Up the hill, after the center of Widcombe and the train station and the canal crossing, is the house that will outlive me and all my old friends. There was no canonical order to the history of careless nights spent in the cheapest public houses of old Bath. As we dug into the now-extinct culture … Continue reading Prior Park
Tag: Travel
A Dreaming at the Tulip Hotel
I’m looking in from the road on a misty night at the Cape house I grew up in. It's half past five in the morning. The ancient white farmhouse, nearly as old as the country itself, stands renovated by its new owners. I can see the glow of the kitchen windows on the tall … Continue reading A Dreaming at the Tulip Hotel
A Land of Geology: Part 1
When the first explorers discovered the glacier-covered archipelago about 1,000 miles above Norway called "Svalbard", the land probably appeared slowly from the grey arctic backdrop, the imposing mountains silhouetted like a Lovecraftian alien planet. For me, Svalbard came suddenly into view from an ever-lightening night sky as my plane traveled further North. The dark of … Continue reading A Land of Geology: Part 1
Beggar on the Metro
Stranger with a mullet and baggy cargo pants. Keep smiling because it's all that can't be taken from you. That's what he said in broken English with a French accent, begging for money. Parisian metro scalpers. Unfortunates. The note grows sharp and the train rattles forward. No, I have nothing to give you. Faint smile, till … Continue reading Beggar on the Metro