Tag: travel
Small Windows Pt VI: Priesthood in a guitar case
No wild post-show outings, nothing racier than a cool Pils or two, and never before singing . No tour bus bouncing to country-rock screamers - only the decorum of the Inter-City Express and flat skies, flat lands, a novel and a notebook.
Read More
Small Windows Pt. V: Strange encounters of the German kind
Seven o'clock start, six hours on the Bummelzug or "Slouch-train", and five episodes of a pleasant railway comedy drama that is German through-and-through.
Read More
Small Windows Pt. IV: Drifting in the silence
Silence is like solitude. The absence of noise and the absence of company are not an accident. They must be allowed to settle.
Read More
Small Windows Pt. III: Good omens, small comforts
A thousand-mile journey begins with a single step, so you might as bloody well get that first step right. Fingers crossed the weather's fair, too. But even if you do and it is, there's no guarantee of safety or success.
Read More
Small Windows Pt. I: Suitcases, and cases for suits
It was the kind of dilemma that I never like to face at 4:30am on a Sunday morning: suit or no suit? It now seems trivial but to my bleary morning mind I felt like my founding principles were on the line. What it boiled down to was: which version of me will they get in Basel?
Read More
Picture postcard from Berlin: Wanderer in the wasteland
In one afternoon, the dimensions of my life lurched around so quickly that I didn't have time to get seasick.
Read More
Picture postcard from Osaka: A million feet and a shattered peace
The forest left me so calm I thought I'd be forever immune to the pinpricks of city living. But no sooner had that impression settled than it was joined by a kind of dread as I realised I would probably never return here.
Read More
Picture postcard from New York City: Stuck in a Manhattan mousetrap
"It was Christmas Eve and everyone was eager for carolling somewhere Brit-friendly. But my relationship with the Church was in a raw phase and I wanted nothing of it."
Read More
Picture postcard from Marseille: No mood for adventure
29th September 2015 I was dropped at the main station, the day hot and darkening. The grand white steps of St Charles rose behind me and a warren of streets…
Read More