Iain and I left York late afternoon, for Glasgow, with ample time to catch our train, which arrived already heaving with passengers, all eager to make their weekend getaways. Even the floor space that linked the carriages was occupied. Five or so 18 year olds crowded the space aside our carriage, bellowing vulgar rhymes. They transported packs of tall Stella cans through the carriage, intermittently, as if on a one way conveyor belt. The hours went by, inspiration brewed, they produced a guitar and rich harmonies echoed through the carriage. Brash as they were, their clear voices sung with fervour, reflecting my own excitement for my first Glaswegian weekend. (Read on …)

Dodging traffic in London, chests heaving, burdened by still unfamiliar and uncomfortable backpacks, Claire and I started our ambitious trip, on a tight budget, through places where English is never heard.

We’d reported for our ridiculously cheap Megabus to Leeds, from where we planned to make our way to York, relaxed and on time. The driver asked for the obscure combination of letters and numbers that serve as a ticket, which I confidently presented. He looked and them, shrugged, and told me I had somehow got them wrong. I had presented him with the code for a bus from Glasgow to Aberdeen. A bus we would take, later on, which I couldn’t remember booking. (Read on …)

Soon after I arrived in Cape Town, my mother announced that she had been remiss. I’d arrived on a short visit home, before the extended travels that will take me to Shanghai, and she had never taken me to Victoria Falls. She grew up in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia. Her brother, my Uncle, fought and died in the country’s Bush War. His widow is still there. He was named Iain. I was named Iain in his memory.

So I found myself gazing out of an aeroplane window, overlooking the African bush, smoke rising off stunted trees in the distance. The Victoria Falls is called Mosi oa Tunya by locals, meaning “the smoke that thunders”. The crash of Zambezi water dropping from a wide meander, sprawled across the landscape, into a narrow gorge, bubbling and frantic, can be heard on the far side of town, a few kilometres away. The spray, shot up off basalt more than 30 stories below, appears on the horizon, like pale, portentous smoke. (Read on …)

On the day we arrived at The Spotted Cow, the air was filled with dainty tufts of white fluff. Flying around the garden, floating into people’s roast dinners, these downy little things were simply everywhere, snowing down on the scene, as we watched, enchanted.

It was a seasonal occurrence and the nearby tree responsible for shedding this pollen had for many summers caused distress to the inhabitants of the surrounding area. “Most annoying”, one of the locals at the pub had commented. Well, if this was what “annoying” was like in Surrey, I felt quite happy to say goodbye to London’s relatively maddening quirks. (Read on …)