MID-MONTH MUSINGS: How to travel without leaving home...

 In this world of state-of-the-art technology, there are ways of fulfilling our travel ambitions without actually leaving the country. And, no, I haven't found a copy of Red Dwarf's Better-Than-Life computer game.

Let's look at some of the things that, in my youth, I used to dream about.

1. SEEING THE NORTHERN LIGHTS

I might not be able to travel to Scandinavia to stay in an ice hotel and view the aurora borealis directly, but who needs to go that far when you can see it from your own garden, as we could on 10 October this year due to a solar flare?

Picture taken by a friend's daughter, Rachel, in Rotherham

Picture taken by family friend, Sean, in Hitchen

 

2. THE SWISS ALPS

I've always had a yearning for mountains. It comes from reading the Chalet School novels and Heidi as a child, I suspect. I'm far too influenced by novels. Every time I have a walk through our local woods, which climb up a hillside, I imagine myself hiking through Middle-Earth with a band of trusty companions and a magic ring in my pocket. 

        My friend, C, goes walking in the Swiss Alps quite often, and I really admire him for the romantic figure he casts in my mind's eye, like Shelley striding along a vertiginous ridge. Mountain ranges make me think of Mr Chips, The Mysteries Of Udolpho, and The Sound Of Music. 

        And the bluecoats at Beacholme Holiday Camp in 1970s Cleethorpes singing 'I love to go a-wanderin'...'. 

        And yodelling. I mean, who doesn't enjoy a yodel now and then?

        However, the fact of the matter is that I'm seriously scared of heights. I get vertigo in the Lake District, and I mean while I'm on the road through Keswick not while I'm halfway up Skiddaw. As a child I once froze on a steep hill in Castleton and had to be rescued by my dad - as I crawled down the side of what I considered to be a mountain second only to Kilimanjaro in height and steepness, a young woman strolled past me up the track in high-heeled sandals, looking for her miniature poodle. The first [and last] time I drove over the Snake Pass (A57) on my own, I had to drive so slowly I caused a major tailback and a cacophony of horns. I was actually shaking with fear and just couldn't physically bring myself to drive any faster.

        The older I get, the more vulnerable and stupid I feel.  I drove over to visit a friend in Stockport recently [it took an hour and a half going west via the Woodhead Pass and more than two hours coming home via Buxton], on my own, and when I got home, utterly exhausted, I felt like Ferdinand Magellan. Mind you, circumnavigating the Peak District during roadworks season is no joke.

        The good thing about this is that I no longer require Mount Fuji or the Eiger to satisfy my need for mountain ranges. Yr Wyddfa, Mam Tor and Scafell Pike are quite high enough for me, thank you very much. 

 

3. BREATHTAKING LANDSCAPES AND TOURIST SITES

The thing about the modern world is that you can see Angkor Wat, Macchu Pichu, the Taj Mahal, St Peter's Basilica, the Valley of the Kings, the ruins of Petra, the Grand Canyon and virtually any other wondrous place you can think of from the comfort of your own settee. Yes, it isn't quite the same as seeing Uluru for yourself [something I've always wanted to do], but at least you don't have to travel for two days, and then endure the heat, snakes, spiders and kangaroos. The internet might have its faults [notably Elon Musk], but it sure has its strengths too. 

        Landmarks, these days, are increasingly over-crowded, filled with loutish morons who want to scrawl graffitti on the Colosseum or climb up the Kukulcan Pyramid, and full of foreign weather and wildlife. If you're not suffering from sunstroke or frostbite, you've probably had to fight off an alligator or pee on your husband's leg after he's been bitten by a jelly-fish. If you don't come home with a touch of ebola, or one fewer limb due to an encounter with a bear, it's probably because you spent your fortnight away in your hotel room, fighting off gigantic scuttling insects. 

        So why not sit back and explore the sights virtually?  

        And also, we have lots of incredible scenery and tourist sites in our own small islands. We have managed to go away for eight days in 2024 [more than any other individual year in the last decade] - two nights in Cheshire, two nights in Northumberland, two nights in York, two nights near Buxton, all close enough to drive home within a few hours should there be a MIL-emergency - and everywhere has had stunning and varied scenery:

 

       

    Budle Bay, Northumberland

 

 

                                                 Countryside round Buxton, Derbyshire

 

 

York Minster

 

Biddulph Grange Gardens

In fact, there are sites of exceptional beauty within easy walking distance of our house:

 

Sunset over our local reservoir, South Yorkshire, last week

 

4. FOOD FROM OTHER CULTURES

There is something about eating regional food while you're actually in its country of origin that casts an enchantment over it. People will eat regional specialities when they're on holiday that they would turn their nose up at home. There is something special about eating paella in Spain, kimchi in Korea, or borscht in Poland. 

        But we can cast that same spell over our own regional delicacies. British regional dishes often have the distinction of often sounding utterly disgusting but often tasting great - think pan haggerty, Tyneside singin' hinnies, pease pudding, lobbin scouse,  jellied eels, bubble,  cempogau, laverbread, bara brith, haggis and cullen skink. Some of course tastes as bad as it sounds - tripe and onions, brawn, black pudding. But the point is that we can get that regional magic by eating Lancashire hot pot in Bolton or Yorkshire pud in Wakefield. 

