For 10 years, York has been my home. Give it another year, and I’m hoping I’ll be gone.
(Don’t get me wrong now. I love the place. However….rest of the world, and all that).
Yet there’s much to see in York…
And here I am, a travel-writer in the making, living in one of the cultural highlights of the UK…and I don’t write about it. Not for publication, not into blog posts (not often, anyway), not here and not there. Nowhere.
Well, that strikes me as a bit daft.
Time that changed.
All photos: Mike Sowden.
So, let me get this right… You’re going to leave York and live somewhere else, so that you can then travel to York and write about it? Or are you going to write about York until you leave and then write about wherever you wind up next? The first option is perverse, the second would equate to travel writing on a glacial time frame. Could also be quite dull if the next port in Mike’s voyage of adventure is (say) Pocklington or Market Weighton.
Yes, that’s exactly right. I’m going to spend the rest of my career writing about York – no matter where I am in the world. There I’ll be, traipsing the Silk Road or trundling along the Trans-Siberian railway, blogging about that shop up Petergate that sells Christmas decorations all year round, or that guy with the cymbals attached to his knees and the dog that howls at his harmonica-playing. (Yes, that one).
I’m glad you didn’t deliberately misconstrue any of my statements there, or else you might have got the wrong end of the stick entirely.
Perhaps in my twilight years, as I yearn for one last fling with wild adventure, I’ll write something about Pocklington.
Or maybe just Osbaldwick. Don’t want to do anything reckless.
Strangely enough I can see you with cymbals tied to your knees being chased down the Silk Road by a howling dog. Of course, in Osbaldwick you’re more likely to be chased down the road by a yoof and his dog for a pack of Silk Cut.
I am officially frightened, because I understood that whole conversation.
I’m officially frightened because it happened in the first place.
Welcome to my world JudithinUmbria.
You think that should be my pitch for novelty travel? Walking with knee-cymbals? “Around the world in a million crashes”? Although that title probably suits me better in the non-musical sense…
You may tarnish Osbaldwick from afar with your hurtful slurs, but I’ll have you know that the worst I’ve suffered in Osbaldwick is a knifing followed by a good kicking. In Yorkshire terms, that’s like being invited to be someone’s godfather.
I’m not sure I want to tarnish anyone’s wick and especially not Osbald’s – thank you very much. Anyway wouldn’t it be walking around Osbaldswick with knee-cymbals? I reckon that’d get you more than a knifing and a good kicking. You should try it. You could write a piece on travelling to A&E.
1. your photos are effing amazing, please make it a habit to use your photos in your posts as often as posisble. thanks.
2. yes, please do write more about York. i’ve a fear that i won’t make it across the pond to your neck of the woods for awhiles, my travels seem to take me elsewhere every.single.time.i.think.about.vacation.
3. Seriously, photos. gorgeous.
1. and 3.: shucks. My ego wants to agree wildly, but I know they were only taken by someone pointing at the scenery and pressing a button, rather than really knowing what he was doing.
And 2.? I have much to say about York. Ten years worth, in fact.
Awe, look, I logged on to give you some abuse as requested and Jimbo’s beaten me to it. I’ll try anyway; what you on about? clarify yourself man! where are you planning on going? and when? i demand answers! also stop playing with photoshop, pic three makes me think my contact lenses have gone funny.
that any good?
mm
Ms Moss, Mike baiting is a sport where I come from. Fun isn’t it?
Obviously one of those barbaric bloodsports that any civilized nation should have left behind in these more enlightened times.
You barbarians.
Perfect.
Incidentally, that phone box photo wasn’t digitally altered.
It was just very foggy that day.
The real Photoshopping took place in the last photo – because I don’t drink beer.
No photos of fair maidens with bleeding feet, I notice.
That’s another post entirely.
Entitled “Guilt”.
Mike – whos that guy in the sheepskin jacket looking your way standing next to the bikes. He doesn’t look to enamoured – what happenned next?
He pulled a Glock out of his bag and started popping caps in my direction, so I ducked into a doorway and thumbed my M16 onto automatic before laying down a burst that sent him running for cover into Bettys. The next few minutes were a blur of flying metal and shredded cakes, until finally we crashed out the main window, hands locked around each other’s throats. At this point the police turned up and carted him away, and I identified him out of a list of Interpol’s Most Wanted. Then the cops thanked me and I got back to my photography.
Welcome to my world Mike. In my case necessity, survival even, means I have to move on. As long as I get work somewhere it will be good to be somewhere new.It’s exciting to be packing my bags. But where to?!
Aye – what a month you’re having.
So where would you like to go?
Beautiful photos, Mike. I’m heading to England shortly and can’t wait to see more of it in person.
I lived in Los Angeles for 20 years, worked in the TOURISM industry and to date have still only written a single post about the place.
We definitely have a tendency to lose sight of what’s right in front of us.
Very true.
Spud Hilton at the SF Chronicle apparently doesn’t accept stories from people who are living in the place they’re writing about. I can understand why (although I think it’s a different kind of writing that results, not necessarily a worse one). Over-familiarity is a fun topic in itself, and one we can all identify with.
[...] As I said back in August, I already have something to write about. And after spending a couple of months wandering its streets, eating its pies, watching its lightshows and nearly dying on its fringes, I’ve renewed my love of the place (taking a little of my own medicine along the way). This city has been my home for the last decade, and I know it better than anywhere in the world. While I’m not travelling, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than this gorgeous, eccentric corner of England. I do still love it here. [...]