Self indulgence. Now and Then: Memoirs of a Sort.

The similarities between The Picos de Europa and 354 Blue Rock Road Twenty-four years ago we had an amazing 10 day walk in the Picos de Europa, and experienced Mirador de Ordiales, The Carres Gorge, Naranjo de Bulnes and a lightning show to shame the fireworks put on by London City Council on New Year’s Eve.   It was through stunning big hills, massive orange coloured rock faces, views that you had to be buried at to be able to savour for ever (as did Senor Ordiales), a million-metre-deep gorge with a path hewn out of the rock for us tourists to walk along and high level farmers who make cheese.   The Carres Gorge in Spain made in millions of years           Our own Carres Gorge, made in 9 hours. We stopped at the tiny drystone buildings, be taken into the totally unsterile cheese dairy and larder (with no sign of any lard) and select our goat or sheeps cheese. The night of the lightening display, put on solely for our benefit, as we camped ...

I've not been writing my memoirs for a while so here is a little update.  THE GREAT CHAINSAW WITHOUT THE MASSSACRE. Our wonderful friends down the road gave us a chainsaw, along with a few other very useful bits of ‘lifestyle’ machinery.  Industrial strimmer, heavy duty hedge cutter and a chainsaw. I’d heard of the chainsaw massacre and was keen not to repeat the event unintentionally at 354 Blue Rock Rd.   Despite well intentioned friends telling us that all you have to do is start it, and then chop away, we didn’t have the confidence to enter into the process with such gay abandon.   So, it hung on a hook in the shed, and the trees fell over and never got seen to.   A course, a chain saw course was the way to go.   Off we went with our helmet, visor, earmuffs, snarl up chaps, gloves, leather safety mitt, steal toe capped boots and a chain saw.   After what happens at the start of every course, the introductions, we were asked ‘what can a chainsaw...