To travel

I went to Barcelona on Monday, came back Tuesday. Barely saw the city but the impression's I was able to take were favourable. It was strange to be in broad daylight at six in the evening (afternoon?) but it wasn’t warm.

On a more impressive note, my friend's brother is currently walking around the entire coast of mainland Britain for three charities. Yes, the entire coast; and the Isle of Skye and Anglesea. He's doing it for three charities. He's nearly reached Plymouth, having set off from Portsmouth on January 10 and it's fascinating to follow his daily progress via his Twitter and web page.

So far he's been helped out by many friends, relatives and complete strangers, offering food, beds, walking companionship and even paddling across rivers…The walk will take an entire year – a year! – and when he set off he took no maps (I know…) but his thoughtful brother has done a great deed and equipped him for the south west, as have other friends and family members.

As he heads to Cornwall, and the most southerly point in mainland Britain, it's hard not to be someway impressed and overawed by the scale of the achievement he is undertaking. It's 7,000 miles long, it's a year of walking, it's non-stop challenges and adventures - apart from when the MOD forces him inland due to shelling the sea. Eh?

I am reading Paul Theroux's Old Patagonian Express, a book I have wanted to read for about two years,a at the moment. I finally got it for Christmas and started it on Tuesday flying back from Barcelona. It's excellent so far: interesting, vivid, full of characters, insight, humour and enough of a hint of exaggeration to some of the stories to keep you on your toes.

So, I guess what I am saying, is that travel is interesting. As everyone knows.

How refreshing

So there I go, getting you all excited that I might leaving, only to come back. This was something that happened that I felt required committing to the internet's paper.

I went for dinner with a very good friend on Tuesday night. We've known each other for over seven years, gone through the school system, the university lifestyles, the job hunts, and many other things between and come through it as even better friends than before. We make each other laugh, enjoy the same things, discussing books or films, sport, running together, comedy and so forth. You get the idea.

But...at dinner on Tuesday, something happened that scared me. We'd been talking for about an hour, about this and that, our mutual friends, holiday plans for summer, the usual. Then there was a lull, nothing unusual there, happens all the time, perfectly easy silence between friends...only, it seemed to drag on slightly too long, I really couldn't think of a thing to say, and evidently neither could he....I panicked, I thought of something, anything...

"I've got some Polos in my bag," I mumbled, "We can have them afterwards." I winced, wondering why I had said such a banal thing.

My friend though, perhaps sensing he needed to at least feign interest said, "I tried that new Trebor chewing gum the other day."

"Oh yes," I replied, "Any good?"

"Mm, really refreshing!"

There was a pause...I looked at him, and spoke in a hushed voice across the table, "I think we've just hit a conversational low in our friendship." He nodded back and we asked for the bill.

The void

Sadly, as you can tell, I have little time for this thing anymore, which is a shame as I muchly enjoyed writing it with my meandering thoughts on anything I thought about. Snow. There is something I could have talked about. Or New Years Day, there is something else I have thoughts on. But time does not allow, so you cannot read of these things.

Go, go forth, find others to read, they may desert you in time, but for now, they are bloggers, and you shall seek them out.

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An update:

This blog will remain active, it's just far more random. If you can handle that please leave me on your blog rolls (mmmm, blog rolls) and link panels, if you only like having constantly updated blogs linked, I understand. I just thought I should clarify that the blog in its old state will not exist again for some time (I imagine).

Ta.