Journey

Travel is exciting. The processes we go through when planning, packing and setting off on a journey is all part of the ritual. How many outfits to take, what time to set off for a timeous arrival at check in. How many books to take - all part of the preparation for an adventure. My first couple of trips as a youngster were punctuated by travel sickness. Travelling through Wales on the backseat of a coach in the early sixties proved too much for my stomach. Similarly, my first flight on a BAC111 to Jersey from the then Speke airport also set me off. I am relieved to say that I improved with time.

My longest flight came in 2000 when I took my two children on a visit to my cousin in South Africa. Fourteen hours - far too long really but we all coped well. Unfortunately we had a four hour stop-over at Paris Charles De Gaulle, with a courtesy meal that affected my son. On arrival he had food poisoning from some less than fresh crevettes and spent three days very sick until we purchased some suppositories that sorted him out. 

The South African adventure was fantastic. We spent three days at the Pilanesberg game reserve, having close encounters with hippos, giraffes and twin cheetah cubs. We barbequed, swam in the Indian Ocean at Umhlanga near Durban and met real Zulu tribesmen and women who performed a dance in full costume on the lawn in front of our accommodation there. 

It was the first of many adventures with the kids. Two years later we headed off to Egypt. The Valley of the Kings, Temple of Luxor, Temple of Karnak,  Temple of Philae and the Aswan Dam. I liked to educate them through travel. They longed for a simple beach holiday but I am not that kind of Mum. 

The next trip was to Sorrento on the Amalfi Coast with visits to Pompeii and Positano. I love Italy. My parents took me to Venice where I returned on honeymoon. We went to the Lido and a gondolier lifted me on his back and ran with me across St Mark's Square. My new husband was flabbergasted and asked. "Where do you know him from?" Silly man - but it was so exciting!

My more recent trips have been without the kids in the company of the man in my life. We have been to many of the Greek Islands in the last decade. We began in Kefalonia, then Crete, my favourite. As you can already tell, I am a big history buff. The Homer poem about the island of Crete caught my imagination in grammar school and was always a future destination. I was not disappointed - the museum at Heraklion was incredible.  The ancient city of Knossos, although rebuilt in simulation, was incredible. 

I loved the beauty of the harbour in Kos and the ruins in Rhodes. Greece is so lovely. The weather is usually hot but not too humid, the food is lovely and there is so much to see. No doubt we will return - Covid put the blockers on most foreign travel but I still have long list of destinations to tick off. 

Journey

It’s a cliché I hear,
‘travel broadens the mind’
but I’m happy to know
that our travels abroad
enhanced our education.
The journey often long,
patience tested,
rewarded on arrival
at our far-flung destination.

What we have experienced.
the things we have learned,
the grandeur, the majesty
of ancient civilisation,
the diversity of people,
the wonders of creation.
Looking outwards
to understand
the global situation.

To those who do not travel
who stay insular at home
I recommend a journey
to Paris or to Rome.
just to breathe another’s air
walk in another’s shoes,
A single step begins
a journey to your own imagination.

Spot press - Baby arrived this morning

Thanks for reading. Adele

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Lost - with a song in my heart?

I am a big fan of wild birds. I have an old apple tree in the middle of my lawn and every day I top up the feeder that hangs from a lower branch. I often watch through the window when I write. I keep an eye open through the open kitchen door when washing up. I am often rewarded by visits from blue tits, great tits, chaffinches and goldfinches. I am thrilled when the long tail tits visit and love to see tree sparrows, a species in steady decline now. 

Robins are regular visitors. One sits on the highest branch of my 100ft sycamore, trilling his wonderful songs. Last year I found some cushion stuffing blowing round the lawn and hooked it on the branches of the apple tree. When I trimmed the privet hedge in late summer, I found a small, perfect cup, the size of half a tennis ball: a nest made from the same synthetic stuffing. In winter, I have been fortunate to see jays, a tawny owl,  three waxwings (that was incredible) and a pair of grey wagtails. One Christmas Day, we sat down to lunch and watched a lesser spotted woodpecker picking off the last hawthorn berries. There was snow on the ground that year, quite a rare event on the Fylde Coast.

Birdsong is always in the air. Sometimes I listen to a CD of birdsong, in an attempt to recognise my little visitors when the light is too difficult to see their colours or they are obscured by leaves. It has been several years since I saw or heard a song thrush at home. I remember my Grandmother was always delighted to see one. I am not sure how many are left now but I will keep looking out. I take part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch every January. The song thrush didn't make the Top 20 in Lancashire this year. Click on the link if you want to see the results or take part in the survey next January.   https://ww2.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch/results/

In September, during a short break in Kos, I was upset to see wild birds in cages in restaurants and outside in gardens. We sat in a beach front café in Agios Stefanos, listening to a caged goldfinch sing magnificently as it charged frantically back and forth long the perch in the caged. Kos is a beautiful island and to see a wild creature exploited as entertainment always distresses me. A wild bird is meant to be free, "why have the wings, unless you're meant to fly and tell me please, why have a mind unless to question why?" Bergman, Bergman, Legrand.

The subject of birds coming close to extinction has been a feature of the news this week. Many species of wild song birds native to Java in Indonesia are nearing extinction. They are captured, caged and enslaved because of their wonderful vocal repertoire. There are competitions held all over Indonesia in which caged birds sing for massive cash prizes: A top crooner can win equivalent to £60,000. In a poor country, this is huge incentive. It is driving Java's songbirds to extinction.

It is estimated that there are only 80 pairs of this exquisite green bird with bright red beak and black masked eyes left in the wild in Java. Experts from Chester Zoo are now conducting a captive breeding program. Isn't it sad.

Human beings are not content to subjugate and enslave each other. When I worked in Tenerife, we often found baby chimpanzees dead on the beach. Their photographer owners would drug them and dress them in baby clothes. They were cute. People loved having their picture taken with a baby chimp. The trouble is that babies grow up and then they are not useful: then they are drowned in the sea and wash up on the beach. The photographer just gets another baby chimp - wrenched from it's grieving mother - a near relative of every one of us. The world closes its eyes to the exploitation of wild creatures. We are still unable to stop the exploitation of children in third world countries and sex slavery in our own.

Caged Bird

by Maya Angelou

     

     A free bird leaps
 on the back of the wind

     and floats downstream

     till the current ends

     and dips his wing

     in the orange sun rays

     and dares to claim the sky.
 

     But a bird that stalks

     down his narrow cage

     can seldom see through

     his bars of rage

     his wings are clipped and

     his feet are tied

     so he opens his throat to sing.
 

    The caged bird sings

    with a fearful trill 

    of things unknown

    but longed for still

    and his tune is heard

    on the distant hill

    for the caged bird 

    sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

    and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

    and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn

    and he names the sky his own.  

  

    But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

    his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

    his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

    so he opens his throat to sing.
  

   The caged bird sings

   with a fearful trill

   of things unknown

   but longed for still

   and his tune is heard

   on the distant hill

   for the caged bird

   sings of freedom.

 

 

Thank you for reading - Adele

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