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| A drive into the hills in Campanario, Madeira, Portugal, offered appealing scenery. |
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What better time than now to relive memories from our more mobile times in years past? If we lived a somewhat “normal” life in a home in the US and were subject to the lockdown, I have no doubt we wouldn’t do a whole lot different with our spare time than we are doing now in lockdown in a hotel in Mumbai, India.
Most likely, we would have spent time organizing areas of our home, cleaning drawers, closets, and cabinets, cooking, and baking. In our spare time, under those circumstances, most likely, we’d have spent time reliving the past through old photos and reminiscing over past experiences along with binge-watching shows to escape from the lockdown and lack of social life.
Now, a portion of our free time is spent binge-watching favorite shows, which seem to be the best panacea for getting “outside of our heads.” Wrapped up in an excellent British mystery drama is a perfect escape on a typical afternoon.
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| Nothing was more delightful than a clear sunny morning in Madeira. |
At 3:00 pm each day, we’ve been watching “Endeavor,” a delicious PBS “copper” show with many episodes, mostly lasting for 90 minutes. Typically, we watch two episodes, stopping at 5:30 pm to order dinner, which often doesn’t arrive until 6:30.
We’ve been watching “Curb Your Enthusiasm” during dinner lately, season 9 with season 10 to follow. This funny Larry David show leaves us howling with laughter, a welcomed reprieve from the more profound mysteries of the afternoon.
Often during the early afternoons, once I’ve uploaded the day’s post, I go through the steady stream of email messages from our friends/readers. As they mention past posts and photos, we find ourselves rereading the older stories we haven’t thought about in years.
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| When we smelled smoke, we ran to the veranda to find a neighboring garden burning. |
I can’t believe the positive feedback we’ve had from readers regarding once again seeing our old photos. With so much time passing since the onset of our travels, many more senior photos seem new to our readers and again to us.
In reviewing the photos and past stories, we found ourselves giggling over long ago experiences, some of which remind us how naive we may have been about world travel in the beginning years, and others that have stayed true to our essential criteria and beliefs.
We are so fortunate to have this easy-to-follow online history of our lives over the past eight years and only wish we’d be posting years earlier, although the then source of fodder may have been mundane and boring to most.
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| The owner and architect of our holiday home, Carlos, lives next door with his family. I took this photo from the door in my bathroom into their backyard. |
I’d considered writing a book throughout my life, even promising myself I’d do so once I retired. Without ever planning it, our site has become that “book,” soon approaching 3000 posts sometime in November 2020.
After all of this fulfillment in sharing our lives with all of you, my desire to write a book is long gone. Everything I’ve had to say has been said here, and the ease with which I write here each day may be clouded by a struggle to condense it into a book. After all, what book has 3000 chapters?
No, I won’t write a book, nor do I am interested in attending book signings, appearing on local TV shows, or acquiring a degree of celebrity that may go with it.
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| Wow! The flowers would soon be gone as summer moved in, but I enjoyed taking photos until then. |
After all, our story is somewhat peculiar in that we’ve yet to meet another couple who’ve been homeless, without storage, without owning a car or “stuff” other than that which fits into a few bags, traveling the world for almost eight years? Most people (especially of our age) aren’t crazy enough to do this for so long.
Adding to the peculiarity of our story is the fact I had emergency open-heart surgery in Africa and miraculously survived, and now and in the future, spending many months in a standard hotel room in lockdown in Mumbai, India.
If someone had asked us several years ago if we’d be able to be confined to this degree for so long, we’d probably have said we couldn’t do it. But, somehow, we are pretty OK, filling the days and nights with a bit of this and that and finding great comfort in the support from our family, friends, and readers all over the world.
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| I found this rose in a neighbor’s yard. Not wanting to disturb the neighbor’s garden, I shot this without moving the stem in front of what appears to be an almost perfect rose. |
Stay well.
Photo from one year ago today, June 20, 2019:
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| Painted sheep grazing in a field in Connemara, Ireland. For more photos, please click here. |