Now that we have checked out all the areas of Tropical Palms together it time to leave the premises to see what lies beyond. Hold on....dont get your knickers all in a twist. This excursion was done while we could still go out in the fresh air as long

AMUSING FAMILY CONNECTIONSA girl named Laura Ingalls was born in 1867 and grew up on the prairie. One of the first places she lived was on a hard scrabble little farm a few miles southwest of Independence Kansas. Her dad Charles Ingalls was a

I love walking on my own. It is never a lonely experience. There is too much to see and too much to take in . Even on Day 24 of the lockdown I am still finding nooks and a cranny or two in our village that I have never investigated before . Yes I am coveri

I take a sharp intake of breath as I test what the air temperature is outside . The chill of the frosty night has not yet been burned away that frosty morning feeling. My breath comes out like a thick wisp of smoke. I need my gilet on today to keep me warm

Sometimes you have to try something different . Chesterfield area is not all Peak District pretty . Nor is full to the brim with pretty stone cottages . Stone walls fields and Bluebell Woods . There is another side . The A61 divides the two halves . The P

THE LION OF MISSOURIAs part of the Missouri Compromise in 1820 the State of Missouri was admitted to the union as a slave holding state. Slavery was part of their statehood charter. When the Civil War fetched loose in 1861 Missouri did not have

Snuggling up inside the duvet it was hard to make the decision to wake up fully and rise . The sun was slowly rising above the trees . There was a hint of a chilly morning out of the sun . Walking early is a pleasure before the rest of the world has woken

The brain this morning does not want to function . One side is saying get up get moving get out . The other side replies in a negative fashion . Let me stay in bed a bit longer. My foot aches . Underneath and on top. Shoes are rubbing toes from so much

BAPTISM OF FIREOur sixth cousin four generations removed was a fellow named Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain from up in Maine. At the beginning of the Civil War Joshua was teaching the German language at Bowdoin College conducting Sunday school le

Are you getting up The navigator woke early this morning . I never heard him getting up . He was standing at the bottom of the bed What about your walk Are you bothering this morning I had made plans yesterday for todays walk . On the way home

A birthday and Christmas present to my mum had been a trip to St Petersburg and in September 2019 we finally went there. Since I did not want to fly my mum by herself I had caught a train from Dortmund where I live to Stuttgart where she lives a few

It is Sunday. The shine is shining . It is a day of rest . But each day feels like a day of rest . Everyday feels like a Sunday. I could turn over fall asleep and have a late breakfast . Somehow along the way over the last 30 days walking has become an

WE HAVE RUN AGROUND CAPTAIN RANEYThe Arkansas and Colorado Rivers originate only a few miles apart in the Rocky Mountains near Leadville Colorado. They are however on opposite sides of the Continental Divide. Snowmelt in the Arkansas River d

Morning all I guess you will all be up and greeting the dawn . Sleep did not come easy last night . Tossing and turning . You get nights like that at times . Hoping that once your head hits the pillow you will fall asleep . Some nights you do. Others the

As coronavirus spreads across the U.S. Americans in some of the country's hardesthit regions have stepped up to foster and adopt animals keeping them out of shelters. NBC News contacted shelters and animal advocacy organizations with facilities in Calif

The butterfly counts not months but moments and has time enough Rabindranath Tagore one of my favourites. I saw the first butterfly of the season today . A Cabbage White the scourge of gardeners who love their cabbages . The pretty white things lays

I won't lie to you. My brain was Ok this morning accepting the fact that a walk was on the way after breakfast . It also knew that today was shopping day . The day of a telekit from work. It was my feet that were complaining . Complaining loudly at that

THE GREAT SPACE ALIEN MICROBE CONSPIRACYIt remains a mystery how space alien microbes arrived on the planet. It seems likely that they may have hitched a ride on cosmic radio waves. Rotation of the planet as it revolves on its axis and orbits ar

July 27 2018. Passau Germany. We docked on the Danube just upstream from the Inn and Ilz Rivers and across from the hill where the Veste Oberhaus a 13th century hilltop fortress sits. Our guided foot tour of the old town ended at the beautiful Baroque

The early morning dawn light was streaming in through the window . The time seemed irrelevant . It was still not quite light enough to rise . Looking at my watch I hoped the green luminous fingers would give me a clue to the time . It felt like 5am. The fi

Yesterday it was horses birds coots on the pond rabbits and squirrels . Today chickens. Guinea Fowl a bit of an odd sight around the village as they walked alongside me. My plan was to head out into the countryside . Luckily living on the spine of Eng

The work of fiction known as the weather forecast has been giving us a sandwich message the last few days. The good news the bread of the sandwich has been that April has been a lovely month . No April showers. Wall to wall sunshine. Then came the fillin

Thankyou to my travelblog friend you know who you are for introducing the colour Borage Blue to my collection of colours . She told me that the plant I struggled finding a name for yesterday was Borage . An electric blue and a stunning plant .Anothe

SPORTS HEROESIf I had to make a list of family sports heroes it would be a short list. Jim Forsberg would be on it for football. Jim is also a war hero. Jims brother Richard and Richards son Andy would be at the top of it for over 50 yea

Mijn eerste blog vanuit Leiden In dit tijdperk van Covid19 met iets minder bewegingsvrijheid dan we gewend zijn leek het mij leuk eens terug te kijken op al die bijzondere voettochten die ik heb gedaan. Je moet toch wat als die tocht van deze week niet

