realisation.

airport2

A Bit of This, A Bit of That

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Around the World in 80+ Pages

In recent months, I have developed a new addiction – travel writing books.  My logic is that if my circumstances are such that I cannot actively be travelling right now then I may as well be doing the next best thing – reading about it.

Since my addiction began, towards the tale end of Autumn, I have visited the 7 most polluted places in the world with Andrew Blackwell, cycled from Mongolia to Vietnam with Erika Warmbrunn, driven around China with Peter Hessler, lived in a Javanese village with Andrew Beatty, and am currently whizzing around Jamaica with Ian Thomson.  Up next – Barbara Demick will be covertly burrowing me through to North Korea before I then head off to the Amazon with John Gimlette.  I am enjoying every moment of my trip.

I would seriously recommend this pastime to anybody else who misses the thrill of being surrounded by the unfamiliar but for whatever reason, can’t be doing it right now.  It’s comparatively inexpensive, you don’t need any vaccinations nor to worry about having enough deet in your repellant, and you won’t be in any danger whatsoever.

Whilst it doesn’t quite equate to the real thing, it’s still comforting to know that you can get off the beaten track and learn about the world without getting out of bed, and that’s precisely what I plan on doing with the remainder of my afternoon.
The Point When It All Makes Sense

Hitting the UK headlines this week was a rather shocking insinuation – politicians are capable of telling lies.  Who would have thought so?  But it’s true, former cabinet minister Chris Huhne was telling porky-pies about his ex-wife driving his car when it was caught speeding a decade ago.

Generally, anything to do with politics tends to go over my head somewhat (mainly because I have a hard time believing anything I read on the matter), but there were two things about this particular story which were of interest to me.

The first was that Huhne’s cowardice fits in perfectly well with the fact that his name, in German, roughly translates as ‘chicken’.  Ja, genau!

The second is the feeling that I’ve seen his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, somewhere before.  No – it wasn’t when she was ramping up points whilst zipping along the M11 in 2003, it was somewhere else I’m sure…

fabiocapello

N’ah yes, that’s it.  As I recall, she was desperate for points then, too.

Interestingly, when Chris Huhne resigned from the cabinet over the allegations (which were initially made last year), backing came from the somewhat surprising source of none other than Fabio Capello:

“I spoke to the Prime Minister and said that in my opinion someone should not be punished until it is official that he has deliberately conspired with his ex-wife to knowingly deceive the authorities.”  –  Well, you’re the expert on the situation afterall, insider info and all that jazz.

It’s all conspiracy I tell thee!

To Give Up Something, or to Give Up on Trying to Decide What That Something Is?

Last year was the first time I had given something up for the entire duration of Lent.  For 40 days and 40 nights, my stomach was a crisp, chocolate and cider-free zone, and I did feel a lot better for it.  The weighing scales were grateful too, and calculating my weight was a slightly less painful experience for them than usual.

Lent begins again on Wednesday and I am still wondering what I’d like to give up this year.  To repeat the abstinence of the 3C’s mentioned above feels slightly lacking in imagination, and I’m not so sure that crisps are thaaaaaaat fattening, and cider is something I rarely drink anymore anyway.

But what other guilty pleasures do I enjoy yet over-consume?  Wine is one option, but I do believe that a glass of wine every now and then can actually be quite beneficial.  So my resolution is to give up on buying any item of food or drink that isn’t necessary (to the new Sainsburys Local by the cricket ground – you have a lot of fat to answer for, buddy!).  And finally, I’m going to give up on being lazy when it comes to physical exercise.  A brisk 30-minute power-walk each and every day.  Watch this space.

Bring it on Lent, I’m ready and waiting for ya!

Song of the Day:  Ice Choir – Teletrips

I liked this artist the moment I read the name.  ‘Ice Choir‘.  Sounds like exactly the sort of music you want to listen to on a Sunday afternoon in February, when it’s raining and snowing outside, the sky is white, and the windows are spattered with rain and snowflakes.  This song lives up to the image evoked by the name – chilled, soothing and mysterious.  Enjoy.