Italy by Train

Buenos Dias. That's about all the Italian I know so it's a good job we had a Tour Guide with us.

Train travel is not the quickest method of getting across the Continent but it suits me better than defying the laws of gravity for hours on end and you can see the countryside as you go. This is the foothills of the French Alps taken through the window of a very fast-moving TGV.

Our main base was in Chiavari, Italy, where I drank lots of coffee sitting outside lots of cafes in the myriad of arcaded streets. 

We were part of an organised tour group, 24 of us in total, and everyone was lovely. We ate, drank, chatted, laughed and still managed to squeeze in lots of sightseeing. We visited The Cinque Terre, five small fishing villages nestling in crevices where the mountains met the Mediterranean...

We sipped Italian coffee in Portofino Harbour and pretended that we were rich and owned an enormous yacht...

On the way home the Alps were transformed by thick snow and it was even more beautiful than when we came (only not so photogenic!)

And now we're home and it's cold and dreary but I've got some lovely memories to keep me going through the winter. We've decided that we really like Italy and we're going to go back there for sure, so I'd better learn a bit more of the language. Ciao for now ;-)

What are you doing with your Today?

Lots of sayings and thoughts scroll past my eyes when I’m on Twitter. Mostly I don’t notice them but sometimes a special one appears, one that seems to be speaking directly to me, like this one...

“...Today well lived makes yesterday a dream of happiness and tomorrow a vision of hope...”

It’s from a poem by Kalidasa called Look to This Day and it’s beautiful, inspiring, but it also throws up an issue for me. What is meant by “well lived”? I’d like to know because I’m very aware that once a day has gone it has gone. Each day is precious and I hate to think that I’m wasting them so...

Does it mean to work so hard we collapse into bed at the end of the day or does it mean to doss and generally over-indulge ourselves, rather like our cats always do?

Mabel is on the left and Charlie on the right.

Does it mean to work for the good of others thereby gaining satisfaction from making other people happy or does it mean to look after ourselves, Number One, and make sure that we’re happy, rather like our cats always do?

If somebody can give me a blueprint for living my day “well” then I promise I’ll give it a try. In the meantime I’ll have to carry on doing a bit of everything and never quite being sure if I’m truly getting the best out of my days.

What is your idea of a day “well lived”?

Jo Carroll's Hidden Tiger

“You’ll be surprised what you can do with a rhino behind you.”

Jo Carroll

This was one of my favourite quotes from Jo Carroll’s latest book, Hidden Tiger Raging Mountain. I suspect I would curl up in a ball and cry, but not Jo and so I had to invite her along to my blog and ask her a question or two:

Speaking as a wimpy, scaredy-cat, non-traveller can you explain to me why you go travelling, on your own, to such far-flung places?

That's a hard one. All I can say is that I love it - love that stomach-lurching dislocation of stepping into a new country, the not-knowing, the effort of trying to cast off all my western assumptions, begin from a place of knowing nothing and then trying to understand. I love the extraordinary efforts total strangers can make to help me feel at home. I love the smells of hot cities. I love the orchestra of the jungle. (I used to think I loved tigers!) 

Buddhists in Lumbini, Nepal

What is it about Nepal? It sounds as if it’s touched your heart like no other place.

I do, indeed, love Nepal. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I never quite get over how huge the mountains are! Even though we know the Himalayas are magnificent, it's still humbling to totter round their foothills. But it's more than that - I love the people, their humour, their generosity and their determination to grow their rice or open their businesses in spite of the weather or the terrain or the lack of electricity and governmental chaos.

Which was the one moment, standing out from all of those truly terrifying situations, when you really didn’t think you’d get home alive?

Coming down the mountain, in the dark, after the cyclone. Never again! (Never again to cyclones, that is - not never again to travelling!)

Jo on a wobbly bridge, foothills of the Himalayas

Do you have any future travelling plans?

I wanted to go to Madagascar in January because I've never been. I even bought the Lonely Planet only to find that it's cyclone season. Since I have yet to rediscover a sense of humour where cyclones are concerned, I decided to look elsewhere. So now it’s Thailand and Laos after Christmas but I'm not sure how easy independent travel is there. I shall have find that out when I arrive. 

Thanks, Jo, I think you're amazing, an example to all of us *polite cough* older ladies. I know that everyone reading this post wishes you an enjoyable and SAFE time in Thailand and we're looking forward to hearing about it. 

If you want to read all about Jo’s amazing trip to Nepal then click on the book cover to buy a copy of Hidden Tiger Raging Mountain:

And do visit her at her blog at Gap Years The Book.

It's National Poetry Day

The 4^th of October is Poetry Day.

I hope you’ve all taken the time

To ensure that your writing and clever word play

Is exploding with rhythm and rhyme.

Write your daily to do list in long ballad form

Leave the milkman a note in Haiku

Your sonnet style emails will go down a storm.

Why not tweet out a tanka or two.

