A visit

Every place on earth should be like this; unexpected.
On a good day, you can see forever.

Restful sleep for a windy place.
Tranquility is a marvelous experience
sound of meadowlarks in the morning, music
for the body.
Breath and love are everything.

This is sort of my home town.
Where my father went to school,
took piano lessons.

I had stitches on my hand in this place –

Nice to be back home,
to see the old schoolroom and
place where I was born

Different than I remember it as

Hope we weren’t too much trouble.
Thanks for the beer.

(You will remember me by the broken chair)



Entries in the visitors' guest book at the Convent Inn in Val Marie, Saskatchewan, Canada, noted during a visit in the autumn of 2006. Submitted by Shannon Bruyneel.

Supper preferences

When these birds move their wings in flight,
their strokes are slow, moderate and regular,
and even when at a considerable distance

or high above us, we plainly hear the quill-feathers,
their shafts and webs upon one another,
creak as the joints or

working of a vessel in a tempestuous sea.
We had this fowl dressed for supper
and it made excellent soup;

nevertheless as long as I can get any other
necessary food I shall prefer his
seraphic music in the ethereal skies.



William Bartram, in Travels Through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. Spelling modernised. Submitted by Dawn Corrigan.

Sport

About midnight, having fallen asleep,
I was awakened and greatly surprised

at finding most of my companions
up in arms, and furiously engaged

with a large alligator
but a few yards from me.

One of our company, it seems,
awoke in the night, and perceived

the monster within a few paces of the camp,
who giving the alarm to the rest,

they readily came to his assistance,
for it was a rare piece of sport;

some took fire-brands and cast them
at his head, whilst others formed javelins

of saplins, pointed and hardened with fire;
these they thrust down his throat

into his bowels, which caused the monster
to roar and bellow hideously, but his strength

and fury was so great that he easily wrenched
or twisted them out of their hands, which

he wielded and brandished about and kept
his enemies at distance for a time;

some were for putting an end to his life
and sufferings with a rifle ball, but

the majority thought this would too soon
deprive them of the diversion and pleasure

of exercising their various inventions
of torture; they at length however grew tired,

and agreed in one opinion, that he had suffered
sufficiently, and put an end to his existence.



Taken from Travels of William Bartram by William Bartram, published 1928. Submitted by Dawn Corrigan.

A UK Taxpayer Considers Concorde

As a way
of getting over the Atlantic
it may have sucked

but as a beautiful thing
to look up and see
flying

over Reading
and the Thames Valley
at 6pm every afternoon

it was worth
every
penny.



A friend's Facebook comment, 22 January 2014. Submitted by Ailsa Holland.

It's a long way to fall from a skittish horse.

Horses are not meant to be sat upon.
Too high and fast. Large herbivores –
small brain, strong flight instinct.

The problem here (apart from an approaching rattly lorry,
narrow high-hedged lane, attempted evasive action
and two highly unexpected wheelie bins)
was more the equally small brain,
and total lack of skill or co-ordination,
on the part of the rider.

The lanes are normally very quiet.
We'd mostly been riding in the forest
(though that is full of scary squeaky branches,
suddenly erupting birds, unpredicted falling twigs).
Ah, but those are nature noises.

Machinery represents a threat of a different order:
a parked helicopter,
sabre-toothed bicycles.
And tractors. And buses.

Plastic carrier bags in hedges.
They are the most scary and dangerous of all.
They can eat a horse whole, apparently.



Taken from a Facebook discussion amongst riding enthusiasts about a friend's recent fall from a horse. Submitted by Angi Holden.

The broken down train

The broken down train has started moving. We will be able to get all the trains moving soon.

The train has just started moving. We will be able to get everything running soon.

The train has moved, we will be able to move all trains now. Some residual delay will occur.

The broken train has moved, Trains will be able to run again. Sorry for the delay.

The train has just started moving, Trains are able to run again. Some residual delay will occur.

The broken down train is now on the move. Residual delay is expected until 19:15

Ha, Make sure you tweet again next time.

You're welcome, sorry for the delay.

Sorry for the delay today.



Consecutive tweets from South West Trains, 16th March 2013. Submitted by MsJinnifer.

Found Shaunette

When I first drove
the Carlisle/ Wiltshire commute,
I’d do it southbound non-stop.

It was four hours or so
and I was keen to get home.

But, when they started the road-works,
it drew out and I started making stops:
two usually (Tebay and one other).

Some mornings I’d leave Swindon at 4AM
and head north for a 9AM meeting.

I have not been south of Manchester since July.


An email from a friend, Shaunette, sent in June 2011. Submitted by Martin.

The smoke that thunders

Plateau forests
Of ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir,

Cypresses that creep
Far into the water.

Under the sun that never sets
Below the smoke that thunders.



Taken from Rough Guide's Ultimate Travel Adventures, published September 2008. The descriptions refer to the Grand Canyon, the Atchafalaya Basin and the Arctic Victoria Falls. Submitted by Harriet.

A piece of tree bark

Half way through the night,
as recurring twinges of cramp keep me
padding off to the
bathroom.
I experience a quite
irrational fear of
being in the same room as a piece of
tree-bark.



