Where did the day go? When you were younger Sunday’s seemed to drag for one of several reasons (depending on your age). Either because the shops weren’t open, the pubs were closed, or there was nothing on the TV. Admittedly, none of those are a problem any more. Oh, wait the shops and pubs ARE closed! And, despite the fact we have TV channels coming out of our ears, it’s still sometime difficult to find anything worth watching. But I digress…

My point was going to be that – despite all these things – today seemed to fly. Admittedly, we did have a leisurely morning but started motoring in the afternoon with me doing a few chores and cleaning up the office whilst Dawn had another stint in the kitchen cooking more home-made Lasagne for us and extra for the freezer. This was in addition to the industrial quantities of home-made Thai Green curry Dee prepared yesterday.

All this activity meant that we had a productive day but we were keen to take a break at the end. For a change, rather than treading our well-worn path up to Savile Park we elected to stroll down to Copley and walk into Sowerby Bridge via the canal for the first time since Lockdown began. We’ve been avoiding the canal in that direction to follow the advice on social distancing from the Canal and River Trust. Some parts of the towpath are very narrow, and people constantly parading past boats people are living on can make their life uncomfortable. As it was later in the day we knew the canal would be quieter, so we explored. We both enjoy the serenity of the canal and because of Covid there’s hardly any movement of boats, so it’s even quieter.

We passed a few other walkers en-route and a couple of cyclists on our way into  Sowerby Bridge but the town itself was pretty much deserted as by then the supermarkets were closed. Unless you’re picking up a take-away from one of the handful of places still open there’s just no reason to be there. We didn’t hang around and tackled the climb back up the valley side almost immediately. Sadly, the weather wasn’t warm or sunny enough to sit outside when we returned so we were soon cocooned by the cottage and enjoyed a quiet, but early night by retreating to bed to watch TV and a program Dawn had found on the BBC’s iplayer. It’s called  ‘The real Marigold hotel’ and it follows a group of pensionable age celebrities who’re experiencing India as a possible place to retire. I’m not normally one for ‘reality TV’ but this is much kinder and gentler than many. No-one’s competing or bitching about each other and it’s a mixed cast that includes the legendary cricket commentator ‘Blowers’, Britt Ekland and musician Barbera Dixon, amongst others. The early parts are set in places familiar to me – Pondicherry, Chennai and Madurai in Tamil Nadu. It was a gentle way to end the weekend. And now, it’s…

Picture of the day.

Today’s picture comes from a place that’s not a million miles away from Tamil Nadu. Sri Lanka. This is sleepy old Galle town on the country’s West coast, and a place I’m sure ‘Blowers’ is familiar with as it’s where international cricket matches are held.

The pictures shows Galle old town, which is a fascinating mixture of buildings, cultures and religions. In the foreground you can see a circular Buddhist stupa whilst in the background is the tower of a Christian church. I first game here on my own, travelling solo in 1992. This picture was taken when Lynn and I visited on the 13th January 2002. We spent several weeks exploring the hill country and beaches. We returned again for Christmas and New Year 2003 as we would normally visit Asia at that time of the festive and holiday period. But, for once, we didn’t go back in 2004 as we’d done a lot of travelling that year and had only just returned from Singapore and Hong Kong in  November. So, purely by chance, we missed the devastating Tsunami that struck on Boxing Day 2004. Galle was very badly hit, as were many of the beaches we’d visited the previous two years. There but for the grace of God…

 

 

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