Redmires Reservoirs - one of our regular haunts  Five and a half weeks since we escaped from Kalymnos, and time spent in the UK is best described as being 'okay' though it isn't where we would choose to be. We have both had a stinking cold, the first for years - it has hit Sherri particularly badly, two weeks in and she is still suffering. Summer - what summer? Mercifully the weather has been largely cool and cloudy, everyone else is complaining about the lack of summer but it suites us just fine. We have kept active having been for a walk almost every day - it looks lik ..read more

Escape from Alcatraz We had planned to stay in Kalymnos for another couple of weeks but day on day it got hotter and hotter, topping out at around 40C - way to hot for us. So we brought our flights/hotel/train/car hire forward and rolled up to the harbour to find the ferry was cancelled - oh, oh. Sherri set about working her magic and after a few goes she found a guy who had a 'friend' - so off we went. Another guy turned up and we hopped into small inflatable for the eight mile journey to Kos. Luckily it was flat calm as there were no life jackets on offer. The rest of the journey we ..read more

Back to Kanlymnos - and breathe A happy man up a rock  Whilst at Dalyan in Turkey we walked up to a mountain top mast we had spotted - it wasn't far, but it was uphill and took me about forty minutes - the first real uphill hiking for about three months - there was the sudden realisation that I really was getting a little fitter. We also hiked into the Saklikent Gorge - about a two hour round trip with lots of wading, scrambling and slippery boulders - another pointer that things were moving in the right direction. After a hot and busy week in 'Tourist Central" - Turgut ..read more

We used to use Turkey as an escape from Schengen and the pitiful Brexit restrictions on our travel in Europe - thanks to the gullible souls who voted for that, hope it improved your lives a little. We come to Turkey now because we love it, super-friendly people, great weather, inexpensive plus an amazing landscape and associated history to explore. River boat and 2,500 year old tombs ..read more

The progress from my severe spinal stenosis back in December/January continues, though at times it feels pitifully slow - though of course it is so much better then where we might have been.  After many years of our freewheeling lifestyle things appear to be changing at an unprecedented pace and keeping an even keel through the bumpy ride has been tricky, especially for me. Apart from my medical episode which has stopped me climbing and hillwalking, the two places we have spent the most time in the past fifteen years, Chez Arran and Babis Bar are in the process of changes of ow ..read more

Snowshoeing at Beille We left the Costa Blanca with some misgivings, we had been there quite a while and were well settled, plus I wasn't sure how I would cope with the travelling. In the event it all went as well as could be hoped for, we had five days in the Ebro Delta, a week plus at Chez Arran then made the long trip home via a flat calm crossing on the Santander > Plymouth ferry - which included a very smart upgrade - only the biggest cabin on the boat which even included a private balcony. Then six and a half months later we back in the UK to the inevitable mix of cold, crapp ..read more

Exploring the coast north of Altea February in the Costa Blanca Three weeks on and we are still seeing slow improvements in my stamina, balance and general fame of mind. I have walked 3kms a couple of times including 1.5km uphill towards the Albir lighthouse. I have been having weekly osteopath sessions and doing my exercises religiously several times a day. We are still miles from tackling steep or rough terrain but life is so much better than it might have been. Valentine's Day was especially memorable - the day I should have gone under the surgeon's knife but we walked the ..read more

Sherri guarding my chair So we bided our time for about a month waiting for my pre-op visits to the hospital, getting out every day in the sunshine but I was really struggling - at the worst it was four rests (on the small chair Sherri bought me) to cover the 300m or so to the Promenade. Then something odd happened - the aching in my legs faded, so we kicked the painkillers meds into touch - then I walked to the Prom without stopping - and day on day I got a little better, steadier on my feet and covering longer distances. After several days we began to think a small miracle may have ..read more

My Minder keeping a watchful eye  We assume it is sciatica - whatever it is, it has has pretty much floored me. We made it back to Chez Arran but I wasn't in a great state so we booked a Physio who was excellnt - loosening things up nicely. Then things got worse so we visited the 'emergencia' at the hospital in Foix - the doctor I saw was pretty dismissive - gave me a prescription and a form for a scan - the first available date was two months away!! About to spend 30 mins in a noisy tube So after a lot of stressing and throwing ideas around, plus asking questions on FB ..read more

Our pad at Mascarat - though not all of it  After a month of cool windy weather arriving back on the Costa Blanca was a complete tonic, it felt like a huge weight had been lifted as we enjoyed warm sunny days and glorious sunsets. We stopped in the same lovely apartment in Mascarat that we weathered Covid Lockdown 2 in, back in early 2021. I did a bit of climbing but felt vaguely ambivalent about it, not sure if that was because we know the area so well, or I was just happy to enjoy the sunshine without the need to keep scaring myself! The last supper, Pal and the final sun ..read more