Season's Greetings

Swinging her bumble-bee coloured wellies while attempting to dive-bomb bread crumbs onto the heads of unsuspecting goose subjects, the little girl gained no attention from her human relations.

Relations being a loose term by the way. For various reasons.

Mostly though, it lies within this particular day of baby whisper breezes, and one tentative cherry blossom who had had too many seasons of being destroyed by wayward footballs to come out too full for too long. Not to mention it hit zero the night before anyway.

It was supposed to be the season of new starts and Winter was on a mission despite having recently retired only a few days prior. As he approached the girl, better known to himself and other folk of nature as Spring, she landed a bit of crust on the head of a bobbing goose, causing it to squawk, spin around and pull the others nearby into a frenzy of waddling argument.

"Don't the humans do enough of that already?"

"Nope." She replied popping the "p." She tore off another piece and held it up near her nose, one eye closed and the other squinting an angle of aim. "It's fun."

Winter snorted and gracefully folded his six foot plus frame onto the bench. Spring turned her head sideways to Winter and giggled.

"Still carrying that face? Don't you get bored. Looking like cracked brownies? I would." 

Winter raised a brow at her sugary metaphor. Last time he had seen Spring she had resembled the cartoon version of a Roma. In other words, a lithe dancer the colour of chocolate with a voice of drum beats. "No," he replied."Besides, looks neither here nor anywhere this side south of the Arbor. It's your turn. Where's the weather gone? Cherry blossoms don't count either. Percy came back yesterday so Demeter's all jubilant."

"Bored. Bored. Utterly bored."

"You could do your job."

"Boring. Did you see that exhibition last week? The beard one? Humans like that sort of thing. And cats. They love cats." With each sentence Spring lobbed a bread bit at a goose, letting out a little "ha" of triumph when the targets lost balance.

"They also like warm weather which facilitates the growing of cherries and strawberries." Winter added with all the patience required of one who tries snowshoeing for the first time. Spring dropped her bag of bread and hopped up on the bench, leaning, elbows on the back of the bench, toward Winter, who merely raised a brow as she exclaimed.

"Do they really. Really? Cause I couldn't see my feet yesterday. I think I was somewhere in Asia. In a field of white stuff."

"You don't say?" Winter drawled.

"Not done yet! Obviously not snow. Plastic probably. Bags. Wasn't really noticing. Cause the moutain was a million, trillion times better than snow. Not cold either. They wouldn't like real strawberries. Too squishy. Too much juice."   

Winter opened his mouth but Spring interrupted with a "oh look! See. See. That's why they don't care. Strawberry ice cream." She pointed at a five year old boy trailing behind his mother, occupied with breaking up a duel for a plastic giraffe between twin girls in the stroller she pushed.

"Give me one reason. One. Why should I give humans a new set of lives this year? Got my geese games. They've got cat pictures. Even. Square. Haven't Anansi and Loki gotten back from the tour yet? Time to move on."

"And leave the storytelling to the Greeks? Have you really fallen so far?" Winter pushed up from the bench in a huff. "You've lost me my best toque."

Spring snorted. "Toque? Seriously? You care about that?"

"I can care about lots of things. One happens to be my favourite hat."

Spring hopped off the bench and looked up at Winter. "Who'd ya bet?"

"Echo." Winter sighed and scuffed his boot in the mud looking more like a child than Spring. The geese who had lingered in hopes of further food scattered, calling Winter various names unmentionable in polite company.

Spring growled and pull off a true tantrum of stomping, fist punching and unintelligeable noises. One goose, either a bit slower in the head than most, or a bit more stupidly brave, got caught in the crossfire of one particular lash out of her bumble-bee wellie.

"Well then. I'll just have to prove that empty girl wrong. Words mean mud and I've got plenty to turn over. Some seeds to plant."

"Is she still playing in the human's fashion world?"

"Yep."

"Still obsessed with Narciss?"

"Yep."

"Brilliant. Laters Winter. I've got me a field of narcissus to grow."

Graveyards: A Memory in Photos

Deep within the Acropolis at Glasgow, Scotland. There is life to death.

