Nearly 4 years ago, I went to Amsterdam and I developed the beginning of the ‘sickness’ associated with the travel bug. After just 4 days, not only did I definitely want to see more of Europe and the world, I fell absolutely head over heels in love with Amsterdam. When we planned a trip to go to Den Bosch, incorporating Amsterdam, I had a little trepidation. Would I love it as much as I did the first time?
I was sitting in the back of my parents car on my way home from college for some holiday or another. I grew up in Central Pennsylvania and have seen more fields and farmhouses in all kinds of weather than I could count. One of the more memorable times involved watching grey-green clouds slowly swirl and rotate in the sky above my school bus, listening to the roar of thunder and the bus’ engine speeding up to get out of the storm. For some reason on that day, the scene outside the window struck me as particularly beautiful. It struck me as a moment worth digging my camera out of the bottom of my backpack filled with mostly unopened chemistry text books. It struck me as a scene worth, nearly 10 years later, to still have on my hard drive. Maybe at the time, it was all the changes going on; the moving away, my utter disinterest in what I thought for years I wanted to study that prompted me to capture a moment. Maybe I sensed this scene is very different to where I would end up. Maybe it was just the aesthetic factors: the brilliant white snow, the red barn glowing in the pastel winter light or an accidental yet pleasing composition.
Hosting the Scot’s parents for a week usually means many things: family time, new stories about the hijinks of the dog, nice meals, getting a little bit spoiled. This time we decided to escape the city on a day trip to the seaside town of Whitstable.
Another short list, but I’m getting back in my groove now. And in my defence, one is a fairly dense history text with very small font. (Is that an excuse?)
After a mere two and a half years of research, I finally bought a new camera last August. I wanted one with excellent image quality, but wouldn’t kill me when I also carry my film SLR (which weights approximately half a ton). I wanted one that wasn’t too expensive, but wouldn’t be a waste of money for photos worse than my phone takes.
It’s been a mere 5 days since I got off the train at Kings Cross, arriving from Holland via Brussels (the changeover was interesting). I thought I would have made time (I only have myself and a VERY busy week to blame) to write a thoughtful post on how wonderful our holiday was, how much I love Holland and perhaps a thoughtful and intelligent review of the exhibition, Jheronimus Bosch – Visions of genius. In reality, I have just edited my photos from the first few days and now spring cleaning is under way with a vengeance. So here are some of my favourite photos and a big high five to myself for remaining committed to my new year’s goals!
So, I wrote a novel in November, taking part in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) challenge. And now what? Well, I’m editing and writing more. The basic plot line is about a lady who aspired to the life you’re ‘supposed’ to have – career, marriage, 2.5 kids, but it didn’t turn out that way. She is now struggling to redefine herself and her life. With some time off, she plans a holiday but is side tracked by some graffiti. She sets out to find whoever is writing”Lager” and “Pie” all over London, but ends up rediscovering herself. It has become a bit of a monster with the addition of new (yet to be written) story lines. One will be about another lady, who appears to have it all, but is so bored with her life she wishes a terrorist attack would happen just to spice things up and one will be about a fictional (to me and to the story) graffiti artist.
It’s not perfect yet, but here’s a sneak preview.
You may have gathered, I read a lot. I read rather widely, but one of my favourite topics is travel. As I’m on my own writing journey, I thought about what elements take centre stage in the best travel writing. What makes the best writing different from the just sort of interesting writing? What makes a story one that I can’t put down and then, when I have to, I rave about it? What should I aspire to?
This is a fairly short list for 3 months of reading and yes, I am disappointed in myself. I could say I made up for quantity with quality, but I think that’s just an excuse! I have excellent taste in books every month… or something like that. All joking aside, there were definitely some winners in this list.
A few weekends ago, after some amazing organisation and honest-to-goodness research scoping out the place (and its whisky) by a friend of ours, we arrived in the Outer Hebrides, Islay, off the West Coast of Scotland. It only involved a plane from London to Glasgow, a 2 hour car ride, 2 hour ferry and another drive to get somewhere where there really isn’t a whole lot. But that’s sort of the point isn’t it? I went, I loved it and I would do it again. You’ve got to be careful with the ferry though or rather be mindful of the potential for high winds. Our trip almost ended up like a drunken episode of Gilligan’s Island.
Teacup and Mouse 