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To my Travel blog

This is me, or at least me as I was in Jordan in 2019. I chose the pseudonym 'Dandly' when I started blogging, so I am stuck with it, but I also answer to 'David'.

A Coffee break on the road from Amman to Petra

And this is Lynne (not a pseudonym), for almost 50 years we have been companions in the journey through life - and through 57 to 65 different countries (depending on how you count them). Without her, none of this would have been possible.

Lynne and a rack of lamb, Portugal 2022

We were both teachers. I taught mathematics for 36 years (mainly in the English Midlands, but with sojourns in the USA and Sudan) but when I started  boring myself as well as the unfortunate students, it was time to retire.

We have always travelled, round western Europe with a tent in the early days, in 1980 even crossing the ‘Iron Curtain’ into Hungary. As time passed, we became steadily more ambitious. Since retiring in 2008 our horizons have expanded. We have enjoyed the ‘world biggies’ like the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal, but take a particular pleasure in places few others visit - North Korea, Moldova and Mongolia, to name but three.

On Princess Diana's seat, Taj Mahal

I started blogging about our travels in 2010. I was then still clinging, by my fingertips, an effort of will and a little imagination, to the upper end of ‘middle-aged’. I called the blog ‘Here, There and an Attempt on Everywhere’ not because I expected to go everywhere but I could see no limits to our horizons.

Morning in Mongolia. Lynne outside the ger we borrowed from our Mongolian hosts

We are older now and have to be a little more realistic about what can be achieved, hence the change in title.

I have always been curious about the world. In my relatively untroubled childhood I read a lot, played sports (always keen, usually incompetent) but also spent hours leafing through an old atlas fascinated by ‘faraway places with strange sounding names.’ I wanted to go there and find out about them.

And so, I have. In the process I have learned about geography, languages, food, politics, religion, food, architecture, history, food (always a favourite!), wild life and the list goes on and on. There are things I knew I was interested in, and things I never knew were so fascinating (though I still cannot get excited about weaving and embroidery).

Wild life: Wild Asses in the Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat 2019

But once a teacher always a teacher. Knowledge is nothing if you don’t share it.

I try to tell the stories of where we have been with gentle humour and consideration for our hosts (particularly as most of them never invited us).

This is a non-racist, non-sexist endeavour to approach different ideas and ways of life with an open mind (though I don’t take myself as seriously as that statement might suggest.)

There's a big world out there - go and explore it. And if you can't do that just now, well explore my blog instead. The other pages (listed along the top) provide links to all the 530+ posts.

Cheers

Another Daiquiri, Cuba 2020 - before it all went Covid