Category Archives: Diary

CAMINO PORTUGUÉS – Day 2: Wednesday 27 May 2026 – VAIRÃO to BARCELOS (33 [+4] kilometres) Today will live long in my walking memory. I slept well, through the heat and snores of the Vairão Monastery dormitory night, awoke at 5.45 am, and was walking, alone, within half an hour. The quiet and stillness ofContinue reading “Heat Wave”

CAMINO PORTUGUÉS – Day 1: Tuesday 26 May 2026 – PORTO to VAIRÃO (24 [+5] kilometres) * My digs in Porto happened to be just a kilometre or so from the Catedral Sé that I visited yesterday morning, and which marks the start of the Porto to Santiago section of the Camino Portugués. So, andContinue reading “The Long And Winding Road”

CAMINO PORTUGUÉS – Monday 25 May 2026 I made the right call in scheduling a free day to explore the centre of Porto ahead of my Camino walk tomorrow, so I will start with a few facts and figures. With a population of around 250,000, Porto is Portugal’s second city (after Lisbon), and it wasContinue reading “Red Red Wine”

CAMINO PORTUGUÉS – Sunday 24 May 2026 Today has rather crept up on me: an early alarm (on a Bank Holiday Sunday, of all days) and, within an hour or two, Rachel had whisked me off to Luton Airport, en route to Porto, for my latest Camino adventure! I have achieved one ‘Personal Best’ already,Continue reading “Porto Sentido”

Tuesday 19 May 2026 Well, it is quite a while since I put pen to paper on these pages – back in the depths of winter – the product of a busy start to the year on many fronts! And so it is with some considerable excitement that I am about to embark on myContinue reading “A Portuguesa”

Sunday 1 February 2026 I suspect that the Weather Gods may have taken umbrage with me, when on New Year’s Day I declared ‘Dry January’! Since that time, and other than three days of crisp winter sunshine at the start of the month, there has barely passed a day without grey skies and plentiful rainContinue reading “January”

THE THAMES PATH – DAY 6: Wednesday 5 November 2025 – OXFORD to ABINGDON (9.9 miles) I was quite surprised this morning to see that almost eight weeks have passed since our last foray along the Thames Path. Rachel and I completed our first five days of the walk in the late summer into earlyContinue reading “Leaves In The River”

Sunday 12 to Wednesday 22 October 2025 (Part Two) This Part Two of our short Slovenian adventure continues with the walks that Rachel and I took in the Julian Alps in the country’s north-west last month. Our trip was centred on the lakeside town of Bled and on the village of Bohinj Bistrica where weContinue reading “Autumn Almanac”

Sunday 12 to Wednesday 22 October 2025 (Part One) October in the Julian Alps of north-western Slovenia can be quite wet, but when the sun appears then the autumn colours around the lakes and on the hillsides can be as spectacular as anything that New England has to offer at this time of year. SuchContinue reading “Forever Autumn”

THE THAMES PATH – DAY 5: Thursday 11 September 2025 – NORTHMOOR LOCK to OXFORD (11.8 miles) Picking up from where we left off three weeks ago, today Rachel and I undertook a day-trip, back to the small village of Appleton just a few miles to the south-west of Oxford, to resume our Thames PathContinue reading “Oxford Town”