I have been missing a lot the last few months as I have just been running on empty two years of Covoid has been a lot. SO I have been counting down and now tomorrow Amanda and I finally get to have a long trip away we had a weekend away with family but this is our first break for over two years we had a couple of other plans curtailed due to lockdowns and restrictions over last year or so. So tomorrow we head north a last-minute change of destination we are going to Northumberland a place close to my heart as twenty-odd years ago I lived there for a couple of Years so when our plans change at the last minute a couple of weeks ago we opted for Northumberland. I even brought a guidebook as we look to do some new things this time we went a few years ago but this time we aim to do new things barring another day in Alnwick my old home town and home to the largest second-hand book shops in the Uk. Barter books a shop that open when I lived there and had gone from the old waiting room of the station in Alnwick to the whole building over the years. This place was maybe the acorn of what I have become as a reader it was one of the first places I chanced on my reading experiences trying then unknown to me writers things like the Beats and some of my first translated writers. This was an age before the internet so a new writer was unknown to me as a reader no quick google search. A gem of a place. So a visit there it always feels like a rejuvenating experience. I have a pile of books with me and will be taking the laptop so may write a post or two if not I will be back and hit the ground running and reviewing in a little over a week. Has covid and the restriction hit your blogging or meant you can’t have a holiday? As we now face the world opening up again a=what are your plans moving forward
Tasmania closed their borders to rest of country and the world so life pretty normal here but can’t get back into state easily if we leave it without 2 weeks quarantine, if at all. The state will open again maybe before Christmas as vaccination rate goes up to target.
Hope so people need travel and we need get back to normal at some point
Your trip sounds like a literary pilgrimage, I reckon they should put up a blue plaque for you: “Stu from Winston’s Dad, home of translated literature, became a reader here!”
That be fun if they did
Enjoy your trip, Stu. The bookshop sounds like a real treat!
No hols for me… I live in a covid-free place (Western Australia) but our borders are shut, both internal and external, so that means I can’t go anywhere, not even to visit family in Melbourne. (I am double-vaxxed.)
I’m hoping to take a week off work soon though and plan on staying home to read books! And I might do a day trip to Rottnest island as the ferry terminal is just a 10-min walk away. The sea crossing only takes 30 mins.
Yes they seem to take it very hard with you but if it keeps people safe a trip to island sounds fun thou
Just been researching possibility of a whale-watching boat trip. There’s one that goes from Fremantle quite regularly and lasts two hours.
Oh, have a lovely trip Stu – I’m so jealous of you heading north and hitting Barter Books! I am going nowhere right now, but am happy that our children have visited!
How wonderful – I’ve not been to Barter Books yet but it’s firmly on my list. Have a super break!
I haven’t been more than 10 miles from home since March 2020 – we don’t have a car and I haven’t felt safe on long public transport journeys. Trying to get more out and about now but it’s hard – hoping to visit family by the sea relatively soon, though.
Hope you have a wonderful time Stu – you really deserve some down time after the stresses of the last 18 months or so. I loved the story of how you got introduced to new writers – the internet is fabulous but I do miss the spontaneity of the old days where you just picked up a book because it sounded interesting rather than because you’d heard all about it via Twitter etc
Have a wonderful time – I had a trip to Northumberland a few years ago and Barter Books! Like you we haven’t been anywhere for 2 years and it’s beginning to grind. . .