We’ve had another of those winter days where brass monkeys are seeking the urgent assistance of welders! Temperatures have remained sub-zero all day. The forecast is telling me it’s currently minus 6 which is hardly surprising as we’ve had clear skies and sunshine throughout most of the day. Despite sunny weather I’ve been happy to stay in for most of the day, picture editing and catching up on various other admin. In fact, it’s been rather a productive day and one that’s lined up work for the future.
Whilst I’ve been busy in the office I’ve also been keeping an eye on the welfare of the wild bird population by ensuring they’ve plenty of food to eat with a mix of oats, rice and chopped (cooked) vegetables. At times I’ve seen real bunfights between several Blackbirds, Magpies, Thrushes and Robins as they establish (literally) a pecking order! They’ve been quite entertaining to watch. With the amount of food the Blackbirds have gobbled I’m surprised they’ve not needed a runway to take off on!
Now it’s evening, the temperatures dropping and I’m preparing to wind down for the day. I’ll leave you with a snow scene, but it’s not from the Calder valley, it’s from a valley much, much further away. You’ll never see the Pennines like this!
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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.
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Miracle of miracles – we’ve had a whole day without rain here in the Calder valley! Not only that, we’ve also had blue skies and this strange round shiny yellow thing hanging around in them. Admittedly, it’s also been bloody cold but – hey, I’ll take it over the alternative!
After a morning sorting out pictures and paperwork indoors the dry weather allowed me to spend several hours catching up on exterior chores such as clearing mounds of slippy, wet leaves from the front and back of the cottage which has allowed me to get a ladder out safely and clear the guttering at the back of the property, ready for the next deluge. It’s lovely being surrounded by trees but they don’t half create some work in the autumn/winter! Whilst I was attacking the guttering I had the chance to check on the bird boxes I’d put up at the back of the house a couple of years ago. We’ve had plenty of prospective tenants but no-one’s ever nested. In close inspection I found some feathered friends had been trying to enlarge the holes in order to take up occupancy, so a job for tomorrow is to enlarge the openings and give ’em the chance to claim squatters rights.
The stone flags at the front of the cottage are still too slippy for ladders but we’re meant to have another sunny day tomorrow and a balmy 3 degrees so conditions should be good by lunchtime, allowing me to give the front of the cottage the same treatment as well as try to establish where our front porch is leaking from. It’s a lovely decorative stone feature but it was a later Victorian add-on to the original building so prone to water ingress. Whatever, there’s plenty to keep me occupied tomorrow which will help me meet my boosted exercise targets. I’ve ticked every box so far this year including ‘dry January’, so I’m feeling chuffed with myself. Plus, a bit of sunshine’s always a mood-lifter.
One of this morning office jobs was to crack on with finishing off some slide scanning which has provided today’s picture and look on life in a very different world. Forget supermarkets and pre-packaged fruit and veg. Here’s a local shop in Durbar Square, Kathmandu, Nepal, seen in April 1998. Give me this rather than self-checkouts any day…
You can find many more pictures from Nepal and the rest of this 1997-99 Odyssey here.
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/
Well, that was a fraught evening! Dawn was so het up about the England – Denmark football match tonight I thought she was going to do herself an injury before it ended! Thankfully, England won, although now I’ll have to go through all this again on Sunday with the final, only this time with the whole of Dawn’s family (three generations in fact). Drink may have to be taken…
Joking aside, it’s great to see the England team doing so well after so many false starts, hype and disappointments. From an outsiders eye all I can say is that finally they look like and play like a team. They’ve done so well to get this far and it would be lovely to see this young group of players get the trophy.
Sports aside, I’ve had a busy day finessing an article before getting my copy and pictures off to RAIL magazine. With that done I managed to get a few more old slides scanned before giving priority to houshold bits and bobs including shopping for tonights food so that Dee could ‘relax’ in front of the TV and watch the footy. Not spending all my day goggle-eyed in front of a computer screen’s been lovely, even if the weather’s been mixed. The most difficult decision right now is what to wear. Either you under-dress and get soaked by heavy showers or you over-dress and end up with the same result in sweat as it ain’t flat around here and carrying shopping a few hundred metres uphill soon opens your pores. Still, first world problems eh? I think back to some of the Nepalese porters I met who’d be carrying 75kg loads in wicker baskets 1000s of metres uphill whilst wearing flip-flops and realise I’ve sweet FA to complain about.
So, today’s picture is one that reflects what you won’t find me doing as I walk back uphill to home from the supermarket – even if it does feel this way sometime! I took this picture in a village in the Gorkha district of Nepal in April 1998. Be grateful that you can always order a taxi…
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Apologies for the lack of pictures recently, I’ve been sidetracked by various other events like the farcical protests against the HS2 railway which I can’t resist poking fun at! That the protesters have a level of bombast that’s inverse proportions to their ‘achievements’ is too good an opportunity to miss – hence my earlier blog today.
