When I moved to the south of England five years ago, I didn’t realise that it would soon become my mission not just to defend my homeland but to repeatedly explain exactly where it is. I hadn’t thought about the fact that the British voting map divides as much by the north-south line as our […]
I think there’s something weird hardwired in us that although we live in one, actually quite mundane, familiar, safe and comfortable place, the concept of travel (and especially travel to places that are markedly different from our home-place) is this kind of magical, mystical, otherworldly thing. Not when we’re actually undertaking it, of course, but […]
It is the biggest transport cliché of all time, and one that has become applicable to almost every and any facet of modern life. You wait ages for a bus and then three turn up at once. And as a confirmed public transportophile, I must confess that there is a certain amount of truth in […]
Incidentally, I have an early memory of walking home from the paper shop with my dad, dodging the uneven bits of pavement and singing about ‘4000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire’. My musical indoctrination clearly started from an early age. But anyway. I am currently in the grips of what I think of as a news […]
Huancayo: a town with a population of 400,000, and located at an altitude of 3244m above sea level. A place described by Lonely Planet as giving the traveller “the impression of arriving in some Wild West frontier town. Tumbledown outer suburbs, dusty, chaotic streets, people wandering seemingly at random and all around the mountains rise […]
I know, 20 seems a lot, doesn’t it? But the thing is, I’ve spent a lot of time on buses here. Of the last 48 hours, over 30 involved me sat on a bus (I know, I know: when I told the woman at the travel agency that I’ve arranged my time here in Huancayo […]
I know, I know… It’s been a while, so long that I’m now in a different country… But I blame South American internet, and too much time exploring and eating cake to write about it. Anyway, I’m back (at least for now!) and here with yet more observations of the oddities of life. You see, […]
Next Monday (ie. the day I return to England) will be exactly six months since I left Manchester to begin my year abroad. And, quite amazingly and excitingly, I now have plans for next summer too! Yes, I will be returning from South America in June, staying in England for about a week, and then […]
…’cause I heard him on the radio. (Music reference from a few years back there!) In fact, as those of you following Tea with D’Artagnan may have noticed, the story hasn’t finished yet. However, it is now the 3rd of December, and I have written over 55,000 words. D’Artagnan has not been abandoned, and chapter twenty […]
CakeonFridays 