Taken from Pole to Pole: with Michael Palin, first published in 1992. Submitted by Lauren.

Chickens on bikes

Things like boiling water, lizard watching,
mosquito nets, thorns in my shoes, wearing
skirts and t-shirts all the time, waking at
five AM, seat feeling sweaty, hearing
spoken Swahili, admiring cornrows,
dirt tracks and colourful markets and snacks
that all seemed so new when I first arrived,
now just feel normal. Glass pop bottles, old
Tsh notes, mud brick houses, chickens on bikes,
Karibu, men at bus stations, heat, dust,
colourful buses and dala-dala
and colourful clothes, rice and beans, insect
repellant, hot showers heated by the sun,
watering the garden morning and night,
African singing, mangos and pawpaw,
taking antimalarials, buying
green vegetables for the girls low in 
iron, frogs, owls, feeding chickens … I got 
that challenged feeling again today,
of having practical skills to offer.

For those of you 
expecting a blog
on South Africa, 
well, what can I say?
They did show G.I. Jane 
twice in four days.



From the individual blog posts of a married couple, separated by 3,000 km in Africa: the first verse is from Sarah's blog post about her experiences in Tanzania, while Luke is working in Johannesburg, his article providing the last six lines. The marvellous decasyllabic rhythm has been maintained by the removal of four little words, and phrases in lines 15-16 have been swapped over. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Planned Engineering Works

Sorry, I am so fucked!
Picc and vic lines down
(At least it sounds funny)
On a bus
will need +1 more bus
or 2 more tubes
Going to be very late
I am so sorry.




Text message sent by a friend running late for dinner, 13th November 2010. Submitted by Fiona Green.

Where's Warner?

Where to begin? Top left corner.
Hidden somewhere in this noisy,
chaotic morass of society
is our fellow traveller, Waldo,
a man unstuck from place and time.

He travels the world on foot, his
only lifeline to his friends and
family a litany of dreary
picture postcards sent from arbitrary
locations the world over. His
postcards do nothing to convey
the humanity, the madness
of Waldo's adventures. For that,
we must go find him. Waldo leaves
trinkets scattered behind him, shedding
a wake of objects as he goes.
What story do these leavings tell?
They are a series of transmissions
from the past, sent in a code we
cannot decipher. Is that a
scroll, or merely a rolled up towel?
After trying so hard to find
the scroll, are we sure we can handle
the real answer?

Occasionally, Waldo is all
but impossible to ferret
out; sometimes it seems like he's barely
trying. At the ski slopes, I find
him almost immediately. At the
sea, I hunt until I am mad,
yet Waldo does not reveal himself
to me. Oh, there he is. Hello,
my little friend. Wait a moment.
Who is that man with the beard? I
have seen him before. Is he pursuing
Waldo from place to place, country to
country? Someone must warn our hero.

What is everyone so preoccupied
with at the airport that they miss
the man of the hour right before
them? Perhaps they are experiencing
a collective nightmare of
impending disaster. Who is
Waldo's pursuer meeting with
at the museum? If only
I could warn Waldo of this conspiracy.
His naϊveté will be his
undoing, as it will be for
each of us in turn.

Why all this travel? We search for
Waldo; but what is Waldo searching
for? Perhaps he is not searching
at all, but running from something.
Does this man even want to be
found? Or, in searching for Waldo,
did we really find ourselves? No,
probably not.




From Warner Herzog Reads Where's Waldo, 22 April 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Gap Year

Dan Strong is bungee jumping,
Dutch boys, lies and more lies, Oxford lads, the north, small Thai ladies, happy elephants, 'bamboo rafts don't fucking float', jungle treks, more Irish girls, Thai boxing, watching failure, and how far does the rabbit hole go...

Dan Strong is maekong man,
he came, he saw, he mankini'd vang vieng in two! tubing, happy shakes, happy bread, and the rest, lying in rivers ''soooo.....this is nice'', being gracefully shot down, 25m rope swings, how to save a life, and a lot of unexplained injuries! TIL baby.…

Dan Strong is crashing motorbikes,
hefty fines, ''the biggest island is a shithole'', german girls, being unable to get rid of our dutch companion, chilling in rice paddies, getting groped by a french teacher, best bus trip ever and sleeping aids....

Dan Strong is capsizing tuk tuks,
killing fields, tuol sleng, sleeping on rooftops, 'im so excited about these temples, cock blocking, wasting time in hammocks....ha! cambodian clubs, dirty western perverts and the master of sublety, TIC baby.

Dan Strong is the child tree,
waiting far too long for overpriced bar shirts, drinking games for boys, best gay ever! gecko vs snake, street dancing, clean clothes, temples, lara croft, pissing off the tiger, best meal ever and maybe there is light at the end of this very deep rabbit hole.…

Dan Strong is best coffee ever,
last night with mum and dad, back in t land, 6 hour waits, israel girl, tittus, and khao San mornings.... Same same but brilliantly different! P

A series of status updates on Facebook from a young guy who is travelling. Apart from giving each first statement its own line, the punctuation and format is unchanged. Submitted by Lucie Shuker.