I’ve also been keeping busy trying to catch up on some work after the bank holiday where I took some ‘us’ time in order that Dawn and I could work together on household/garden projects rather than being holed up in separate ‘his and hers’ offices where we only come together to eat. One of the ironies of this working from home malarkey is that we still contact each other via email even though we’re only separated by a floor! I’ve no doubt we’re not the only ones and I suspect some readers of this blog might be breathing a sigh of relief whilst saying to themselves – “thank heavens it’s not just us”!
Whilst the old slide-scanning has had to take a bit of a backseat I’m still managing to get a few ‘banked’ ready for editing although my Zenfolio gallery page is a country behind at present as I’m scanning pictures from Thailand whilst editing and adding ones from Nepal. I doubt I’ll be able to catch up with myself either as I realise the most important thing is to have the pictures scanned as I can only do that at home whilst the editing can be done anywhere. I have dreams of taking a month off in Asia at a gorgeous beach somewhere where my days are split between relaxing and slowly editing pictures as the mood takes me. Mind you, it’s not just the slide scans. Recent events (mostly deaths, sadly) have made me realise that I’ve got a huge digital archive that I’ve never really sorted out and must get around to doing – one day. Maybe that month on the beach needs to be extended to two as I’ve got some wonderful material for a whole host of picture of the day blogs and ‘trips down memory lane’ – a series I’ve sadly neglected recently as there’s been too many other things to concentrate on.
I have to admit blogging has been one of the things that’s helped keep me sane throughout the Covid lockdowns. It’s a catharsis, a way of purging oneself of thoughts, feelings and ideas that need an outlet. The fact so many of you have signed up to read these rambles is as gratifying as it is mystifying but thanks – at least I know I’m not shouting in an empty room!
The mental gymnastics many of us have had to put ourselves through to get through this unique time with its unparalleled challenged is (sort of) reflected in my choice of picture of the day. Only these gymnastics are physical rather than mental – although they’re no less extreme!
I took this picture in Bhaktapur in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal on the 13th March 1992. Myself and a mixed group of fellow travellers whom I’d met up with on the overland trip from India had got the bus from Kathmandu and stopped off on our way up the valley to Nagarkot. Whilst we were wandering around the square and I was busy taking pictures I spotted a crowd, so (naturally) my curiosity was piqued and I strolled over to see what they were gawping at.
It was an elderly Hindu Sadhu (a holy-man) who’d put himself in an extreme yoga position where he stayed for hours whilst raising alms from the admiring crowd. His long dreadlocks and fantastic eyebrows gave an indication of his real age, but his posture belied his years.
I’ve always been full of admiration for the fact so many Asian people of advanced years are far more supple than their Western counterparts – even if this is an extreme example. Still, it does show you the benefits of practising Yoga, something I wished I’d found the time to keep up doing. Maybe I’ll add it to the rota when I’m on that beach…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, 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 to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/Thank you!
The country may be slowly reopening but this Easter our focus has been on the home front. No exotic jaunts or days out just slogging to do work around the house. I suppose you could call it a traditional Easter in some ways as we joined dozens of other people trying to get into a local DIY superstore (B and Queue, as it were)…
For years we’d promised ourselves that we’d do something about the virtually inaccessible narrow strip of land above our terraced garden at the back of our house. It’s not our land, in fact none of our neighbors know who owns it either. It’s been left to turn into a mess of Russian vine, ivy and Sycamore trees which have started to encroach on us and overwhelmed the gorgeous Boston Ivy that we used to have covering the high wall at the back of the terrace. The only way to gain access to the strip is by dropping a ladder over the wall from the road above it, so the for the past few days that what I’ve done. Today, armed with extra cutter C/o B&Q and myself joined by Dawn, we made some serious inroads into the mess, clearing all the parapet above our cottage and making some serious inroads into the neighbors on either side (much to their appreciation). We did it all with hand-tools which was masochistic but damned good exercise – even if I expect to feel sore tomorrow!
The Russian vine (God, how I hate that stuff, there’s a very good reason its other name is ‘mile a minute’) has taken a severe beating and several Sycamores trees are no more – none of which were occupied by any nesting birds, so I’m not expecting a visit from anti HS2 ‘tree protectors’. Taking these things down with a Bow saw certainly gives you a workout! Dawn was convinced that the work would give us a lot more light but I was skeptical. In the event I was proved wrong. It’s made a huge difference. Now we just have one more tree trunk remaining and a load of ivy to clear – as well as cutting up some of the Sycamores that have fallen into the gardens (the rest we’re leaving on the derelict land as a wildlife sanctuary). So, hardly the most exciting bank-holiday weekend but satisfying nonetheless.