Western culture, these days anyway, often associates graveyards with fright, fear ad misfortune. They are a place where teens go to scare each other and what often decorate lawns during the festival of Halloween (except made of plasitc, wood or plaster, rather than proper stone, or even, marble, for the wealthy sorts).

Between graves in Montmatre, Paris.

In reality, graveyards are a place for deep contemplation and remembrance. A bit like the churches, which are usually attached, are meant for. (Though they are admittedly fantastic places to dive in, from out of a downpour).

Plus you don't have to be religious to appreciate contemplation and remember people of the past, you just need to be human.

One thing all humans have in common?

In the seemingly distant future that is impossibly hard to comprehend whether you are on the tail end or the ear tips, we will all pass on. Eventually.

After all, in the words of the great Terry Pratchett (from the mouth of his greatest character and who has just passed on recently himself):

“DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING, said Death. JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.”
― Terry Pratchett, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch

Whatever we pass on too is, of course, up for eternal debate. It's what humans spend life doing and it's what makes the world go 'round.

“It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.”
― Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent   

Either way, at some point we'll all go stomach up, like fish (but not really, that's just a metaphor thank you), and our presence will cease to exist on this particular plane.

For me, graveyards take on further meaning and more purpose than remembering the impermence of humanity or honouring the greats who came before me.

Graveyards provide a place to draw inspiration for characters in the written and visual mediums.

What follows are a few of my favourite graveyards in terms of the unique characters found there, or the general qualities of the grounds or grave stones, in these quiet but oft misunderstood environs.

This is the life beyond the grave...

Dance to the tune of Symphonie Fantastique in Montmartre Cemetery, Paris, France.

Be wary of the sentinels.

Break from the forest of the London metropolis and into the memories of Latimer.

Rest a while among the grasses of the beloved of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Remember. Don't scare the guardians. This is crucial.

And don't forget to visit the greats gone before. (Oxford, Oxfordshire)

So long and thanks for all the fish who have swam the seas of before. Now go. Just keep swimming. It'll be your turn soon enough.

They watch over us. Somewhere. Somewhen. In a somehow of some here.

Moony.

Be a Cloud: Isle of Skye

Hopping a fence to a fantastic view.

 

Above the sky, clouds streak, they bob and pass along in a mild manner more befitting a dodgy old man with  walking stick than amorphous miracles of nature which humans will idly observe into definable form.

There a cow. A cat. Now a ship. Stretched into a dragon. A boy reading a book. A griffin circling a snake. Now two dragons dancing. 

The Isle of Skye is what I imagined Tir na nOg might be like if it does actually exist somewhere on this plane of the world. Remote. Forlorn but full of the sheep wool emotions brought on by picturesque forests, hills, waters and villages. 

To properly appreciate the Isle, you'll need to just find a hill. Pause. Breath and imagine yourself into another time period. I did the Isle in a day trip and perhaps that could be deemed as insufficient for true appreciation. Many travel sites, locals and past visitors recommend a minimum of three days or even up to a full week. I agree. I wish I could go back to slow down and wander. Nonetheless, any time on the Isle of Skye is million times worth it. 

The few homes in the village I landed in, known as Uig.

 

The few hours of daylight which I had, rendered me speechless. To the point where all was empty in a mind with generally moves at the speed cars on a race track in terms of imagination and general thoughts. The only things to exist was the world and I. I and the world. Feet sinking slightly in damp hillside, I tramped through a sheep field in search of a faerie fort said to be nearby. Instead, I found a glade with a bubbling stream and a fallen log turned bridge. Then I climbed a hill, hopped a fence and stood before the horizon. 

The sun was heavy over the water and arched off a ferry boat rumbling its way out of the harbour. Soon it settled as a backdrop to a cliff, jutting out like a great giant's fist. The wind picked up, whirling a distant flag down the way, in the harbour where sat a token petrol station and a restaurant near two cottages on the back hill. All was dark and closed for business thanks to an electrical outage which had occurred just a half hour earlier as I learned from the lone employee behind the bar at the restaurant.

