Diary of a Slow Traveller – You miss one train…

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St Emilion

St Emilion

I was reading one of my favourite travel blogs, Picnic at The Cathedral and WOB’s hilarious reflections on missing a bus in Poland  and was immediately reminded of missing a train in Bordeaux on Bastille weekend and the repercussions of missing that one train!

Some years age my favourite person and I were traveling through Europe with our youngest daughter, who was about fifteen at the time.

We had arranged a train trip from Bordeaux to Taormina. Yes I  know, this involves going across the water and trains don’t normally travel over water, but in Italy they sort of do! They barge the carriages from the mainland across to Messina and then you continue your journey. We thought it sounded like fun.

St Emilion

Back to the story. We were staying in St Emilion and needed to drive back to Bordeaux railway station to drop the car off and then board the train to Paris, travel across Paris to catch another train to Amalfi where we’d planned a couple of days sightseeing before re-boarding the train to travel onto Taormina. As I write this it now seems so obvious it wasn’t going to be straight forward but I didn’t expect it to turn sour even before we boarded our train in Bordeaux.

After a delightful Saturday morning in St Emilion, we allowed ourselves what we considered to be a more than ample time (two and half hours) to get to the Bordeaux train station. I allowed this time because the previous year I’d been in Bordeaux for work and seen how busy the traffic was.

So all packed and seemingly with plenty of time, we loaded the address into the GPS and set off for the station. Continue reading →

Grandparenting – a true joy

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Grandparents, Grandparenting, Grandchildren

The Free Press wrote an article on  grandparenting. As I read it I thought about writing a post on grandparenting, which now occupies a large part of our life.

We are blessed to have 4 wonderful grandchildren, all of whom live, along with their parents no more than 30 minutes from our home.

Grandparenting is a topic amongst our friends. It’s a topic which isn’t restricted to our female friends at all. Infact, it’s a topic that is raised frequently with a close male friend of mine.  He very much lives for his grandchildren. My favourite Person and I might not go that far, but it’s a very big part of our lives.

We pretty much drop everything to help as needed, whether it’s to help our stay at home mum as she juggles pick ups and drop offs for her three, who are at different schools or our son as he and his wife juggle their work lives with parenting. Continue reading →

AI – To use it or not to use it, that is the question.

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Deuces Museum Berlin

Early flight, from which there was no going back

I’ve been wrestling with AI.

Should I use it? How should I use it? When should I use it? Am I using someone else’s work without giving them credit? etc.

I get frustrated when I go through an AI chatbot when I’d just like to talk to a human. That’s been particularly frustrating recently, as I struggle to get my blog sorted after changing my hosting service package.

My dilemma all came to a head recently with my wonderful daughter, a creative, who is completely opposed to AI. She saw that I was looking at an AI adapted recipe. It needed to be adapted so I could use ingredients my favourite person could have.

My dilemma

Our quite heated argument made me completely question how I use AI.

Continue reading →

Writing travel reviews – It’s nice to be nice

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Pantheon, Rome.

In early 2008, we were planning a European holiday, and I was trying to work out the best way to do it. We had a travel agent, but I wanted to do some research of my own. High on my list of priorities was my desire to follow a few stages of the Tour de France. Bluntly, I wanted to ‘Yell for Cadel’! We’d never had an Aussie winner, and I thought this was his year. It wasn’t, but he came close.

I was discussing our plans with friends, my bike riding buddy and his wife,  over dinner. They were much better travelled than we were, and I knew that my bike-riding buddy’s wife did all their travel planning and bookings herself. She pointed me towards TripAdvisor, which at the time I had never heard of.

That conversation changed my whole approach to travel. Continue reading →

Sport and Money – Is it like oil and water?

I am starting to wonder if money in sport is like oil and water; they just don’t mix.

I am a sports nut, but lately I’ve found myself losing some of that enthusiasm.

Over the last couple of weeks, I haven’t been checking the overnight EPL scores before getting out of bed. That might not sound significant, but for someone who’s followed Arsenal for years, it says something. One of the joys of retirement has been being able to watch a game at any time.

The Premier League trophy on display at the Emirates 😍🏆 🔴 @Arsenal

Source: Instagram

I’ve lost my enthusiasm for the EPL

In recent weeks, I haven’t had those disturbed nights watching Arsenal play in the early hours. It’s not because they are the Premier League Champions; it’s because I’ve lost some interest in the competition, largely because of the Manchester City situation.

For years, the 115 charges against City have been in the back of my mind, and sometimes front and centre. I like many have questioned their ownership and, more broadly, whether football clubs should have ownership closely aligned with nation states. I’ve even joked about Arsenal being owned by a plucky billionaire, as though that somehow makes things a little more acceptable.

But since the independent commission reached its judgement in the Manchester City case, I’ve felt deflated. I’ve still watched Arsenal’s games live when the timing has suited, given I live in Australia, or caught up on the replays. I haven’t bothered to watch other teams. Continue reading →