Now, in the finest Monty Python tradition, it’s time for something completely different – the picture of the day. I did manage to get a few more old slides scanned yesterday evening and this is one of the results. I took this picture on the 14th March 1992 at the Buddhist temple at Bodnath, just outside Kathmandu in Nepal. A small group of us who’d met on the way from India had stayed in Nagarkot in the Kathmadu valley and then walked back to the city. Bodnath was en-route. The stupa is huge and the site is a fascinating place to visit, even if you’re not of any religious persuasion as it’s a great place to people watch as the devout (many of whom are Tibetan refugees) walk around the base of the stupa singly or in groups, spinning their personal prayer-wheels or using the ones that line the base of the tower whilst prayer-flags (like so much bunting, only with a more meaningful purpose) flutter in the breeze.
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, 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 to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
After yesterday’s jaunt up the Settle and Carlisle I’m back in the bosom of the Calder Valley catching up on paperwork and picture editing before the Easter holiday hits. Not that we’ve got anything exciting planned, it’ll be a time to consolidate at home using the days wisely in order to work on the cottage and get the place spruced up for the summer. True to form for British bank holidays the weather’s looking mixed. Earlier I was out on my daily constitutional, basking in sunshine and 20 degree temperatures whilst pausing to sit on the cliffs overlooking the Calder Valley for a few moments of quiet contemplation whilst taking in the views and the rays. On Easter Monday the forecast is for snow and temperatures of -1! There’s an old joke about the UK – we don’t have a climate, we have weather – you never know whether it’s going to rain, sleet or shine! I must admit I’m looking forward to being able to get back out to Asia again once this is all over – and the weather plays a part. It’s not just the fact that it’s generally more predictable, it’s also the fact that if it rains – it’s warm rain. In the meantime I’ll have to put up with whatever gets thrown at me.
I’m fervently hoping that Easter goes well and that people don’t forget why we’re doing what we’ve been doing because of Covid and pretend we’re already back to normal because some rules are relaxed – and the sun’s out. Besides, so many people have had their first vaccination so what’s the problem? Complacency could still be the death of people but I’ll be damned if it’s going to be the death of me. I’ve too big a ‘bucket list’ to kick it now!
Buckets aside, here’s the latest picture of the day which has was the first picture from my latest batch of slide scans that caught my eye. It was taken by the bus station in Janakpur, Nepal on the 9th March 1992.
This is a row of pedal-rickshaw Wallahs waiting for their next fare. They’re a common sight across the Indian sub-continent and other parts of SE-Asia. I have to confess that when I first went to India I refused to use them as I thought it was demeaning that another person should haul me around like this. Then an older traveller pointed out that all I was doing was depriving these people of money out of the wrong principles and that I’d always pay more than a local (but I could afford it) so get off my moral high-horse. He was right of course. Since, I’ve often enjoyed riding with these guys as many of them have a wicked sense of humour and they’ve given me some memorable and fun experiences. One time a friend and I charted a rickshaw wallah like this to take us around Agra in India. It was some of the best money we spent as he showed us so much more than we’d otherwise have seen, he shared his stories (and his food) and at one point we even got him in the back and pedalled him around! Great memories…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, 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 to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
It’s late, I’ve had a busy day and I’m off on my travels to another job tomorrow so this is a short blog. I’ve currently got a backlog of old slides scanned and ready for editing but some of them require a fair bit of touching up in Photoshop due to their age and the conditions they were taken in. They were also developed in a lab in Kathmandu, Nepal, which did a pretty good job but might have added a few scratches to some of them Even so, it’s a delight to finally get them scanned after nearly 30 years as there’s some amazing memories – especially when I cross-reference them with my old diaries.
Memories aside, I’m looking forward to making new ones and taking plenty of new pictures now that lockdown is slowly easing. So much has changed on the UK railway scene in the past 12 months that I’ve a lot of catching up to do. Tomorrow should give me chance as I’m heading up to Ribblehead on the famous Settle and Carlisle railway to carry out a commission for RAIL magazine. So, for the first time this year you can expect a rolling blog of my travels!
But, for now, here’s the picture of the day.
