“Depression is melancholy minus its charms.” Susan Sontag It is Thursday morning and I smell of melancholy. I let Shell sleep and I read before we head to the gym. It is good to be back in the gym. Like a strange omen, Shell comes down with the runs. As she returns from the toilet,…
Year: 2024
Departures – Budapest
“It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear on the contrary that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning” Albert Camus Another blue sky. I watch the sun hit Szabadság tér. A symbol of…
The Last Night In Budapest
“I would have stayed a hundred times and I would have left one time only – still, I left.” Mihail Drumeş We are up early and there is a deliberate lethargy to our actions that has nothing to do with tiredness and everything to do with a reluctance to leave. Breakfast is not until 8.00…
Slovakia – The Tartra Mountains
“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.” John Muir A great night’s sleep. Up early for another…
Slovakia – Poprad the Sequel
“Dead voices, lost sounds, forgotten noises, vibrations lockstepping into the abyss and now too distant ever to be recaptured!…What sort of arrows would be able to transfix such birds?” Auguste Villiers de l’Isle-Adam Despite the noise, I fell asleep and slept well. I am woken at 4.00 am by a man howling in pain. Long,…
Slovakia – Kosiče
At me too someone is looking, of me too someone is saying, He is sleeping, he knows nothing.Let him sleep on.” Samuel Beckett Not the best night’s sleep. Music and general revelry. It is the price you pay in the heart of the city. We head out for an early morning walk. The markets are…
Poland – Nowy Sącz
“There is one thing I like about the Poles—their language. Polish, when it is spoken by intelligent people, puts me in ecstasy. The sound of the language evokes strange images in which there is always a greensward of fine spiked grass in which hornets and snakes play a great part.” Henry Miller Clear blue sky…
Bytča and More Castles
“Wherever there is cold there are people who work themselves to the bone and when they produce young they preach the gospel of work – which is nothing, at bottom, but the doctrine of inertia.” Henry Miller We wake to grey skies and cold weather. Breakfast is by the restaurant, which turns out to have…
Slovakia – Where The Castles Live
“The shattered wall,the broken towerhave a story to tell –from the touchstones of ruinsand ancient textswe make a pilgrimage.” Michael Alexander We wake up to blue skies and a crisp morning of 5C. Shell suggests a walk. There are sandstone caves and digs nearby. I realise this random, tiny little village in the middle of…