It’s the start of another week here at Bigland Towers but, having finally digested all the Xmas turkey and other largesse, the country’s beginning to shake off the festive lethargy, which means I’ll be travelling to press events again, starting on Wednesday. Today, I wasn’t going anywhere. It’s been bleedin’ Baltic here in the valley. We may have escaped the floods and flurries of snow that have affected other parts of the country but the mercury’s remained huddled at the bottom of the thermometer so most of my day’s been spent glued to a computer screen in the office apart from a foray down into Sowerby Bridge to post the latest batch of eBay sales. Returning home in a biting wind made me decide it’s time to break out the winter woolies – especially as the forecast is for temperatures to continue to drop over the next week. Despite my Viking ancestry, I’m suited to sunny climes, not this sort of weather! Maybe we should rename this the colder Valley…

Still, I’ve had an interesting diversion from the UK climate in some of the old slides I’ve been scanning. I’m on the last few dozen from my round the world trip in 1997-1999. These are of Nepal and trekking in the Himalayas. They’ve brought back lots of fond memories as some of them I’ve not looked at for decades. Sadly, with the fact they’re 26 years old, several of the faces in them are no longer with us. They’ve made me realise just how precious time is. The last of the pictures will be scanned and edited by the end of the week when you’ll be able to find them all in this gallery on my Zenfolio website. But, in the meantime, today’s picture is another taster.

We’d joined a Dutch friend (Axel) who lived in Goa, India on a trek he ran in Nepal to raise money for a Nepalese charity that he and his Partner Lucie ran. The charity funded projects in the remote village of Barpak in the Gorkha district of Nepal. The treks (which lasted 10 days) took you from Gorkha to Barpak and beyond up into the Himalayas just short of the snow level. It was arduous and the accomodation was either in tents, local homes or the occasional basic hotel. One night our little band stopped in someone’s half built house. Needless to say, we became a curiosity for the local youngsters. There was no TV and certainly no mobile phones to keep them entertained, so why not watch us? I turned the tables and took this photo, here’s me watching them, watching us as we cooked our evening meal.

I often wonder what happened to people we met on or worldwide wanderings. How many of these young girls now have families of their own? Did any of them ever move from that village as most people never do.

I’ve a small favour to ask…
If you enjoy reading this or any of the other blogs I’ve written, please click on an advert or two. You don’t have to buy anything you don’t want to of course – although if you did find something that tickled your fancy that would be fab! – but the revenue from them helps me to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site (which isn’t cheap and comes out of my own pocket). Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website –  https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/

Or – you can now buy me a coffee! https://ko-fi.com/paulbigland68312