Really rather a lot of you realised we’d taken a trip to the Netherlands yesterday. It’s unsurprising that nobody recognised Dordrecht, a city we found ourselves in purely by happenstance a couple of years ago, and which we planned to revisit in a leisurely fashion this year. Plans, 2020 style …. I’m confident though that regular readers will know exactly where we are today. These photos come from a post exactly two years ago today, so I’ll enter them into Fandango’s Flashback Friday. I shan’t link back to my original post until tomorrow. It would reveal the answer to that ‘Wherever …?’ question. And that would never do.
Andrew of Have Bag, Will Travel invited me to join him and other bloggers to post one favourite travel picture a day for ten days without explanation, then each day, nominate someone new to join in on the same terms. Today I’m asking I J Khanewala of Don’t hold your breath – you’re pretty well travelled, both in India and beyond. No pressure if it’s not for you, but you do take most interesting photos. Link back to this post if you decide to have a go.
Yesterday‘s image was a difficult one to crack. But Agnes did it! It was taken in one of the most peaceful places I know, l’Albufera Natural Park, an area of freshwater lagoons near Valencia, Spain. Today, we’ll stick with a watery theme. Can you see the heron here, enjoying urban life? Maybe identifying the town is a stretch too far. But which country are we in?
Andrew of Have Bag, Will Travel invited me to join him and other bloggers to post one favourite travel picture a day for ten days without explanation, then each day, nominate someone new to join in on the same terms. Judith, of Beyond the Window Box – any chance you’d like to join in? No pressure if it’s not for you, but you do take the most evocative photos. Link back to this post if you decide to have a go.
Several of you guessed yesterday‘s photo was of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, though if you recognised that monumental woman as a Damián Hirst, you weren’t letting on. Unsurprisingly, all three of you who knew the view can find your way round the north of England.
OK. Where today?
The photo was taken at this time of year. That’s all I’m saying.
Andrew of Have Bag, Will Travelinvited me to join him and other bloggers to post one favourite travel picture a day for ten days without explanation, then each day, nominate someone new to join in on the same terms. Sarah, of Travel with Me: any chance you’d like to join in? No pressure if it’s not for you, but you are well-travelled! Link back to this post if you decide to have a go.
Today I’m sending a postcard, as I’ve been doing every Tuesday for a while. But because it’s part of my Around the World collection, I shan’t tell you where it’s from until tomorrow. As part of Jude’s 2020 Photo Challenge, I’m choosing a subject that has mass and volume, and where you will be in no doubt what’s centre stage.
Yesterday‘s photo was a tough one. But Peter got it! Well done, Peter of Peter’s Pondering. You’re quite right. It’s the World War II Museum in Gdansk, Poland. We spent much of the day here when we visited. It’s an absorbing, unsettling collection, showing all too graphically the hardships endured by the citizens of Easter Europe before, during and after the conflict. Here’s my account. Highly recommended, as is Gdansk itself.
Andrew of Have Bag, Will Travel invited me to join him and other bloggers to post one favourite travel picture a day for ten days without explanation, then each day, nominate someone new to join in on the same terms. Elke, of Pictures Imperfect , I’m inviting you today. No pressure if it’s not for you though.
There’s this blogging challenge doing the rounds. I don’t know where it started, but it’s already made a showing with Brian at Bushboy, with Su at Zimmerbitch, and then yesterday morning with Andrew at Have Bag, Will Travel. And he invited me to be next.
This is how it works. Person Number One posts a different travel picture on ten consecutive days. And on each of those days, they ask a fellow-blogger to join in too. So on Day Two, Persons One and Two post a picture, and each invites another person to join in. On Day Three …. you get the idea. I can’t fathom how to do the maths, but it seems to me it wouldn’t take long for a million people to be involved. Any ideas about the numbers involved, anybody?
So I’ll post a photo each day for ten days. No comment, no strapline. If you want to guess where it is, tell me in the comments, and I’ll reveal the answer the following day. As today is a Monday, we’ll make the shot one of a window. I think this one’s quite hard.
Who next? Life … One Big Adventure. Do you fancy joining the party? No pressure if you’re not interested. Please link to me if you do decide to join in, just so I know.
These days, while travelling’s discouraged, and normal day-today life often seems difficult, many of us have come to rely on our local shops, recognising what a blow it would be if they were to disappear. Here’s a post I wrote ten years ago in France, celebrating independent shops. It feels dated in some ways. ‘Saturday girls’ seem to belong to a different era.
A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS…OR A SMALL TOWN WITH SMALL SHOPS
11th December 2010
Depending on your point of view, it was either Napoleon or Adam Smith who first called England ‘a Nation of Shopkeepers’. But it was only after I came to settle here in France that I started to think of shopkeeping and market trading as skilled occupations, and realise just what is involved in keeping the customer happy.
It’s probably because it was just so much easier, where we lived in England, to nip down to the supermarket. There weren’t too many independent shops on our daily round: so much for a nation of shopkeepers. Mind you, we loved it when Emily was a Saturday girl at the French patissier who was then in Harrogate, Dumouchel. She would often be sent home with a couple of unsold petits gateaux for us to enjoy, or some slowly-fermented sourdough bread. It was small shop, and quite expensive, so she learnt quickly to value customers and to treat them well, so they’d come back. She learnt too that while most of the people she served were friendly and appreciative, customers could be curmudgeonly too.
