Good evening and welcome back to my weekly blog series. As mentioned in last week’s episode (read Episode 100), I’m going to attempt to move back to my original intention of a regular Sunday evening publication time. I don’t know, I just feel like routine can be a good thing.
Also as promised back in weekly blog episode 100, this new post will take the form of a Q&A. I received a handful of questions over on my Instagram stories, and I’ve chosen three to answer today. I’ll leave the preamble there, and get right to it.
01 Have Ferries to Morocco Restarted Yet?
This question is in relation to the motorcycle road trip we booked for Spring this year – a ride with Globebusters through Spain and around Morocco, taking in some of the best roads and interesting sights in this wonderful looking country in northern Africa.
While COVID restrictions were a potential concern, the bigger issue for this particular trip is the current disagreement between Spain and Morocco which has meant the vehicle ferries between the two countries have not been running for quite some time.
And, in a word, no – these ferries are still not running. Sad face.
This means that, our planned trip this Spring is off. Globebusters made the decision to cancel the overland tour in the last week or so; they couldn’t risk booking everything else in the vague hope that the ferries would restart in time. While we’re terribly disappointed, we completely understand the cancellation – having travelled with Globebusters before and getting to know Kevin and Julia, we trust them completely.
Booking it was a risk, we knew that. If we’d have chosen to organise this trip ourselves, we might have waited a bit longer to cancel, or looked for alternative routes. But in reality, those potential alternates take much longer, eating into the available time, and are much more costly, so the outcome would likely be the same.
We’ve moved our booking forward one year and very much hope that over the course of the next 12 months the two countries in question sort themselves out so we can ride our bikes through Spain and around Morocco in Spring 2023.
All this leaves us with an opening for a different road trip… Assuming that travel into Europe is possible this Spring, we are intending to make sure the bikes (and my new passport) get some action. Something is being planned, so watch this space for that!
02 Are you Saving for a Potter’s Wheel?
Ha ha er… I’m not, but I would really love one, along with a little home studio in which to make good use of it. Please?!
If you’re not up to date, I recently had a really fantastic short potter’s wheel taster session with my friend Sarah over at Eastnor Pottery. Trying my hand at pottery is an OG bucket list item of mine (I first wrote such a list back in 2005…), and that beginner’s workshop completely lived up to my expectations of pottery as an art. I wrote a little something about it in last week’s weekly blog episode (read Episode 100).
I wouldn’t say I was a natural by any means, but I really enjoyed the experience, and could unquestionably see myself wiling away hours and hours making pots and plates an mugs and other lovely things out of clay. But seeing as it took me 17 years to tick this 90-minute activity off my bucket list, it’s unlikely I’ll be dedicating my life to it anytime soon. Maybe it’s something for my retirement list?!
If you’ve been waiting patiently for it, my blog post all about my Red Letter Days experience over at Eastnor Pottery will be going live this week.
03 What’s for Dinner?
I love making and eating freshly prepared homecooked meals in the week, but at the weekends it’s all about ease. I think the most complicated or time-consuming thing I might do on a Sunday is make American pancakes for a treat lunch. Saturday night is takeaway night in this house, and Sunday is therefore either takeaway leftovers, or something from the freezer, whether that was made by past-Zoe, or in someone else’s kitchen.
Tonight, w’re having southern fried chicken, leftover chips from our chippie tea (this week’s Saturday night takeaway of choice), and peas. Oh, and a dollop of smokey barbecue sauce for dipping. For dessert, later in the evening, there will be ice cream of the Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Chew Chew variety. I’m afraid I have a sweet tooth and rarely go a day without have a sweet supper; feel free to judge, it won’t change me.
I did walk 11 miles this morning, so I think beige food and frozen cream dessert is allowed! But more about that hike in the next episode of my weekly blog.
What was on your Sunday menu today? Go on… inspire my meal planning.
Be Human
Before I sign off this episode of my weekly blog, I want to share something that really made me think. My lovely friend Chelsea (Loving Life in Wellies) shared this beautiful and poignant poem last weekend, and I had to pass it on.
I often (as you will very well know if you read here much) fall into the trap of wanting to be on the go all the time and resent time when I’m at home doing “nothing”. Days spent indoors feel like wasted time when I could – should – be out adventuring. I am working on reframing that in my mind to relishing that time to rest and use it to make the next adventures even more special.
Anyway, I’ll leave you with these wise words:
A Girl Who Didn’t Stop
“Let me tell a tale, of a girl who didn’t stop.
Who climbed every mountain, without a pause upon the top.
She dance until the blade of grass, was clothed in drops of dew.
And the sun knew her by her name, but the silver moon did too.
For a fear has settled in her bones; a fear of sitting still.
That if you’re not moving forward, it must mean you never will.
So in time her dance got slower, and she looked at all she’d seen.
But found gaps inside the places, that she’s never fully been.
For she was a human doing, human moving, human seeing.
But she’d never taken time, to simply be a human being.”
EH
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