We Do Adventure

Yesterday as we we walking through the slush to the supermarket to buy water I had a thought. Having survived twelve days with just one tap in the house this had been turned off at 4pm. This was to enable repairs to start on whatever it was that needed fixing so we would get water back to the rest of the house. Our urgent requirement now was enough bottled water for essential washing and teeth cleaning. But this was not what was foremost in my mind. I was suddenly struck with the similarity between an unusually heavy winter and wartime. Several local people we know who have had a hard time over the last few weeks have said it reminded them of the early nineties. I have no first-hand experience of war so I'll take their word for it. I do know that the last thirteen days have been the first time in my life I have lived in a house without working sanitation . Washing has happened with a bucket and a bottle of water and we'll not talk about the toilet situation. Two weeks ago t...

‘You’ve worked in media for too long, that was a proper slogan!’ screamed my correspondent in a recent email. I’d written about something I was hoping to see happen here and had obviously got a little carried away in the way I worded it. I like words, I enjoy playing with them. Used correctly words convey so much more than just the sentence they construct. One of the challenges of being here is not yet being fluent in the local language. I can construct simple sentences but they convey nothing more than the simple thought they contain. But you can never escape the English language. Today I was walking past the Hotel Bristol when I suddenly noticed the writing across the top of the t-shirt on the bloke coming towards me: Go the extra mile, there’s always space ahead. Perhaps not the greatest phrasing but certainly a fantastic thought. If you’re prepared to go beyond the norm, beyond what most others are prepared to do, you are going to find the room to expand, space to express something...