So I turned my feet back out the door and wandered up and down the harbour walk. 

My only company were two grubby capped Scots gabbing away about carpentry work in front of their white lorry, a retired couple seated instead a red Peugeot and a grey beard dipping into a cigarette as he also strolled up and down the walkway. Periodically, the whispering breeze was interrupted with the staccato of seagull shouts. Time inched in this bubble. Which admittedly, for all that I love the thrill of being lost on the winds, just me and nature, I did much prefer to be back in Inverness by nightfall so I could snuggle under thick white down sheets in the old manor turned B&B I had stumbled across in search for an inviting but reasonably priced hostel. 

I wandered. Back and forth in the October breeze, feeling a stronger and stronger need to talk out loud as I am wont to do when alone. Well I wasn't entirely, but it certainly felt like it. So I did. Only to smile sheepishly at the looks the few other individuals gave me, or as cars rumbled past with windows down.

Eventually, the sole bus I could take back, before sometime late the next morning, came breezing into the harbour at exactly 5:22pm and I was back to the central town in time to catch my return coach back to Inverness.

Town of Portree

 The Isle of Skye is the sort of place you visit if you want to feel either at one with nature, alone with nature, lost in nature or all three at once. Even if you're wandering the narrow, winding streets of the main town of Portree, nature encircles it so strongly it takes all of five minutes walk in any direction to either hit water, a trail or a road surrounded by trees, eventually fields and probably sheep. Plus the occasional punctuation of a ruinous tower, windmill or cottage. 

There is much to see on the Isle of Skye; faerie forts, a castle and village life among many other things, but really, if you want to find something special, just have a wander. Grad a bus out somewhere. Then, no matter how you view adventure down the nose, you'll be guaranteed to find a place of calmness, bobbing along the wild roads of Skye like an amorphous cloud. Just being.

The Clouds

A/N:  Clouds are amorphous individuals who are about as rare as any of the Wee Folk. They have strong opinions about being captured on camera and yet they are permanently captured in our imagination. As such, the following drabble and upcoming travel post were both inspired much more by the magic of imagination than anything so dull as a common photograph* (according to the resident cloud experts being the persons known only as Just Argument and Unjust Argument who are most commonly located in The Middle of a debate on Proper Education**).

Below find two piquant examples of the wisdom of The Clouds:

How can I study from below, that which is above?

ARISTOPHANES, The Clouds

The gods, my dear simple fellow, are a mere expression coined by vulgar superstition. We frown upon such coinage here.

ARISTOPHANES, The Clouds

Clouded Perspectives

Just so you know, we see you all as you grapevines of hairless ape, see fish. Flowing, occasionally or often (depending on the day), across a sea of checker boards.

Other occasions (not birthday parties, unless you're the parent), struggling against a sea, turbulent and tumultuous. Strenuous and solitary.

Travelling in schools, learning in boxes begotted by boxes.

How you lot manage to stand inside four walls when you're a stick of angles and elbows we clouds have yet to discern a reasoned method. Much like how you lot have yet to figure out the dolphins have been experimenting on you for a millenia. Those clicks and clacking? They're laughing. At you lot.

Honestly, just take a moment to think. How is it even possible to survive in the sea of the world if most of the time is spent secreted away within the coral concrete of boxes. Windows are a measly invention. Again, the four corners and sides thing. And only just so far in four directions and a single distance. Unless there happens to be a tree blocking the view and then, what's the point in living? A tree is blocking your view. (And don't chop it down. Another one will grow by the time you all have gone extinct via apple-crate suffocation).

We haven't even delved into the dissolution of touch but that'll be in a whole other epoch dictating the Misinformed Melodies to various monstrosities of the Modern Age.

Technology is one. That scrawny boy, Commerce, is another.

But we have gotten side-tracked while we stand on this soap bubble for a moment.

As creatures of the sky we are free from your boxes. Untangeble. Poor old William Wordsworth tried desperately to contain us in a poem.  That didn't work out by the way. If you haven't read it, we'll spare you the pain and just say he ended up realising being human is terribly lonely business. Stuck in bodies and minds which ooze a combination of gangreen and ice cream. Simultaneously. How exhausting.