        Besides which, most people in Great Britain live close enough to a big town or city where there are restaurants where you can actually buy foreign food. Yes, I know, crazy, isn't it? Even in Yorkshire, where most people consider putting wine into gravy to be a bit exotic, we have embraced some brilliant well-established food cultures, particularly Indian, Chinese, Thai, Italian, Greek and Mexican. Yorkshire folk do tend to balk at raw fish [though they'll eat smoked salmon without moaning] and of course they won't eat anything identifiably French.

        

5.  ACTIVITIES YOU DON'T NORMALLY DO

I admit that I can't easily go paragliding or scuba diving or visiting world-class heritage sites without leaving my county, though you can't walk a mile through the British countryside without tripping over a National Trust property.

        I have recently been gardening, which is an activity I normally despise so I rarely do any. P hates mowing the lawn, and I'm certainly not doing it, so I've decided to transform our tiny garden by digging up the lawn and transforming it into gravel paths and raised flower beds. 

        I have come up against one or two obstacles. One is that I started very late in the year and have had to temporarily abandon it due to an inconvenient snowfall followed by an even more inconvenient Christmas. Another is that I have at least four ideas for what I want to do but I can't settle on one, and I get new ideas all the time. This is exactly what happens when I do my painting and drawing or my writing. It's very frustrating.

        However,  the main obstacles has been earthworms. I've always found them absolutely repellent. I know they are harmless. I know they do a great job for the soil [together with the roots from our magnificent crop of dandelions, the worms have aerated and improved our soil considerably during the 23 years we've lived here]. But you flip over a sod of turf to find one wriggling helplessly beneath like a bit of zombie intestine suddenly exposed to the elements. And they do that thing where a particularly lengthy one will suddenly appear right next to your foot then start to disappear back into the soil so rapidly it looks as if it's vanishing into thin air.

        Look, they're weird and I don't like them, ok?

        But holidays are for having adventures, facing your fears, taking risks. Making memories that will last a lifetime. I could be risking my neck skiing in Austria, or clambering up mountains in the Andes, canoeing down treacherous African rivers or visiting Trump's America. But instead, I face my fear and dig up earthworms without running into the house squealing like a Victorian maiden aunt. That's progress. It's taken sixty years but at last I've grown up [maybe].

        I'm 60, fat and unfit, with fibromyalgia and pre-diabetes, so I'm working on the garden in short bursts - roughly about an hour a week. At this rate, it should be finished by 2032. It's the opposite of those videos that show people completing a garden transformation in an afternoon. I doubt there's a camera sufficiently technologically advanced to be able to speed up the action to make me look energetic.

As you can see, the garden is a long way from being finished...

        I've also recently started doing a bit of half-hearted 'crafting'. Specifically, I made all my Christmas cards this year. None of them look much like what I imagined inside my mind, but one or two looked quite good. As I started off making cards for family and close friends [while I was still working out what I was doing], I ended up giving the best ones [after I got the hang of it] to neighbours and acquaintances. So you can tell how much I think of you by how good the card is - if it looks crap, you're probably my mum or P.

        What I did discover was a previously unsuspected delight in sticking beads onto card. It is entirely relaxing. The beads themselves are beautiful.  Not knowing exactly how it will come out is vaguely exciting. It is very easy but requires just enough dexterity to keep you focused without causing that irritation that comes from tasks that are just beyond your skill-level. I have enjoyed sticking beads onto other things that I am in danger of seriously over-beading. It's a good job we no longer have a cat. In fact, I've enjoyed it so much that, when I've run out of beads, I've moved on to other things, such as safety pins or buttons, which have often proved even better! 

        So if you're stressed out, I recommend investing in some beads and a pot of glue. At the very least, you can sniff the glue.  

A birthday card I made with beads on a gold background and a heart cut out

from an abstract acrylic painting I did some time ago.

A Christmas card made with old buttons, fabric from an old 

lampshade, beads and stick-on letters.

6.  A WINTER WONDERLAND

Christmases away from home always sound fabulous, in theory. Ice-skating in Central Park, fondu in a Ski-lodge, sleigh rides through the Lapland snow... But even when it snows at Christmas in this country, it's never as great as it is in your imagination. 

        So what about seeing how the other half live without travelling very far to do so. If you live anywhere near a stately home, they're bound to be trying to make money for its upkeep by transforming it into a magical fairy-lit super-grotto.  We used to take our great-nephew to Rufford Abbey just before Christmas where the grounds are beautifully lit-up with wondrous colours, and there is a cool children's playground [such a novelty to play there in the dark by the light of multi-coloured lanterns and drink hot chocolate in the rain]. However, he got bored with it a couple of years ago. 

        The place to visit at Christmas in my neck of the woods is Castle Howard, near Leeds, which dresses up extravagantly and costs a fortune. More local is Wentworth Woodhouse, a stately home with the longest frontage of any in the UK. Once owned by twice-Prime-Minister, the Second Marquess of Rockingham, this incredible house is now owned by a charitable trust and does a great deal to raise money for upkeep and restoration of the building.  This Christmas, it had a festive light trail - we were supposed to be going with our friends B and her husband A, but P and I both had a virus [which might have been the flu or it might have been covid]. Which is another thing - I've missed several social events this year due to illness, and lost money as a result, BUT how much worse would that have been had they been holidays abroad?

        So, I'll end with a series of photographs taken by B when she and her husband did the festive light tour:

 

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!