`The Worst Journey in the World`…
Was it:
a) The 17.19 from Charing Cross?
b) The A226 into Dartford?
Or
C) The Ross Ice-Shelf, Antarctica, Winter 1911…70 degrees below, and your tent blows away…
It’s a great read.
Try it…
Or
these…
Or
this…
Well, can’t stop ~ my team of Siberian Library huskies are straining at the leash – mush!
TTFN
18 comments:
Blogbrary - your recent epic journeys are to be admired. Can I add my two hour car journey from Footscray to Blackfen in last year's snow to the list? Pretty scary. This year, my car is staying nicely buried outside my house.
I'm going to echo Joan Bakewell's recent comment which is particularly apt at the moment:
One kind of happiness is 'a deep armchair, a warm fire and a favourite book'.
Perfect...
Thank you,
And yes…I like the quote!
On an entirely unrelated matter, someone has recommended another good read – `Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman: travels with sled dogs in Canada’s frozen North` (which, at the moment, sounds a better option than my 96 bus home!)
TTFN
You Southerners!
Up here in 't North of London, Polar Bears compete with marauding Yeti for the last fishcakes (that's why Mum's gone to Iceland - that and she could aFjord to... [sorry!])
It's so bad even the Gherkin has frozen. And that's never good.
(with apologies to all of those who read this north of Watford)
JG
Waiting for a Chiltern line train yesterday, only for it to be announced as 'missing' somewhere between the next station up the line and us...
Slightly concerned that someone may be using this cold spell to steal trains...
Look for a villain with a Hornby-deprived childhood. Tracking this down could be a job for 00 gauge...
It’s happened here too! Northern Rail lost a train! How? Apparently they are built in Spain so not able to withstand this weather (I kid you not), so I can only think that this train has left the tracks and is trying to get back to the Costa Del Sol.
From your correspondent in the REAL North!
J.R.
Dear correspondents ~
Many thanks for these nice icy updates…
And, just to raise our spirits even further, I’ve just seen a book called: `Frozen Britain : how the big freeze of 2010 is the beginning of Britain's new mini ice age`…
So that’s alright, then…
TTFN
As a true Northern soul I have to confess that this recent weather has harkened me back to a happy childhood filled with bleak early morning walks to school with naught but a lump of coal to sustain me.
Ah the happy memories of those snow-lashed treks into the wilderness of the North, my school bag held aloft to repel the worst of winter's wrath as the less hardy children were sent flying through the air to an icy, unknown doom.
As I cannot see it above I would like to recommend the fine autobiography of Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know. A hero of mine and surely a contender for greatest living Englishman?
Now if you'll excuse me, the Polar Bears and Yeti are gathering and that fishcake is mine...
Dear Anonymous Northern Soul ~
Thank you for your contributions, and your evocative childhood memories of the good cold days…Also for your recommendation to try the book by Sir Ranulph Fiennes, although – weaned on whale blubber as I was – I tend to admire the work of Sir Ernest Shackleton more. Wonderful books!
Finally – re your nomination for `Greatest Living Englishman`…I would go for, I think, either Bruce Forsythe or Len Goodman?
TTFN
How about another amazing read - South : the Endurance expedition by Ernest Shakleton - 10 months in Antartica waiting for ice to break around their stranded ship, only to have the ship crushed by the ice.
Thanks for the details about Mad Dogs and an Englishwoman - I know someone who will enjoy that!
As I plodded to the bus stop yesterday with snow coming up to the top of my boots and reflecting that my young neighbours were still in bed, my mind went back to my northern schooldays, to a building designed by an admirer of classical architecture with an open corridor surrounding an internal garden, plonked down on the top of a hill in Yorkshire. The warm air heating brought the plaster off the roof so we were allowed to wear trousers as a great treat.Speaking of treats I've still got the scar from going head first into a telegraph pole while face down on a sledge. Later on I spent many an unhappy hour on Leeds station listening to where the trains had got stuck on their inward journeys.
Best thing about snow is the first hot coffee on reaching home!
Dear correspondents ~
Thanks for your comments…I`m intrigued at the notion of `being allowed to wear trousers as a great treat`…The mind boggles!
On another subject, glad to see another vote for Ernest Shackleton – read his books, and be amazed at his story…what made him exceptional, I think, was his care for his crew NOT just the mission – a stark contrast, some might say, to Captain Scott.
Discuss?
After the ice. (Life death and politics in the new Arctic)
Robert.
Thanks, Robert…
Yes, this looks interesting – the blurb says “We all now know that the Arctic is the canary in the coal mine of climate change, but that is only part of the story. As the author reveals, the melting snow and ice are now giving way to a much bigger story of battles over vast deposits of gas, oil and minerals”. There’s a copy at Bexleyheath, and it’s got a very wintry looking cover…Brrr!
On a slightly different note... 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy offers a fictional (and fairly horrific) journey from one coast of the United States of America to the other set during a nuclear winter. It's pretty good read,a bit grim at times and the author's writing style takes a while to get used to, but ultimately it's a very different and worthwhile book! I believe most Bexley libraries have a copy of this book too!
Thanks, Adam ~
Yes, I like Cormac McCarthy’s books too, but they’re not exactly full of joy or glee, so beware!
I'd like to recommend 'Worst Journeys , the Picador Book of Travel' edited by Keath Fraser.
It's a collection of true and fictional stories by writers such as Wilfred Thesiger, Jan Morris, Eric Newby, Paul Theroux, Martha Gellhorn, Anita Desai, Bruce Chatwin... the list goes on. Just a wonderful miscellany to curl up with on a snowy afternoon, and thank your lucky stars you're home safe.
Dear Janis,
Thanks for this, and thanks also for reminding us about the pleasures of travel writing. (Someone else has recently recommended books by Martha Gellhorn, I’ll have to take a look).
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