We come with less of the toothpaste ooze which combine humans and physical bodies and more sequence. The closest available metaphor to this particularly narrow word happens to be a classic game of cat's cradle. Done to the tune plucked on the skeins of a lyre.

Do that childhood thing again. Watch us for a while. Pearly bulbs, grey streaks, bulbuous black masses which fall across blue skies, turning all to shadow. Then, slowly, on a breath of wind we flow away, leaving a mass of pale grey blue which encircles the land from green hill to green wood.

Until you have been a cloud, spread eagled over grassy parkland, untouched by picnic baskets and playthings, you won't learn the truth of the universe.

A truth which is a cloud, coming up the lake on an August afternoon.

Moony.

*This thereby meaning my next travel post on the Isle of Skye got centred around the notion of clouds when really, after the fact, I realised captured more photos of hills and picturesque cottages then clouds.

**See Aristophanes The Clouds for further Proper Education on methods of rhetoric disguised as a rather hilarious comedy between a father, son and Sophocles himself.

Quiet Destiny: Delphi

At one point, humans saw this city, town, more village with accompanying attractions (these days), as the centre of the world.

A modern Delphic home.

Athens might have been the seat of power but Delphi predicted who would sit in it. Delphi predicted who would die, marry, prosper and plummet. Or rather, the Delphic oracle did.

According to mythology (and a bit of background for those unfamiliar with ancient Greek history), Zeus wanted to locate the exact centre of the world and to do this he released two eagles at opposite ends of the earth. Eventually the eagles met at Delphi and so it was here that Zeus marked the spot with a large, egg-shaped stone called the omphalos ("navel" or belly button). Additionally, the site of Delphi is said to have been the home of the oracle of the earth goddess Gaia who was guarded by a great serpent called Pythos. The god Apollo killed Pythos and forced Gaia to leave Delphi and ever after the temple of Delphi belonged to Apollo's oracle.

The omphalos.

I came to this particular site as part of an experiential course during my first degree (part of it being in Greek and Roman Studies). The morning had seen my group and I get drowned in rain only to have to stomp through the mushy mud of dirt and grass, out to an old archeological site, still containing bits of leftover ancient pottery deemed not necessary to take back for analysis and safe-keeping.

By the time we reached Delphi, a few hours later, my feet were mostly dry, my socks not and my rolled up jeans were simply damp, rather than heavy with water. Slipping on sandals in favour of drenched hiking boots I sat with my mouth dropped open (as it was wont to do for most of the months spent on the trip).

We were rolling around the edges and corners of the Parnassus mountains, milimeters from sheer dropping cliffs of grassland and forest as we delved into a valley where, on the mountain edges, glancing out toward an ocean bay and harbour, was the present day town of Delphi, with the ancient city still scattered about above it.

Delphi is best visited at the end of a journey, as coming around the sheer corners as the sun is heavy in the sky at four o'clock in the afternoon, the light strikes down between the high mountains, richocheting over the distant waters and lights softly upon the first evidence of ancient life. A plateau jutting out from the cliffs, just below the main road where a circular temple sits.

Then, as you arrive into the village, all is silent. It's siesta time for the locals. You might spot an orange cat or two though. Climb up and up stone steps in small alleys and you'll break out into glorious open fields which are reminiscent of that final scene in Sound of Music when the characters sing "The Hills are Alive." My classmates and I did exactly that when we found that spot.

Glorious open grasslands, bright sun and turn around for a stunning backdrop, valley view.

Then, pop back down to the center of the modern town and climb up more stairs and a long winding golden dirt path. You'll first come across a stadium where athletic competitions were held, then you'll set foot in a theatre, which honestly has the best view of any theatre, with a view of the whole valley falling down before their feet. You feel on top of the world.

Criss-cross stairs in the town.

Even more so when you finally reach the top of all the old ruins and set your hand on the omphalos stone. Smooth and warm, it certainly feels as if it could be an egg.

