Ill met by moonlight

Well it had to come I guess. Sir Patrick Leigh Fermor was after all 96 years old. And they were 96 years well lived.
I suspect that he'll be best remembered for his wartime exploits on the German occupied island of Crete, events that he never wrote about although they are the stuff of a Boys Own annual. The Powell and Pressburger film of his adventures show their trademark love of location, a love shared by Pat. The tale of the abduction and evacuation of a nazi general is barely credible but happen it did and bizarrely the events were very much in character.
His was an educated mind but an academic failiure culminating in an assignation with a greengrocers daughter that got him expelled from Kings College Canturbury. His family believed the army would be a fitting career but a peacetime army wasnt for him and so he decided that he would tramp from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople across a continent overshadowed by the upcoming war. A Europe now long vanished, noble families, relics of the Austro-Hungarian Empire swept away in the flood of post-war communism.
His two volumes of travel memoirs A time of gifts and Between the woods and the water are extraordinary - dense, lyrical, erudite and utterly bewitching. He set off in 1932 with an allowance of £5 a month and via - hostels and monasteries, sheep byres and castles reached Constantinople on New Years Day 1935. Unfortunately the final leg of his journey will now never be detailed. He spent his 20th birthday in a monastery on Mount Athos and a month later took part in a cavalry charge suppressing a rebellion in Greece. He fell in love both with Greece where he spent many years and also a Romanian princess. On the outbreak of war he returned and joined the Intellegence Corps were he was employed as a liasion officer with the greeks fighting the Italians to a standstill and then once the Germans invaded being evacuated to Crete where he fought a guerilla war.
He published his first book The Travellers Tree in 1950 a recital of his travels in the Caribbean after the war but his love was on the Mediterranean and Greence in particular and he lived the rest of his life in the sun - soaking up all he could of life. He wrote in long hand only very recently adopting a manual typewriter which mirrored a lengthy writing process where each word was measured before use.
He married in 1968 but leaves no children.

Home again, home again jiggedy jig

Well I'm back home after a two week break. Ywo weeks with ups and downs as I guess is the way travelling as a couple. We both survived the trip but I guess that it exposed my doubts about moving in with Marie. She doesn't deal well with conflict and neither do I. There was a moment in front of the Dolmabahce Palace where I would quite happily have given her the guidebook and the card for the hotel and just gone off on my own for the rest of the day. Im also enjoying the rest of the weekend as we got back at a rather respectable 2 p.m. yesterday. Its funny to think that yesterday morning we were travelling through the mist shrouded streets of Istanbul and now Im back to the chaos of the flat.
I guess that compromise is the key to a relationship - and I guess that we had a compromised trip. We both indulged in pursuits that we wouldn't maybe have do - Marie - walking and me shopping. My frustrations are I think in that Im supposed to be the one who organises, Im the one that does the reading, Im the one who does the prep. and Marie simply comes along for the ride. The truth of course is that the joy is in the reading, its in the preparation and finding the places of interest.
Still we both enjoyed the trip. Different aspects of the trip but we DID both enjoy it. I was a think a little disappointed with Istanbul - I think that The first trip in October suited me more - with fewer tourists and a bit less heat it gives you more time and makes you more inclined to stretch yourself. Not that we did stretch ourself - OK well I didnt I think that the spectacle of Marie struggling up the hill to Arbanasi will stay with me for a while. Its a worry because iy wasnt really that much of a climb - Marie whined that I shouldnt always measure things in my terms but the truth is that unless shes ready to offer alternatives And Im being harsh, after her dissertation she was after a holiday while I as usual wanted a bit of an explore. And as I say we managed a bit of both, in fact I think that I probably got the best of the compromise. We did get around, we did see stuff and the holiday was confined to the occaasional sit and read in the shade. We did Ok there as well - a couple of cloudbursts but all in all good weather throughout - lovely while walking in the old town of Plvdiv or Veliko Turnovo not so more in the crowded metropolis of Istanbul!!
Marie has promised to arrange the next trip. Hopefully were looking at Berlin at the end of the summer...

Rudyard Kipling reprise

I realised a couple of days ago that theres another Kipling link - Beautiful Bundi. I visited for a few magical days between the traveller hellhole of Pushkar - full of arseholes attempting to outtraveller each other while sitting around navel gazing and the earthy charms of Kota and Chittorgarh. I suspect that Bundi would by now have been firmly established on the traveller trail so I don't think I'll be revisiting - but rather enjoying my memories of this quiet little rest stop, its castle perched precipitately on the side of a mountain and the blue town spread below that Kipling described as "such a palace as men build for themselves in uneasy dreams, the work of goblins rather than of men" of a cycle ride out in blistering heat to the Jait Sagar lake where Kipling stayed and of the Krishna tea shop after being accosted by a stentorian "Attention!" It takes something to excel in the chai department on the sub-continent but that particular establishment certainly did. I remember the hordes of minkeys being chased of by a caretaker and the astonishing engineering of the towns step wells. Reading back through my journal it seems that I was going through the worse of Yaz withdrawl - lying awake in the beautiful Haveli I was staying in, tears running down my face. And here we are 4 years later and barely in touch. How times change...hopefully in the right direction, I think in my case very much so although Yaz is still closeted. I also rememebr the lovely home cooking a coule of houses down which was a bit of a traveller hang-out chowing down with a tableful of new friends. Hopefully M and Iare in good shape and thinking of our next grip which will hopefully take in a taste of Bulgaria before revisiting Istanbul - this time in hopefully rather more seasonable weather. I think that the idea of staying inland from Malaga is prettyy much stymied. I have to say that its not a destination that really fills me with excitement. Ma and Pa also raised the possibility of a trip to Libya which is high on my list of dream destinations...but with Maries probable career change and also the prospect of moving in together we'll have to see...