You and me have seen everything to see, from Bangkok to Calgary

Circumstances have conspired against the camerado and I, in both of our timezones. First, at a family meal, the camerado's brother announced that he would be backpacking around Europe for his honeymoon. Like me, the camerado wanted to burst into tears - of longing to be on our own Interrailing adventures once again! Much as I adore my beloved Cambridge, what with working on my Italiano and reading a gorgeous book the camerado lent me themed entirely around Roman Holiday, I, too, have been heartsick for late night gelato with handsome Florentine students and free wine from Roman waiters. And then, a couple I know returned from their holiday in Venice with photos like these...

“I shipped myself on board a small trading vessel bound from Constantinople, by classic seas where every wave throbs with a deathless memory, to the Grecian Islands and the Levant. Those were golden days and balmy nights! In and out of harbour all the time – old friends everywhere – sleeping in some cool temple during the heat of the day – feasting and song after sundown, under great stars set in a velvet sky! Thence we turned and coasted up the Adriatic, its shores swimming in an atmosphere of amber, rose and aquamarine; we lay in wide land-locked harbours, we roamed through ancient and noble cities, until at last one morning, as the sun rose royally behind us, we rode into Venice down a path of gold… where, when weary of wandering, one can sit at the edge of the Grand Canal at night, feasting with his friends, when the air is full of music and the sky full of stars, and the lights flash and shimmer on the polished steel prows of the swaying gondolas, packed so that you could walk across the canal on them from side to side! And then the food…”

“We feel it stirring within us, a sweet unrest; then back come the recollections one by one, like homing pigeons. They flutter through our dreams at night, the fly with us in our wheelings and circlings by day. We hunger to inquire of each other, to compare notes and assure ourselves that it was all really true, as one by one the scents and sounds and names of long-forgotten places come gradually back and beckon us... In due-time we shall be homesick once more for quiet water-lilies swaying on the surface of an English stream. But today all that seems pale and thin and far away. Just now our blood dances to other music.”

-Kenneth Graeme, The Wind in the Willows

Oh, I miss my camerado and our escapades over land and sea and Italy!

One of the [many] reasons that the fantastico, bittersweet Two For The Road makes me weep is the way the decades-long love story between Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney centres around their travels together over the years. The film cuts back and forth in time between the different journeys they've taken, but my favourite is their first meeting as two backpackers who reluctantly end up stuck with each other...

[Haha - sunburn!]

My favourite scene, on their [supposedly] last day on the beach together:-

Mark: Darling, I'll meet you here, right here, years from now. Is it a deal?
Joanna: You'll be building skyscrapers miles high... you'll never be able to get down in time.
Mark: I'll always think of this place as ours... What the hell's the matter with you?
Joanna: [Getting up] If you think I'll wait for years, and then turn up and say, "What ho!"
Mark: Nobody wants you to say "What ho!"
Joanna: Or say "darling..."
Mark: Or darling or anything else!
Joanna: I never want to see you again.
Mark: Then don't.
Joanna: [Running away up the hill] I hate you!
Mark: [Running after her, shouting] Joanna, listen. We went into this with our eyes open. Nobody deceived anyone else. So stop playing the ruined virgin! It's a tune I've heard before and I didn't like it then. Anyway, you're the one who's insisting on going back... to your damned choir!
Joanna, I don't want you to go!
Joanna: You do. You just want me to become a beautiful memory. The sooner the better.
Mark: Who said anything about beautiful? Will you come here!
Joanna: I never want to see you again!
Mark: Not much...
As long as I live!
I've decided we should get married.
What do you say?

Joanna: Yes.
I won't ever let you down.
Mark: I will you.
Joanna: I don't care what you do, just as long as I've got you. You won't be sorry, sir.

Oh, please see it! Especially if you're a The Way We Were fan. It's Audrey Hepburn's best performance, and the innocence and sense of the excitements and possibilities of life and true love of these scenes becomes so bittersweet and poignant when it's spliced alongside the trips they are taking ten and twenty years later. Love, love, love!

Together, Wendy, we'll live with the sadness
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday, girl, I don't know when
We're gonna get to that place where we really want to go
And we'll walk in the sun
But till then tramps like us
Baby we were born to run
-Bruce Springsteen

“But why think about that when all the golden lands ahead of you and all kinds of unforseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you’re alive to see?
-Jack Kerouac

“And you will come too, for the days pass and never return, and the South still waits for you. Take the Adventure!”
-The Wind in the Willows

PS. Outfit Of The Day

For meeting my 'college children' in the bar, and attending Lush parties with free pink wine and cupcakes!

I'm afraid to say it was all a bit high street:-
H&M cardigan
Topshop denim dress [with pockets!]
Primark belt
New Look peeptoes

Love, train tickets and Greg Peck xxx