Now, go find yourself a spot to stand upon and shout your destiny to the world. If the oracle could make up whatever she felt fit, in complete metaphorical mumbo-jumbo too. So can you. Her words were taken to seriously and as a result, controlled not just private matters but matters of state, religion and economics. Plus she got rich off a lot of gifts.

If you are going to Greece, make Delphi part of your stop. It might be a quiet town nowadays but it holds great mystery and power. Power over ones destiny which can still be felt, whether you are standing before the omphalous of above the great expanse of the world below.

You are alive, on top, and at the centre of the world.
Moony.

Be Destiny

Long ago I lived. Deep in the heart of the belly button of the world.

It revolved around me and I, around it.

I made cities fall under seas and told Zeus where to strike. They called me a prophet even but truly, I was an imaginist. I saw starlight in sand and the heavens in a bloody heart.

When you live here, you are on top of the world. You are destiny. You are fate. You are fortune. As far as the sea scape goes. Forever and ever, never actually dropping off a cataclysmic cliff. The world simply goes rounf and round and I am its voice.

Come, I entreat you. Stand here. First, look up. Then, look down.  Last, look all around. What do you see? What is the world to you?

There to take. There to appreciate. There to make. There to forsake?

I am no prophet. I am an imaginist. You tell me. What will you do?

Go now. Stop staring, wishing, wondering and asking. Go. Make your own destiny.

Believe what you want.

Moony.

Memories: San Francisco

Of any place I've visited, San Francisco is a town which really defies singular identification despite being not only a city of the United States, but also a city in California.

And yet I would never have gone there if it hadn't been for a friend's suggestion.


The United States and California especially, being so over popularised in Western culture my interest in it has been slowly desensitised. A bit like how seeing the Tour Eiffel in real life was more of a "oh, it's a metallic structure, with all these important scientific and engineering names on it. Cool. But slower than that.

So when a friend of mine suggested we spent a week in San Franciso before going down to San Diego for the biggest geek, nerd, comic, media and more, convention in the world (being San Diego International Comic Con), I largely agreed because I wanted to travel with a good friend. Only to find I enjoyed the city's quirky spirit.



A spirit which takes memory to the next level in terms of how the city immortalises the past.

It doesn't.

Okay, not quite. The city is rife with evidence of antiques and former residents. But the key is in how it makes a lot less fanfare about said antiquities. While in London you regularly see buildings with the date of construction stamped front and centre on the main roof peak and tidy circular blue plaques will proclaim so and so soap-maker and philanthropist lived "here." Which is not to say San Franciso doesn't have those. I happily came across the house where the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lived for a time, according to a plaque.

Except the city is so alternative and artistic that the old parts are more like the constructions of modern art like that which I saw in the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art.

At heart, modern art is not about the looks but about the ideas. The inferences. The memories. The people.

It is what twenty different people can see from a shopping cart overflowing with purposefully placed garbage or one of those stereotypical tropical huts decorated in bank notes from all over the world.

In the roller-coaster hills framed with colourful buildings which lean into the streets and stare at you with rectangular windows, down to docks dotted with battered ships and tugboats, old warehouses of antique circus games and curios, to an entirely authentic Japanese garden, not many streets off the way of obvious drug shops an Victorian taxidermy place where I purchased a pair of jewel beetle-wing earrings. This is San Francisco's skin.

It's heart sits in the people. Ranging from the traditional hippie with flowing clothes and locks, to the typical leather-bound rocker, goth or biker. Down to the Spanish vibe which permeates all of California in general but comes off with more of a flamingo feel then the back-alley grunge of poor, illegal immigrant Mexicans. Back to flying on the cars which are either antique or sleekly new. Nothing in between.

It's in the cracked brownie smile of the six foot five cafe owner where you and your friend drop your bags for a cool drink and shade after getting more than a bit lost and exhausted, in city streets that don't know the definition of flat.
It's in standing on the highest point, gazing out to the famous bridge, the prison of Alcatraz and then discovering a spy shop.
Permanently stuck in the modernist ideals of the early 20th century. When the world was just off the back of a world war, but still bright, new and getting deep in the pyschology and psyche of humanity.

