My father’s memoir Exclusive Pedigree: My life in and out of the Brethren has recently been released as an audiobook. It is superbly narrated by Tony Cookson, an experienced Radio Presenter and Interviewer.

There are a limited number of free copies of this audiobook available to blog readers. To get your copy, simply e-mail me at fd81@assl.co.uk and let me know if you would like a US or UK copy.

I look forward to hearing from you.
​

Lithuanian Sauna 
 
The heat is enveloping. With each thrash of doused birch on scorched rock
a new wave of fire wrought steam catches in the throat, as pores are wrenched open and as filth and sweat glisten and pool.
 
I cannot stand it anymore.
 
Bursting out onto the manicured lawn I leap into the murky pond. One final suspension in the dying light of a sparkling Baltic Spring, the privet hedges and thick forest, the vegetable patch and chain link fence, the distant barking dog.   
 
Then the fall. 
​

Syd Blackwell's second entry in our Travel Highlights competition is a succinct piece of poetry that I am sure you will appreciate as much as I have.​

ON A STREET IN BOGOTÁ 
 
Potato chips someone has dropped
now broken on a grimy walk
the ragged man bends low to ground
and sweeps the bits into a mound
his blackened fingers lift the crumbs
to bearded mouth with hunger numb
but passersby do not see this
his desperation they all miss
 
Bogotá, Colombia
03/07/12
​

Syd Blackwell

I was born in a little ski town that used to be a gold mining town in the mountains of southeastern British Columbia.  I also lived on the coast, on Vancouver Island, in the north, and even in northern Alberta for a decade.   I visited every province and territory in Canada, and more than 40 other countries.  I was an educator, an innkeeper, and an assisted living facilitator.  My life was rich with experiences before I left Canada less than two months before my 61st birthday.
​
Uruguay, has been our home for more than a decade.  My wife and I share our home with our five dogs. And quite a few visitors.   We have found time in our retirement to do things we never seemed to find time to do before.   I have found time to be a writer and an artist.  Both give me great pleasure.  We have continued to travel, particularly in South America.
​

A warm welcome back to Ronald Mackay with his third entry in this year's Travel Highlights Competition. ​

Border Smiles ​

“Our Passports.”

Viviana tucks them into the truck papers. I concentrate, overtake long-distance transports returning to Bolivia and Brazil from Chile through Argentina.

“Check them?” We’re into corkscrew bends; a tunnel; customs; immigration.

“The date’s wrong! The permission’s dated last year.”

“Damn! Back! All that way!”

“They won’t notice!”

“Officers are paid to notice.”

“Not in Argentina!”

……….

“Truck papers?” Uniformed scowls.

Viviana smiles. I squirm. Officers scrutinize, move lips.

“Such a beautiful place!” Viviana interrupts. Smiles. Gestures to snow, peaks.

Officers raise puzzled eyes. Nod. Stamp. Gesture. “Bienvenidos a Argentina!”

I ease out breath and clutch.

Viviana smiles. “See?”

Bio

Ronald and his Peruvian wife Viviana worked in both Argentina and Chile for 10 years and crossed the high passes in the Andes over a hundred times in a truck with Chilean plates that belonged to Viviana’s cousin. The border crossing at El Paso Internacional de los Libertadores never ceased to impress with its beauty nor to provide many, many surprises.
​

I have a real treat for you today in our Travel Highlights Competition.

Roger Knight has submitted all of his five entries in one go. As he explains:

'They are all based on actual events, at different times in my life. I enjoyed writing these, 'to bring to bloom the million petalled flower of being here', to quote Philip Larkin.'

Spear fishing off the Coromandel peninsular New Zealand
 
Spearing a Kingfish, is a real tussle and thrill, given their valiant fight for survival, strength and size. Not unlike trying to land a Marlin.

With a Kingfish, the fight is at much closer quarters. The trick is to put your hand into their gills and hold tightly on to them, before bringing them to the surface.

But this comes at a price. 

Impaled on a spear, the distress of a dying fish, transforms the hunter into the hunted, as a shark can be easily alerted to this many miles away, quickly homing in on it’s newly identified prey.

A whale pod sighting off Bermuda 
 
Just off the south shore, thirty or so Sperm whales had gathered. I was immediately in awe of this marine mammal armada, lying as though at anchor, so close to the island.

They had enormous box like heads, that were squared off, and some were shooting columns of water high into the air through their blow holes, like a collection of geysers.
​
They all seemed to be in such gentle repose, despite appearing like some alien invasion force.
​

Diving the Mecca wreck. South Corniche Jeddah Saudi Arabia 
 
 In the muggy darkness, we gear up for the long reef walk out, where sting rays dart away from under our feet.

Finally, we drop down on to the Mecca, just as dawn breaks, spreading shafts of light that slowly dispels the darkness.

In her reclining position of final rest, in over 30 metres at her bow, she still holds her ill fated cargo of rotting silk, that wave, like frayed coloured ribbons among the soft corals and fish that have now assumed permanent residence in this converted aquarium.
​

Bahrain’s Arab Spring 
 
At the time, what created the most disquiet for me, at the height of the unrest, was not the unofficial road blocks manned by masked youths, the rubbish collecting in the streets, or even the Saudi militia flexing their muscle, but the visceral chanting at night.

Like an anthem of subjugation, it’s potent protest would reverberate through me, to such an extent, that I had to wear earplugs, in order to get any sleep.

The energy conveyed, from the Shia villages around, felt so powerful, that no amount of tear gas, birdshot or military intervention could stop it.

Malady in Moresby Papua New Guinea 
 
Nothing is more nightmarish, that to succumb to some debilitating tropical illness far from home. For me, this experience was made worse, as, back in the early 70’s, the only hospital in Port Moresby, was a leprosorium.

Waiting to be seen by the doctor, among the lepers, with their melted faces and withered limbs, along with Papuan women, suckling piglets with their bare breasts, made me think that this was a fate worse than death.

In my hand, I desperately clutched my appointment card, which to my further horror, was in fact intended for use as a morgue tag.
 

A warm welcome back to Ronald Mackay with his second travel highlight in this year's contest.

​If you are interested in entering, you can find more details on the Competitions page here.
​

Water Melons 

Both barren roads lead to Khebir. The coastal longer; the desert shorter.

I wait. The horizon yellow, shimmering.

Water melon-laden, a truck brakes.

“El Khebir?”

I climb up.

Pleased, he chooses desert. “Alone, I no risk!”

Blistering heat. An hour. A tire blows.

More nimble, I place the jack. I raise the axle on soft asphalt.

He sweats.

“Right!”

He wrestles.

Time slows. I watch as jack penetrates asphalt; as the differential approaches my skull.

He jams the wheel.

I breathe, crawl back into the sun.

Neither of us speak.

The sun smiles. The desert grins. “Got you now!”
​

MANTA SAFARI

 I adjusted my mask, dipped my head below the surface and was rewarded with a huge manta directly below me, its mouth open, wing tips upturned like an A380, silently cutting through the water.

Everywhere I turned more appeared, slicing the cloudy, plankton rich sea, dark shapes uncloaking as they came into view.

They were hard to count. Twenty, thirty, fifty of these ocean titans swam below us, oblivious of the tourists and marine biologists snorkelling above, as they gorged for a few short hours on the food bonanza brought in by the high tide.
​
 (Hanifaru Bay, The Maldives)
​