I just got back. This is odd I’m actually back home-home before it’s dark. That’s got to be a first in god knows how long…

Anyhow as I was driving along I noticed that in front of me was the shivering grey of a shadow, my car’s shadow. And it made me think of a line or two from Long Way Round where they commented about how they were chasing their shadows across the world.

I found a little comfort in that and it put a quiet smile on my face. A sad smile. But a smile at least.

I got up extra early before work despite having a late start today - to shoot some stock photos for ’shopping later. The ’shop was for the Magic theme for the Playground Group. I had to get it done today because I won’t have chance to do it since I’m off this weekend - I love it when a plan comes together.

I’d missed using photoshop for ’shopping too, these days things like this are easy peasey but you know it’s like getting back in the saddle after you’ve not been riding for years. It’s still familiar and it still feels good.

The title of this entry is a lyric from a song by Budapest - and I really love that line.

“What have you done today, that you’ve never done before?”

(more…)

“And finally there was Cape Town cradled in a valley - the sprawl of skyscrapers, suburbs and shanties dwarfed by the might of the Table Mountain. I realised this was a dream, a childhood dream: motorbikes and meeting people in the most extraordinary places, people who basically have nothing and yet share what little they have.

I felt like I wanted to turn around and ride back up. We’d met so many fantastic people and seen so many fantastic places, and yet I felt that we had only scratched the surface. There’s so much more to learn about Africa. I know I’ll be back, and I can hardly wait. It feels more like the beginning of a journey than the end of one.”

- Ewan McGregor in Long Way Down

“‘We did it, Ewan’ I said.

‘We did it. You and me, mate. To the bottom of Africa, fifteen thousand miles.’

‘Hell of a trip,’ I said.

‘But good, I mean really, really good. Maybe we should do it again sometime. What do you think?’

‘I’m up for riding back right now.’

‘You know what, mate? So am I.’”

- Charley Boorman in Long Way Down

Finally after what seems like ages, I’d finished reading Long Way Down, it was amazing. It’s so amazing that it can leave chills down my spine at the thought of the travelling and adventure involved.

Now I can watch the TV series.

God I want to go travel. (Darren hurry up and come back and lets bugger off somewhere ha.)

Today I had to go and sort some random boring rubbish in town. But I took the opportunity to have lunch at my usual hiding place and read lots. Well I certainly got through some more of Long Way Down - I realised after doing the 2007 quiz that I had barely done any reading this year. That must change.
(more…)

“There were dressing rooms and everything and anyone was allowed to use the baths though the wealthier people also had them at their villas. It was so forward thinking; they even had a sewerage system complete with communal toilets. In the open air Ewan and I perched on a stone bench with lots of keyhole-shaped apertures punched through it.

‘So Ewan,’ I said with concentrated effort, ‘How’re the slaves?’

He took a moment to squeeze. ‘Fine, fine. I got a right good new one the other day.’

‘I had a hell of a time at the vomit bath the other night,’ I told him ‘You know, the one we saw in the street; must’ve done it three times, but then I did have four meals.’

- Charley Boorman in Long Way Down.

Gotta love the blokey joking behaviour in this book.

“We headed off and still I was mulling it over; either miss the ferry or head across the desert in forty-five degrees of heat.

Charley spoke to me over the radio; ‘Whatever happens there’ll be a story there, Ewan.’

‘Yeah, yeah I know.’

‘Adventure whatever happens - that’s the spirit of the thing isn’t it?’”

- Ewan Mcgregor in Long Way Down

^_^

“I couldn’t say why; it felt like more than having gone through a period of mourning and come out the other side, and more than just having reassessed my own woes and decided they were slight compared to what other people had to bear; it felt like faith, like revelation: that things went on, that life ground on regardless, and mindless, and produced pain and pleasure and hope and fear and joy and despair, and you dodged some of it and you sought some of it and sometimes you could plan your way ahead and that would be the right thing to have done, but other times all you could do was forget plans and just be ready to react, and sometimes the obvious was true and sometimes it wasn’t, and sometimes experience helped but not always, and it was all luck, fate, in the end; you lived, and you waited to see what happened, and you would rarely ever be sure that what you had done was really the right thing or the wrong thing, because things can always be better, and things can always be worse.”

- Espedair Street by Iain Banks

“We’d been in the business lounge waiting for our flight when it kicked off. Before we even got inside a woman, a representative of the airline, was having a go at a passenger who appeared to be in the wrong place. I made some crack and the woman started telling us that this was a business class place and we ought to behave like business people. The reality was there weren’t any so-called ‘business people’ around, just three other guys dressed in jeans like us. It was petty, stupid; but she was really irritated now and with hindsight perhaps she was looking for an excuse to have a go.

Paying customers or not we couldn’t do anything right. I had a bag behind my chair and up against the wall; it was no distance from me. I could literately reach over and grab it. She told me to move it.

For Christ’s sake, I thought; ridiculous. And then I opened my mouth: ‘It’s not as it there’s a bomb in it’ I said.

Oh God. Charley, Charley; that’s not what you say in an airport waiting to board a place. I knew as soon as I said it. But it was too late, the words were our and the woman went ballistic.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘That’s it; I’m off to get the police.’

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it. I just thought she’d gone outside to cool down for a moment.

A couple of minutes later she was back, however, with four police officers and the head of airport security in tow. I was gobsmacked; I mean Christ’s sake all this already and I’d not even left England. The marched me outside and started grilling me.”

- Charley Boorman in Long Way Down.

Man I love this book already haha.