So who are the good commerçants here? Well, down at the bakers, they’ll often put aside our much-loved pain noir without being asked if I’m not in bright and early, knowing we’d be disappointed if they sold out.
The baker’s shop, closed since 2018. Though there are other bakers in the town still.
Today at the market, madame who runs the cheese and charcuterie stall had printed off some recipes specially for me, because she knew I might enjoy trying them out.
Down at Bobines et Fantaisies, the owner goes to Toulouse most weeks to seek out unusual scarves and accessories, so there’s always something new and worth trying at her tiny shop. ‘Let her try it on. If she doesn’t like it, bring it back!’, she’ll insist, as you dither between a couple of scarves and a chic but cosy winter hat. These shopkeepers remember us, our tastes, our whims and foibles. They welcome us, and chat cheerfully with us, even if we leave the shop empty-handed.
Madame at Bobines et Fantaisies
There’s just one shop here that doesn’t cut the mustard. ‘Il n’est pas commerçant’ we all grumble. Those of us outside the select band are routinely ignored, and as we feel our custom isn’t valued, some of us now go elsewhere.
But not to the supermarket. Oh no. Yesterday we DID pop into one, but as the muzak system was belting out a schmaltzy version of ‘Auld lang syne’ in what passed for English, we very soon shot out again. Small Shops Rule OK.
The featured image is of a cheesemonger in Toulouse.
This post is a contribution to Fandango’s Flashback Friday. Have you got a post you wrote in the past on this particular day? The world might be glad to see it – either for the first time – or again if they’re long-time loyal readers.
I have said it before, and I expect I shall say it again, but our few days in Cádiz earlier this year – this year! – are part of another life – a life I want to remember and treasure. And Jude provides an opportunity in her Travel Challenge. She’s hoping that outline, rather than three dimensional qualities will come to the fore in our choices of photo. As I looked through my archive, I realised that Cádiz fits the bill, yet again.
It’s nearly all about the seafront. Those palm trees! Those street lights!
Or we could look beyond the old city to industry and modern life in the distance.
Or we could go indoors – first to climb the Cathedral tower and to inspect the old clock workings: before going to a traditional sherry bar, Manzanilla, to enjoy a quiet drink and a snack surrounded by those barrels of maturing sherry ¡Salud!
Tomorrow, for our regular Tuesday Day Out, we’re taking (another) trip to Cádiz. We’re going to spend time near the sea and pop to a couple of places in town. But today I want to take you instead to Plaza de España. Here is a handsome house in a handsome area. But now it’s down on its uppers. No longer smart, it’s still extremely characterful. I thought it deserved its fifteen minutes of fame.
It’s Six Degrees of Separation time again, and this month, we all begin with Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret. I read Daughter Number One’s copy of this thirty years ago, and then twenty years ago read it all over again when it was Daughter Number Two’s turn. Judy Blume was every tweenage girl’s author of choice. An issue-led author, talking about puberty, boys, periods, while at the same time telling an involving story – how could this ground-breaking author fail to be popular among young people – and their mothers?
It was so different from the books I enjoyed at roughly the same part of my childhood. And yet one I remember was also ground-breaking, in a different way. Eve Garnett’s The Family from One End Street told stories from the happy lives of the Ruggles children. But this family was exceptional at the time – they were working class! Their father was a dustman! Yet this book was first published in 1938, and has rarely been out of print since then.
Perhaps this street, now fashionable, might have once been the ordinary sort of street where the Ruggles family shopped?
My children didn’t read about the Ruggles family. But a book I, and each of them, loved for years was Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories. Where would long car journeys have been without endless replayings of Johnny Morris reading The Elephant’s Child or How the Rhinoceros got his Skin?
An elephant I saw in India
What about more modern books we all shared together? One that stands out is Quentin Blake’s Mr. Magnolia. All of us know every word of it, and will still cheerfully chant …
Mr Magnolia has only one boot.
He has an old trumpet that goes rooty-toot –
And two lovely sisters who play on the flute –
But Mr Magnolia has only one boot.
… at the least provocation, even though it’s maybe nearly thirty years ago that we last curled up in bed together to read it with my younger daughter. Well, it’s the grandchildren’s turn now.
Would one of Zoë’s boots help Mr. Magnolia?
And we depend upon the grandchildren to keep us up with newer children’s books. Our lives would definitely be the poorer without Kes Gray and Jim Field’s Oi Frog! (and Oi Cat!Oi Dog! and all the rest …) From which we learn that …
Cats sit on mats, hares sit on chairs, mules sit on stools and gophers sit on sofas.
Tiny children, big children and adults alike can all indulge in a bit of silly word play from time to time.
Which leads me back to an old favourite, another one from my own childhood and which my children, and now five year old William is now enjoying in his turn: the Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster. This adventure leads bored Milo to discover the power of words, and of numbers in the cities of Dictionopolis and Digitopolis as he meets characters such as King Azad the Unabridged, and Tock the Watchdog, while discovering that eating subtraction stew just makes you hungrier, and that while it’s very easy to jump to the island called Conclusions, it’s hard to escape.
William discovers the power of words outside St. Paul’s Cathedral
And so to my final link, one that encompasses all these books and many more; Lucy Mangan’s Bookworm: a Memoir of Childhood Reading. She’s younger than me, but she too was a bookish child. Her reading choices were my reading choices, and this book brings back memories of much loved favourites, some of which I’d forgotten about. All British bookworms should have this on their Christmas list.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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