Thoughts, images, and all sorts of things.....

Ibn Battuta was born in 1304.   He was a Muslim scholar who was a tremendous adventurer.   He travelled through Central Asia, South East Asia, South Asia , China, and the Iberian Peninsula.    Marco Polo chalked up around 15,000 miles - Ibn was credited with 72,000 miles. He wrote a book with the snappy title - "A gift to those who contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels of Travelling" In the early days of this blog, I was figuring out the theme.  And I included three posts about my own very earliest traveling days while a student in Switzerland.  It points the way forward, I think, and I am going to try to serialise a lifetime of adventures - in all the places Ibn visited, and many more. It should be fun (for me at least). So let Ibn be the introducer of this series.  The next chapter will be a general taster. Ibn Battuta - on the right.  

Finbar   Finbar is demonstrating that bothering with sheep is beneath him!   

 Those months spent living in the Bossey Institute were, of course, memorable.  The community itself brought together some remarkable people - Clark and Barbara Williamson, my room mate Roy Medley, Tony Mancini - now an archbishop in Canada,  Michael Townsend - who holidayed with us on several occasions in later years, and who was found dead in his house from an unexpected heart attack.... many of them who kept in some sort of touch over the spread of time.    Memories are full and vivid.    Many years later I returned on a sabbatical visit.  Strangest of experiences.  I would turn into the allée that led to where my room was to be found in the quaint former farmhouse called Petit Bossey, and see ghosts in my mind's eye - some of them still alive.   Walking down through the tree arched road, I could hear laughter and tears.   And I thought how would it be to just have them all back, for a mere glance of time.    As Harriet...

 Seeking peace? Greig's Holberg Suite - second movement - the Sarabande. Simply sublime.

When I was a student living in Celigny  another resident of the village was Richard Burton - Liz Taylor not so much because she didn’t like the place.  When she was in residence, the Burton-Taylors would occasionally come to dinner with our Director.    Anyway, our pub was the Hotel du Soleil, while Monsieur Richard drank most evenings in the Cafe de la Gare. His house was just the other side of the railway line, and it was a matter of some wonderment locally that he managed   to get home without colliding with the Lausanne-Bound rapide. On the night that he died in August 1984, he had been drinking as often with fellow actor John Hurt. They left to go home, where Burton had a stroke and passed away. Back in the pub, the next evening, the owner produced a bottle of wine about half full. This was the bottle that Monsieur Richard had last drunk from before leaving the pub, indeed - as it turned out - the earth. Would the customer like to take a sip of hist...

  Spread out the map!  A heaven-bent journey, full of hopes and fears An end not feared, but not yet longed for rest. Good paths, and cheery inns and river banks where flowing streams Brought times of sleepy dreams and sunny somnolence . But look there! and see the ways where mud and steep incline Made hard the daily portion of the walk. And miles whose memory I strive to bury in a dark forgotten wood, And if remembered, just as soon forgot. Such travelling!  A common end with those whose goal's the same, A journey, though, where just the end counts not... But every step is gift and grace and held in love for He In whom the path begins, and one day reaches home. JRS

  Tales from the Cemeteries of Celigny The village of Celigny lies 20 kilometres outside Geneva on the north side of Lac Leman. It needs planning with care to get there by train. From Geneva Cornavin station three types of train depart in the direction of Celigny, But not all of them arrive at the little station. Two of the three types thunder through; one ‘rapide’, 40 or so minutes to the city of Lausanne at the far end of the lake; one “express”, first stop Nyon, well beyond our target. It has been known for Bossey students to pass through the station three or more times before they manage to get on to the platform. On a September day in 1972 I stepped onto that same platform. Fortunately there were another three arrivals, all English. One of them, a clear leader, had already phoned Bossey to send transport. It arrived, driven by a pleasant gentleman who was German and spoke no English. And so I was inducted into the community where I would live for seven months, a place where c...