adventures

"An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered - an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered."

GK Chesterton

A Croatian moment

Driving back from Bosnia with all our wordly belongings stuffed into the back of a little Renault Clio, Dave and I had a moment that will always be remembered. It was April, but still cold. We'd been camping all the way along the coast of Croatia, and had been rained on. We were broke too - the previous night in a campsite across the water from Korcula, we'd put the tent up in a howling gale and Dave had insisted upon cooking dinner on the campstove. I'd been up for a local pizza, but beans and sausages it was. The next morning everything was wet. Everything. Tent. Sleeping bags, clothes. The food was starting to smell damp. It was cold. It was chucking it down with rain.

About 10.30 I ventured that I would quite like a coffee please. Dave concurred and turned right. I was impressed. The man knew where a coffee place was. It wasn't looking promising, the Croatian inland was looking pretty bombed out and not like there would be a suitably marvellous coffee place, with sofas, fresh coffee, papers. You know the kind of place I was thinking of. But he had confidence so I believed.

Oh, foolish girl. We pulled over beside a wall and Dave leapt out with his trusty calor gas stove. He even had a windbreak out to ensure the flame didn't go out. The water boiled and a cup of instant coffee (with powdered milk for good measure) appeared, along with the sun. There was really only one song that could be the soundtrack for that moment, the maxwell house coffee advert from the 1980s sometime: I can see clearly now the rain has gone. We sang it the whole of the rest of the way from Croatia to Calais. I had to laugh, there was no other option. As Dave said, you'll remember this coffee for much longer than a capuccino in another Croatian cafe.

Married the man for a reason. His addiction to the windbreak for his calor gas stove.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

I know there are lots of interpretations of this poem, but I prefer the one that says it is about freedom of choice and an appreciation of not doing the obvious. If I can instill a sense of this into my boys, I'll be delighted.

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood,
and I—I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

leaving for South Africa

When I was 18, I spent a year teaching in a very rural school in Northern South Africa. There were about 40 of us volunteers who were going to South Africa and we all took the same flight from Heathrow. There was a moment, as everyone had said goodbye to friends and family, walked through passport control and we were just sitting there, a bit lost, a bit sad and a bit scared.

Someone had a boombox with them and put on these 2 songs. They will forever remind me of that moment.

Tom Petty: Free Falling

Kim Carnes: Bette Davies Eyes

Here Comes The Sun, Nina style

Love the Beatles version, but have a special place in my heart for Nina Simone singing Here Comes the Sun. Still can't work out how to upload videos from YouTube onto Blogger, but the link is here

A Moulin Rouge Roxanne

a favourite scene from a favourite movie. Could watch this over and over. Have done and still get shivers up and down my spine. Love the tango, the passion and the drama.

Roxanne from Moulin Rouge.

And a part of the movie soundtrack of life..

Driving along in the car, Mozart's Laudate Dominum on at top volume, doing my best to sing along is one of my guilty pleasures in life. No idea what the words are so I can make them up as I go along. If we had a shower, I'd be singing this in it. Particularly the last minute or so. Another favourite secret guilty pleasure is imaging this as part of the soundtrack to the movie of my life (when you're driving along in the car you can imagine whatever you like). Usually it is playing serenely over and above some particularly dramatic scene. Of what I have no idea, but you know the type of scene. Just love this piece of music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MSR3tYxsvE&feature=related