The art of memory.

From one world to the next. One genre to another.

Most cities have this quality. We live in a globalised world after all. But San Francisco makes it feel like you've walked on to the set of an art exhibit. Everything has a place. Even if it is just a pile of garbage giving a frame to graffiti.

Onwards and upwards my friends. Adventure awaits. Let your imagination run the streets.
Moony.

Be Memory

As a carrot for an upcoming post I have a drabble first and then a destination to follow. I felt rather sunny and colourful this weekend and the destination I'll be detailing which is the home to the following picture, is definitely that. Colourful. In all sense of the word (and a heavy emphasis on the artsy side). And yet, in all this overwhelming wash of colour, I loved best the moments when I sat. Foot-sore and tearing into food (finally). Then. Watching, breathing in the air, the smells and the sounds.

The best travel experiences are often the ones when you aren't actually engaging in the physical act of travelling.

The horse had seen people. Many smiles.
The horse had held many riders. Many laughs.
The horse had turned many circles. Many times.

Too many to count.

The world was a blur of colour and as much as the horse adored the laughter drawn from his back and his fellows, he loved best when all was still.

When the music ran down and he began to bob slower. Slower.

That was the magic.

Remembering reality.

Was in stillness.

Not in spilled ice creams and screams. Nor giggles and cartwheels or fresh paint and streaking sunlight.

No, it was in the floating dust, bobbing up and up, down and down in the future of one day. When, between the shaft of light cut out from the tearing off the wood slats nailed up over fragile windows, a hand would reach out. It would brush faded wood while lips would breath over the dust, sending it twirling in carosel circles.

Cherishing.

I encourage you to travel back to a piece of your childhood this week. Go, dig it up. It's just as important experiencing new places as it is to remember old ones and what you found there.

Moony.

Be Curious

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

The dog poked its head beyond the threshhold of the glass windows and wood of the front door and the tangy scent of lemon, dust and porcelain plates, dotted with gardens and dancing girls. 

Beyond the threshhold sat a bike with a wire basket, peoples' feet tumbled forward like the rapids of the River Cam, some way outside the town. People hurried upwards and downwards. 

Few stopped. 

Mostly, these few frozen individuals had tunnel vision for mobiles and maps only. A pidgeon could have sat on their heads and they wouldn't have had a care.  

It was terrifying. But the dog couldn't help looking. So many sounds and smells. Pasties and pies, bicycle bells and school-boys. Vegetables in baskets and voices braying. The dog loved going out on market days, but his human didn't much like to anymore. Walking hurt, he'd said just this morning.

A huge truck rumbled past then. The dog wondered from where it came. If the grubby capped human inside the machine had a dog. Or maybe a dancing lady. The dog wanted to meet one of the dancing ladies that were on the porcelain plates in the shop. His human used to dance to loud music.

Uncounted minutes past as the dog continued to look back and forth, as if following a tennis match. Humans absolutely everywhere. Big, tall, small, skinny, round, straight, wavy. They all couldn't fit in the town could they? The dog wondered. They did move ever so fast though. Never stopped. Except when they bumped into each other. They never stopped to talk to the dog either.

Except for one. 

This human came rolling toward the dog as quick as any other, except their strides were long and languid rather than seconds from a jog. The human paused upon coming up beside the shop, bent down, smiled, and said, 

"You're a true keepsake, you are. Worth more than all the plates in the world." 

The dog yipped as the human patted its white head.

"Have an adventure for me," said the stranger tipping their tweed cap. "The world is curiously big."  

New Content: Drabbles

In addition to becoming a blog more focused on places I've visited and my experiences in them in terms of people, places and things; or in other words, more of a travel blog, I am also a writer and a photographer.

Travelling teaches you many things and I want to share with you all the things I am always learning from travelling, have learned and wonder about learning through a style of writing known as a drabble.

For those unfamiliar with the writing world, a drabble is a self-contained moment in time, which can either be present or reflecting on the past.

