Author: jansvans1

20 Sep

Posted at 07:28h in Uncategorized by

I’m on the West Coast line travelling south from Glasgow. I had breakfast in Fort William then took the bus to Glasgow city centre, almost retracing the steps we've taken this last week. Our 100-mile, 7-day hike swallowed into a 3-hour coach ride courtesy of Citylink. It gives a different perspective on time, life, the past, the future. The world looks different today. Yesterday. Day 7 and the last day of our West Highland Way. It followed two days of feasting on highland Scotland. On Day 5 we trekked through a sweeping valley where the little railway track accompanies the trail for...

16 Sep

Posted at 20:16h in Uncategorized by

A perfectly intact coconut lay nestling at the water's edge. It's not what you expect when you're walking the eastern shore of Loch Lomond in early September. Any time of year for that matter. We're on Day 3 of the West Highland Way. Yesterday we weathered swirling mist and steady rain, made it up and over Conic Hill (it's all in the name), en route passing a stream of young women carrying huge backpacks and coiffed with the most extraordinary plaits out doing their Duke of Edinburgh Silver award expedition. And we survived the long-winded check-in process at the Rowardennan...

28 Dec

Posted at 11:54h in Landscape, Life by

I was at the local crematorium earlier this month. It's been a season of deaths and, thus, funerals. I didn't know the man well; Jim knew him better but 'knew/ know' are not accurate words. For, as we listened to the several long and often emotional eulogies, we realised that we knew this man very little. We knew only a part, and we knew that part very dimly, briefly and carelessly, or at least with insufficient thought, at the end of his 86-year span of life. Listening to the stories of the man from those who knew him longer and better...

14 Apr

Posted at 17:10h in Uncategorized by

A little tribute to Doña Elizabet is necessary. The visit to Candelaria was incredible - but it could have been quite different. You can't help being from another place, another planet, certainly another era, with your modern dress, your money, your view on the world. What made the difference for us was the presence of Doña Elizabet, the dueña of the Hacienda Candelaria, a woman steeped in the place, with relationships with the weavers and their families going back years. She has watched many of them grow old while others grow up; she has a profound attachment to the land and...