I took this shot of the Rama temple in Janakpur in Nepal on the 9th March 1992. I was only in Janakpur for a day as it was an overnight stop on a rather epic overland Journey from Darjeeling in West Bengal, India, to Kathmandu. The trip would make a great blog in itself as it involved an ad-hoc group of us Westerners being delayed getting to the India-Nepal border by a protest, then a jeep where the horn broke (a disaster in India!) – we were so late that by the time we got out of India the Nepalese border post was closed and we had to ‘sneak’ in to the country! Getting from the border to Janakpur took another 11 hours sat on the roof of a bus so we were glad of bed and a shower at the end of a long dusty trip. The next day our bus for Kathmandu didn’t leave until 5pm as it was an overnight trip), so hanging around the Rama temple was a great way to see the sights and kill some time.
The temple’s an important Hindi religious site as legend has it that it’s the birthplace of the Hindu goddess Sita as well as being the site where she was married to Lord Rama. The building itself is quite spectacular and well worth a visit, even if it’s hard to get to – and it certainly was back in 1992! Expect many more pictures to come from Nepal. Revisiting them I realise what a sociable time it was as a group of us hooked up together and kept meeting throughout our time in Nepal. Leaving the country was almost as much fun as arriving as the day I flew out to Thailand there was a general strike due to several people having been shot dead in protests in the capital, so there was only one way to get from Kathmandu to the airport – walk!
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, 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 to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
Not that was I was really tempted, but I’m glad I didn’t stay up to watch the result of the American presidential elections come in – as they didn’t and I’d have had to listen to that odious frog Nigel Farage being interviewed by the BBC – as if the man’s got any genuine insight on anything. Instead I had a decent nights sleep and missed the ‘fun’. It’s taken all day for 2 more states to declare and the good news is that with just seven states left to declare Biden is a head of Trump by 29 electoral college votes. As much as I would dearly love for America to reject the values of Trump and his ilk I won’t believe it until I see it.
Still, It’s not been a bad day apart from being cooped up when the weather’s been gloriously sunny – albeit cold. I’ve been keeping my nose to the grindstone and wading through more writing as well as scanning a few more old slides to give me some variety. Looking back at pictures of the railway scene from 20 years ago I realised that it’s not just the network that’s changed. Some familiar lineside landmarks have disappeared too- which has given me the idea for a picture blog. Expect to see that appear shortly.
Stuck indoors self-isolating has been made a lot easier by the assistance of friends and neighbours who’ve offered to pick up shopping or even keep us supplied with wonderful home-baked bread like this. Susan dropped these two beauties off earlier on, so I made a Spanish white bean stew for our supper tonight to go with some slices. It’s good, winter-warming food.
A few slices made a great meal with the bean stew.
Tempting as it is – the picture of the day isn’t going to be a food offering, instead I’ve gone for one that links several of my interests, including travel. This amazing piece of architectural confectionary is the inner building of the Rama temple in Janakpur in lowland Nepal (an area known as the Terai). According to Hindu legend it’s where the goddess Sita married Lord Rama.
I took this picture in April 1998. In those days the place was a bugger to get to because of the lack of border crossings between India and Nepal. Lynn and I arrived after a day-long bus journey across the Terai from the Eastern border where we’d come down from Darjeeling. We stayed a couple of days before getting an overnight bus up to Kathmandu. The whole journey’s worthy of a blog in itself. One day, when I’ve scanned all the old slides I might write it…
I’ve a favour to ask… If you enjoy reading this blog, 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 to cover some of the cost of maintaining this site – and right now (because of Covid), us freelances need all the help that we can get. Remember, 99% of the pictures used in my blogs can be purchased as prints from my other website – https://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/
I won’t bore you with the minutiae of my day today, instead I’ll go straight to the chosen (random) picture from my archive.
This was taken in Kathmandu, Nepal in 1992. The event was ‘Holi’ the Hindu ‘festival of colours’. Looking back via the internet I’m told this was the 19th March so I’d already been travelling solo for nearly five months. I was staying in the Thamel district of Kathmandu at the time which got a bit riotous out on the streets. So much so that some Westerners who were unused to Asia didn’t want to venture out. Myself and the young lady I’m posing with – whose name completely escapes me now – did – and we had a ball! Ok, we came back looking like this – but what the hell. You never wear your ‘bezzies’ to go out at Holi anyway…
The photo was taken on the roof of the hotel where we continued the festivities as we had battles with all the surrounding buildings as they threw coloured powders at us and we throw ours at them – and woe betide anyone walking past in the street as it was ‘bombs away’! As usual – there’s slides of those days that I’ve yet to get around to scanning. One day…
It was whilst I was staying here that I heard an album being played that’s defined that time ever since. Every time I hear it it transports me straight back to that that rooftop and those times in Kathmandu. The album? Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Full Moon Fever. When I got to Bangkok I bought a (bootleg) tape of it to go with my Sony Walkman (remember those?) in the Khao San Rd and it’s an album that’s become the soundtrack to my life and travels ever since. Thank you Tom – your music’s meant so much to me for many, many years.