I’m trying to make sure I talk all in rhyme

Using couplets and triplets galore

But I wish it was over til next year this time

Cause I can’t keep it up any more.

I'll give virtual chocolates and wine

For comments with rhythm and rhyme! 

[OK and all right, it was only a joke

Tho I know blogger land's full of poetry folk.]

You can find out more about National Poetry Day at their website http://www.nationalpoetryday.co.uk/

Digging for a King - Richard III Part II

The Leicester University Archaeology Department are digging under a Leicester City Council Car Park to search for the bones of Richard III. I blogged in more detail about it last week.

They were pretty certain that this was the site of The Grey Friars, a Franciscan Friary and Church which had been destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16^th Century. Sure enough they unearthed evidence and this weekend we, the public, were invited to see it for ourselves.

We had to queue...

But the sun was shining, people were chatty and excited and before we knew it we were in. This was our very own Archaeologist for the visit.

He showed us the trenches and explained what they were able to deduce from their findings...

They had, as yet, found no bones but they had found some floor tiles... 

...and the imprint of where those tiles would have been...

They've unearthed the foundations of narrow passages which would have been the cloister and of a wall with a buttress which was the Church. We had to use lots of imagination. No doubt when the report is shown on the TV there’ll be stunning projections of what the Friary would have looked like, but for me that won’t be anywhere near as exciting as being on the site, seeing the process and speaking with one of the archaeologists. It made it feel even more real than any TV projection possibly could.

It will be great if they do find Richard III’s bones but the dig isn’t quite over yet so... watch this space!

Lyric Snippets

I’m often awake in the middle of the night. I try not to disturb Mr A so the only part of me that can be active is my brain. This is dangerous territory. Thoughts can rapidly tumble into places that are even darker than the sky beyond the curtains and so I force my brain to concentrate on one of my many night-time mind-games. 

A few nights ago I chose one of my favourite games, lyric snippets. There was already a song going round my head, Just Can’t Say Goodbye by Lionel Richie. You probably won’t know it but it begins, 

“Here I stand, without an overcoat in January. Where did I go wrong...” 

That gets to me every time. In fact, I’ve written a poem inspired by it.

Last year I posted a blog called I Love Lyrics and a lot of people put the title of their favourite song in the comments below. This time I’m not thinking of whole songs, but just a snippet of lyric, a line that can be taken away and mulled over, like these:

“No one else can make me feel the colours that you bring...” 

Minnie Riperton, Loving You

“What do I do when lightning strikes me...” 

Joe Cocker, Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

“Sometimes the sun goes round the moon...” 

Vanessa Williams, Save the Best for Last

“Things that we were after were much better from afar...” 

Neil Sedaka, The Hungry Years

Before I throw this post open to you to add your own favourite lyric snippet, I’d like to share with you a lyric-related memory:

When I was at College, many years ago, I was obsessed with song lyrics. In those days, before Googling lyrics was invented, I collected lyrics in a notebook. [Sad, I know!] One day, in the middle of a Business Studies lesson, I was happily scribbling down the words to a Rolling Stones song when the teacher snuck up behind me and snatched the book. He took great delight in reading aloud the following lyrics:  

“Let’s spend the night together. Now I need you more than ever...” 

In those days spending the night with someone was as bad as shouting out the F word in class. I can still remember my embarrassment and a look of utter disapproval and disappointment on the teacher’s face.
 

And now, do please share your favourite or most inspiring lyric snippet. Remember, it’s not the song, it’s a short piece from the lyrics, a thought that we can take away as inspiration for our writing... or even our lives!

Digging for a King

The history beneath our feet never fails to fascinate me. Archaeologists from Leicester University are, as I type these words, digging up Leicester’s Grey Friars Car Park. A few days ago they found what they believe to be a section of wall from Grey Friars, a Franciscan Friary where it is thought that Richard III's body may have been buried. They are continuing the dig in the hope of finding his remains.

Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field which is only a few miles from Leicester. Over the centuries there has been much speculation as to what happened to his body. Some say he was buried in Grey Friars. Others say his body was thrown into the River Soar. Now we may be about to find out the truth.

In my book, The Children’s History of Leicester, I talked about the Witch of Daneshill. They say that she was among the crowd who watched the King ride into battle on 21^st August, 1485. Richard had stayed overnight in the White Boar Inn near Leicester’s River Soar. As he rode off over the river his foot knocked against the cornerstone of Bow Bridge. The Witch of Daneshill called out,

    “When next he comes over that bridge it will be his head that knocks the cornerstone!”

They say that her prediction came true. His body was carried back, thrown across a horse, and his head knocked against that very same stone. 

Bow Bridge is still there. It’s now part of a busy thoroughfare and only a few streets away from the archaeological dig. This area of ground has never before been excavated as it had been private gardens for many centuries and then a car park. I can’t wait to see what secrets it’s about to reveal.

Are there any historical mysteries beneath the ground in your area?

If you want to keep up with the news of the dig as it breaks then you can find the latest on The Leicester Mercury site.