31st December 2019It has been a while since I last wrote 30th August actually. We were just back from Bali and waiting for the mango season to start. Well we never did get any work but that was OK. Danie has done a lot of

Shall I let you into a little secret oh go on then . I am quite enjoying this walking . Lying in bed unable to drop off to sleep I sorted out in my mind where I was walking to in the morning . The weather whas a let down . Over the past few weeks someone

July 29 2018. We had lunch on board the boat and disembarked at Kelheim. What little we saw of it was by the Danube and then from the bus windows when we immediately left the city. Our destination was the village of Bielngries where we broke into smaller

Is that rain I hear Gently tapping on the window . I cannot hear anything as I lie under the bedclothes . I am sure it is raining . The work of fiction the weather forecaster got it right . April is going out in the way April should go out . Light ra

It was not the aching feet that were stopping me in my tracks . To be fair they were burning . This walking plays havoc with the arches of your feet . It was not my brain working overtime thinking of reasons not to go out . Although it would have been easy

In February 2020 before Coronavirus caused chaos and shut everything down I was able to spend the month in Florida. Most of the month was spent in Amelia Island I'll be writing about that more extensively soon but I had always wanted to see Tampa. The

Rain it can be quite therapeutic . When it patters on Gabbys roof it can lull you into sleep . When it hammers down it is worse than listening to Ginger Baker and Keith Moon on their drumkits on the roof. It does the garden good . But lying in bed listen

July 30 2018. Nuremberg. The first stop on our Nuremberg tour was at the Zeppelinfeld originally the spot where one of Count Zepppelin's airships landed thus Zeppelin Field. In 1933 and 1934 it became the rally grounds for the Nazi party. Later Albert S

FORT GIBSONThe 1830s would have been amusing times to have gone forth in America. In 1821 the Mexicans finally kicked the Spaniards out of their country and began to move forward with plans to settle Texas. In 1824 America responded to Mexican e

Today should have been the day. It is going to be a day of would have could have and should have again. We would have been waking up on the park and ride paid our fee to exit and driven the M2 down to the tunnel . We should have been sitting in the car

Goedemorgen to you all . We would have probably woken up in Belgium this morning having dined on waffles or frites last night . I am sure that the sun would be shining as we rose . The sun has arrived here so the chances are Belgium would have been just as

SOMETHING FOUNDOne of the best western movies ever made was called ltem stylemsobidifontstyle normalgtThe Searchers starring John Wayne. It was about a little girl named Cynthia Ann Parker who was abducted by the Comanche

Did you know that there was a connection between our large 7000 inhabitant village of Wingerworth Randolph Hearst and the a museum across the pond in St Louis No neither did I until I treated our village as if I were a visitor on a first visit . As a v

KNOXVILLEThe Department of Energy got underway as a branch of the Tennessee Valley Authority beginning in about 1940. The Manhattan Project in which we developed the atomic bomb originated at the Oak Ridge Laboratory outside of Knoxville. Scie

Yesterday was Day 45 Our five o'clock briefing was delivered by the less than charismatic Mr Gove who told us more of the same . He spelled out the numbers of deaths the numbers of tests that had been undertaken. The numbers rolled off his tongue . Traf

Kedarkantha the Prominent winter trek in Garhwal Himalayas Uttarakhand INDIAKedarkantha Trekheight is around 3800 meters. And the Kedarkantha trek offers 6 days vacation

Kedarkantha the Prominent winter trek in Garhwal Himalayas Uttarakhand INDIAKedarkantha Trek height is around 3800 meters. And the Kedarkantha trek offers 6 days vacation

Reaching Blog 100 on Chesterfield who would have believed it Not me. Sometimes I would write something about my home town. Most of the time though blogs were about somewhere else . Covid 19 has scuppered any chance of a blog from out of town for a whil

COMMUNITY PRIDEWinnemuccca is a bustling five brothel railroad town in north central Nevada. When you next visit there and perhaps might grow weary of drinking and carousing make your way the northwest corner of Bridge Street and 4th

Surfacing this morning was difficult . It is a work day today . Last night we had a frost . Not a heavy one . Not the sort of frost you get in the Winter . Not the sort of frost that you have to scrape off the car windscreen. But a frost nevertheless . The

After arriving the previous evening I was ready to head out and explore Warsaw. I had booked two free walking tours for today. The first one started at 10 am and was a walking tour around the Jewish part of Warsaw. The starting point was about a 20 minute

It is dark when I wake . It is Day 48 of the lockdown . The sun has not risen and the birds have not woken. It is Thursday . Sage are meeting today with our government . Sage used to be that herb that you stuffed up a chicken together with onion . Now it i

OLD HICKORYAndy By God Jackson was our fine countrys seventh President. He was a war hero too by virtue of defeating the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend and stealing their land and then by defeating the pesky Redcoats at the Battle of New Orleans.

I woke early again . The bedroom was still in darkness . Tossing about I found I could not get back to sleep. My mind was going round and round . Odd thoughts . Day 49 how many hours have we been locked down. 1176 hours or thereabouts. I could have begun

Morning she shouted across the road . Morning I replied . Busy isn't it I thought it was lockdown Yes seems like a lot of people still travelling in their cars was my reply. We agreed the lady on her morning walk and I that this was a lovel