Leonard Cohen – In Flander’s Fields

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

– John McCrae, 1915

Though thankfully I was never in a war, this is an important day for me. I remember.

Lest we forget – CBC

Remembrance Day (Australia, Canada, Colombia, UK and Ireland), also known as Poppy Day (South Africa and Malta), and Armistice Day (UK, New Zealand and many other Commonwealth countries; and the original name of the holiday internationally) is a day to commemorate the sacrifice of veterans and civilians in World War I and other wars. It is observed on November 11 to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918.

Remembrance Day – wikipedia

Happy November 2nd 🎈

I’m 65 years young today.

Give me ALL the pensions. 😀

Last year I was in Lisbon for 64.

For the 62nd I was in Nepal.

53rd was in Porto, Portugal.

I’m usually travelling the world on my birthday.

30 years ago I decided on my far-from-typical philosophy.

Life is short. Too short to waste working. Do what you want.

Financially my plan was to retire” from age 33 to 65 — then go back to work full-time when I’m no good for anything else. At age-65. Today.

I can do that as a Gymnastics coach. There are plenty of elderly full-time Gymnastics coaches.

Sounded a brilliant plan. But I think I’ll put off un-retirement for a while longer.

Perhaps until I’m medically tied down.

All the best from Liverpool, England. I’m here for the World Gymnastics Championships.

What’s next? … I’m researching sunny European hiking destinations. Azores? Canary Islands?

Adventure Travel – WHY?

Part of “adventure” is an uncertain outcome.

And my first 3 weeks in Norway were certainly unexpected. I arrived far north of the Arctic Circle with no bicycle. No luggage. Both were stuck at Heathrow airport where I checked in with SAS (Scandinavian Airlines).

I could give up. Or make do with my carry-on.

WHY not simply go to an all-inclusive beach resort and start drinking at noon?

Here’s a good answer from Jedidiah Jenkins who cycled Oregon to the southern tip of South America.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Riverman by Ben McGrath

The riveting true story of Dick Conant, an American folk hero who, over the course of more than twenty years, canoed solo thousands of miles of American rivers—and then disappeared near the Outer Banks of North Carolina. This book “contains everything: adventure, mystery, travelogue, and unforgettable characters”

David Grann

The story of a unique American ➙ Dick Conant.

He’s most often compared with Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild ➙ Chris McCandless.

Personally, I don’t see the connection. I was much more reminded of ➙ Eustace Conway, The Last American Man.

Ben McGrath, a staff writer at The New Yorker, met Conant by chance just north of New York City as Conant paddled down the Hudson, headed for Florida. McGrath wrote a widely read article about their encounter, and when Conant’s canoe washed up a few months later, without any sign of his body, McGrath set out to find the people whose lives Conant had touched–to capture a remarkable life lived far outside the staid confines of modern existence. …

Amazon

A great book, well written. It makes you think of your life priorities.

Why Travel?

I took a gap year between High School and University.

SUPER happy I did.

It opened my eyes to the bigger world. Other cultures. Other ways of thinking.

Niklas Christl didn’t know what to do when he graduated High School. Here he documents what happened on his gap year — and how it changed his life.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Dan Price – Minimalist Living

Since 1990 Dan has been living off the land in Oregon.

He’s an artist. A writer. A traveller.

For the last 15 years or so he’s been living in a little Hobbit House only 8ft (2.4m) wall to wall with a roof only 4ft (1.2m) high at the entrance rising to 5ft (1.5m) at the back.

Dan has a website called moonlight chronicles where he documents his simple life.

Dan Price’s underground home, art & philosophy on $5,000/year

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Way Home by Mark Boyle

GREAT book. Excellent and entertaining writing.

The audio book is even better, by my favourite reader Gerald Doyle.

Mark did not touch cash for over 3 years, writing about his experience in The Moneyless Man.

Later, he tried living with as little modern technology as possible.

It was 11pm when I checked my email for the last time and turned off my phone for what I hoped would be forever.

No running water, no car, no electricity or any of the things it powers: the internet, phone, washing machine, radio or light bulb. Just a wooden cabin, on a smallholding, by the edge of a stand of spruce.

In this honest and lyrical account of a remarkable life without modern technology, Mark Boyle explores the hard won joys of building a home with his bare hands, learning to make fire, collecting water from the spring, foraging and fishing.

What he finds is an elemental life, one governed by the rhythms of the sun and seasons, where life and death dance in a primal landscape of blood, wood, muck, water, and fire – much the same life we have lived for most of our time on earth. Revisiting it brings a deep insight into what it means to be human at a time when the boundaries between man and machine are blurring.

oneworld-publications

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell

The final book in the Kurt Wallander series was published 2009.

The author dying of cancer while he wrote it, I believe.

For me the story was mostly a look at aging and dying. The meaning of life.

The plot was inspired by the submarine incursions into Swedish territorial waters between 1982 and 1983, which Mankell considered the worst scandal in Swedish political history.

Though slower and even more philosophical than the rest, I still enjoyed the book — sad that it was the end for Wallander and the end for Mankell.

Henning Mankell

The only story I haven’t heard yet is a novella — An Event in Autumn — not available in audio on my services.