I love the drabble format, particularly in terms of travelling because it forces you to see, feel and most of all, be in a single moment.

In a world that rushes about non-stop, being in a single moment, cherishing it, is as often hard to come by or as hard to do as the splits.

On a final note, sometimes my drabbles will pull an image from a previous post and have to do with the things I learned in that place, other times the drabbles might have an image from a completely unrelated area, but at the present moment I might have had cause to reflect back on that experience.

Either way, don't forget to pause in your day. At least once. Look at the sky. Look at the ground. Look all around.

Moony.

Always Curious: Cambridge

Describing Cambridge in a single word is difficult. It has so much always happening and so many time period and people converging.

Eventually though, after wading through image after image I believe Cambridge is best described by this single photo I took some months back while all but running up and down the streets in a rush to see everything in the eight hour period I had there.

When you visit Cambridge, don't go with a plan in mind, don't go with much research either (unless it's a city you already know inside and out).

Why?

1. It's a small enough town you can see all the corners in a day.
2. It's organised in such a way you can pinpoint all the spots which might be fascinating.
3. Every street holds a unique story since it's packed with literal history and learned history.

Though if you happen to be a stickler for organisation and direction, your best bet for seeing the town is to simply follow the River Cam (which is where the name 'Cambridge' is derived from).

Plus, it brings out the best part of travelling.

Exploration.

Adventure.

Curiousity.

I wouldn't have found the quaint antique shop (nor be fortunate enough to have passed it the moment the owners dog was poking out in perusal of potential customers), had I not decided one weekend I wanted to go to Cambrige, finally. I hoped on a train, was off just an hour later (having come from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk) and found myself in a sea of bicycles parked, tied and leaned up in wait for their owners return between the larger forms of commute such as the train.

Then I was off.

Throughout the day I slowly discovered points which piqued my curiousity (beyond wanting to go punting on the river and see the Christ Church Cathedral, the sole two things I knew about in terms of sights).

The Bridge of Sighs, which happens to share a name with another covered bridge in Venice, Italy.

One of the many colleges in Cambridge, Downing College has huge grounds and is much more open to the public on a regular basis then some of the more well known such as Kings College or Trinity College.

The Corpus Clock, conceived by John C Taylor, an old member of the Corpus Christi College and set in it's street corner location outside the college in 2008. What I love about it, aside from the general mechanics or that it has a Chronophage (Greek for "time eater") on the top who is called Rosalind by the local student populace. The clock is accurate once every 5 minutes and was created to remind people of the inevitable passage of time. 

Lastly, always remember to look both up and down, when entering a building. The Fitzwilliam Museum is a artifact in its own right.

 And that, my friends, is a few of the corners of Cambridge I came across. (To say nothing of the cows which mowed the grass in a park or the glorious view of the town from ontop Castle Hill).

I urge you to stay curious. You'll find some curious sites that way.

Jumping the stars on the back of a cow.
Moony.

 

Blog Spring Cleaning

This blog has almost hit the one year mark. Almost. I am stretching the dates a little but I've found a stride in writing other things of late that has led to this blog being updated much less so. That said, I've got a solution which just means this blog will be a little more specific and focused from now on, with quick, short and at the minimum, weekly posts. Posts which will cover the people, places, things or events which I am experiencing on my travels as a way to give insights and ideas to all of you who are intending on visiting where I've been, already live here and haven't tried those things out or are just interested in learning more about the world beyond your bedroom.

I have travelled to the following countries so far:
Greece
Turkey
USA
England
Scotland
France
Wales

In those few countries, I have thus far travelled to at least one (or hundreds) of different cities, towns and villages. In all those cities, towns and villages there are so many sights to see, people to watch and things to do. As a photographer I have not only collected these experiences in my memory but I have them captured as images and so, as that is my other passion each post will take one or a series of images and I'll give you some first hand advice, tips and opinions about whatever it is I have frozen in time. I hope you enjoy the new bend to my blog and follow along with a greater fervour than before. I too hope to write with a greater focus.

 Experiencing always, Moony.