I Must Down to the Seas Again ....

...to the lonely sea and the sky... (John Masefield) I've been pining for the sea for quite a few weeks now - growing up in land locked Leeds I never realised how wonderful living by the sea would be - Then we moved to Northumberland - and lived near the sea- it was a liberating feeling of spaciousness - sometimes of desolation and always of tranquility and peace. I have found walking on the beach to be one of life's greatest pleasures and when we moved back in land I found I missed it more than I ever could of imagined...

We took a van trip to South Gare Redcar - there were no tall ships just huger tankers - it was a wee bit grey for a July day but we managed to miss the rain and had a lovely uninterrupted walk on the beach listening to the gulls screech and the waves make chiming sounds as they rushed into the sands. It was low tide and there were a few people about - not many but that's hardly surprising as it's not a scenic beach - its interesting with the vast desolate expanse of wet sand dominated by the slowly decaying urban sprawl of the old steel works - there is still something quite magnificent about the slow rust rotting the now totally defunct buildings in to weird and wonderful shapes and colours - I remember the first time I went to south Gare a very windy blustery day and the furnaces were lit and you could hear and smell the fires and from the right place see the glow - days long gone now but it left me with a sense of magic - that transformation of metal -now transforming in a totally different way....

Now out to sea there is a shiny new wind farm - todays answer to John Masefield's tall ships! white gleaming giants todays answer to technology - a complete contrast to the steel work looming in the background.

There were was one huge disappointment though and something that will probably put me off revisisting - piles of bags of dog waste just left for the dog waste fairies to pick up - surely leaving your dog waste in a bag is worse than just leaving it out - and to be honest there didn't seem to be many dog waste fairies about so it was pretty grim!!!

This litter and dog waste issue is becoming more apparent - we have always advocated wild camping and most importantly a leave no trace policy - we have often taken home much more litter than we ever arrived with - sadly it's like everything else, the small minority spoil things for the responsible majority and dogs will be banned from beaches - wild campers are being hounded out of quiet locations and there is still litter and dog mess in abundance because the people that do that kind of thing just don't care!!! Personally I would like to see a bigger effort made on fines for littering and the whole issue taken seriously! an Impossible situation to police but allegedly police are out in full force moving wild campers on so may be they can tackle dog fouling at the same time!

Rant over - and its a waste of effort really as I'm as always on social media preaching to the converted!! be vigilant I say - but how else to resolve this problem I have no idea!!!

RubyStarrs in Paris...

Finally we have made it to Paris. It was a bit of a long travel day - we decided to come by train so we could experience the full glory of British Rail or whatever it's called now which actually delivered perfectly on time... and then the Eurostar which was incredibly disappointing! All that beautiful St. Pancreas Station and the Eurostar is sited in the dungeon... overcrowded, dark, lousy facilitated space... and then the train was an hour late it felt like a long time before we got any fresh air - but eventually we wound up in gay Paree... We navigated the metro and found our airbnb gaff. A mere 70 steps to the fourth floor on a rather lovely winding wooden staircase to a very nice roof top flat which is comfortable and gives a view across a lovely Courtyard with some obviously much posher flats. It's located really centrally about two minutes away from the Opera Garnier so a very good location for getting everywhere...

Funchal

So after three days at sea we finally hit Funchal in Madeira. An escape from the ship, and I have to say it was very pleasant indeed. First of all the weather is really splendid. Especially when you know that everybody else in the UK is suffering grim storms and vile winds.. Over here it is between 22 and 25 degrees is really quite warm. Funchal is a pretty city. It's built on a hill it with lots of lovely white houses with stunning red roofs. In order to get the best of it we walked along the sea front until we got to the cable car and we took it up the hill. It was a really good ride much longer than we imagined and it's quite weird because it goes right through the town - completely over everybody's house... So not only do you get a lovely vista of the bay but you can view the beautiful rooftops and get to look in everybody's gardens and to look at their picnic sets.. clean washing nice plants... scratty backyards.... We got off th

Another Day in Norway where our Trusty Traveller finds Tromsø, Trolls and Totally misses Aurora....

Tromsø - the most northern city on the planet... Its quite a pretty little town with lots of wood fronted shops, but of course like everywhere like this, it is just one big tourist hive and every shop is selling 'indigenous' gifts- didthe Sami make aurora themed mugs and fridge magnets? Nearest I'll get a polar bear (i hope) Although I have to say I did like the big stuffed polar bear and black bear and I am presuming that these are either not real (unlikely) or culled as they sometimes have to be. But most of the stuff is just northern lights tat or Troll tat. Peer Gynt.. famous worldover To be fair the best bit of Tromsø for me was the Troll Museum! We went to the art gallery which was quite interesting (see instagram account) but not astounding, but I always like to look at the local art. We had a mooch around town in the snow and then we went to find the Trolls. This museum was absolutely crazy daft... it was totally dedi

Planet Ruby Starrs

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