When the time came to build the Little House of Concrete I informed most of my friends and acquaintances, including the Dragon Lady Who Operated Out Of The Other End Of I-Block that for the next few years I would be quite happy if I didn’t sight the meatworks at Merinda or the old drive-in theatre south of town.
I wasn’t, in other words, planning to go anywhere for a while, a situation that was seen by the Dragon Lady as indicative of a dislike of travelling. Over recent years, as ‘Er Indoors and I have set out for various locations, that remark has repeatedly been brought up as symptomatic of the changes that Madam has brought into my life.
The expressed lack of intent to travel wasn’t, however, the result of an aversion to travel per se. It was, more or less, a mixture of financial necessity and a change in priorities which meant that henceforth I wouldn’t be spending the first part of the Christmas vacation at the cricket carnival.
It was fairly obvious at the time that (a) I wasn’t going to be able to retire till I’d made a substantial hole in the mortgage balance and that (b) frittering away my Christmas holiday pay on motel bills, beer and counter meals wasn’t going to do anything to address the implications of the aforementioned point (a).
And, for most of the preceding decade travel arrangements were, more or less, linked to cricket coaching matters.
There are, on the other hand, vicarious opportunities to experience some aspects of the travel experience, and while I’m not a big TV watcher, over the years I’ve built up a substantial shelf-full of travel-related books.
While reading about it isn’t anywhere near the same as actually going there and experiencing the place itself, there are a number of writers I’ve encountered over the years who’ve ended up on Hughesy’s default “check ‘em out whenever you’re browsing in a book shop” list.
Some, like the wonderful William Least Heat-Moon aren’t the most prolific of authors while others, like Eric Newby, have been replaced on the shelves by other more recent writers I’m not overly familiar with and disinclined to investigate “on spec.”
There are, after all, budgetary restraints that come into play when Hughesy enters a book shop, and while “Er Indoors invariably rolls her eyes at the sight of the most recent round of purchases, she is invariably informed that it could have been much worse.
Tobias Jones The Dark Heart of Italy
William Least Heat-Moon Roads to Quoz
Paul Theroux Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town
Simon Winchester Outposts: Journeys to the Surviving Relics of the British Empire
