Points of information

At some point in the not too distant future this blog may morph into more of a travel blog than it's current somewhat undefined nature. Yes, you guessed it, it's because I am going travelling. Thereby narrowing down my demographic substantially - make of that what you will.

Which, naturally, raises the question of style when travelling. A. Is it possible? and b. is it practical? My answer to the first is of course, 'of course!' and to b. well... that's up for debate. By dint of the travelling I'm going to be doing, which will be backpack based and definitely not with any particular grandiosity or expense I must logically reflect this in my choice of clothes. Also, the fact that I will, with any luck, be doing some fairly serious work on various ranches I have connections to, which of course means dressing sensibly for seriously manual labour in what one might suspect is a fairly hostile environment.

Recently the thought has crossed my mind that a. I intensely dislike sandals and b. that while flip flops are the height of travelling ra chic/practical on a beach, I am not overly keen on the idea of wearing them all day round and particularly not on a night out. So, I have been giving some thought to what other options I have available to me. Shoes I already own: all largely smart and not shoes I want to ruin travelling. With the possible exception of some red, white and blue boat shoes that might be perfect. (Not to self, check shoes do not inflict hideous blisters as I suspect they might well.) Leading me to what I need to get in order to have alternatives to the already mentioned flip flops (what do you call a french man who wears sandals?*) and boat shoes. Espadrilles spring to mind, in various bright colours; a red pair and a white pair I think. That ought to do the trick.

As for the rest of the clothes I plan to take, that remains to be seen, but I will give it some further thought - I'm thinking white jeans, blue linen trousers, shorts of various shades and possibly a pair of chinos too. Not to mention scruffy blue jeans for working in. Shirts of light colour, a few, and a fair few t-shirts of mixed colour. (Not thought given to it then...)

Music wise, I just got hold of a rather splendid album by a band called The Greenhornes. It's a mix of one part The Who, one part The Rolling Stones, one part Mott the Hoople and perhaps a little Triggerfinger (a dutch stoner rock band that are in and of themselves well worth a listen) to top it off. I hardly need say it, but I've been listening to a lot of The Who recently, having never really properly listened to them before owing to a poor selection of tracks on a greatest hits my Dad has, I recently discovered an alternative collection while cooking GUMBO! the other day that is much, much better! Creole cooking and classic rock, is there a better combination?! Gumbo is so easy to cook and really delicious, I can't urge you enough to try it sometime.

Which segues nicely into my final point. Having recently received the River Cottage Cookbook as a gift (I wonder what the occasion can possibly have been?!) I have been poring over it and found myself, slightly alarmingly, fascinated by the section on wild foods - wild meat, wild salad, wild herbs, nuts and funghi. I can't say as I'm going to go give up all foods except those I find in the hedgerow, far from it, but I am now interested enough to want to at least investigate them when out walking the dog. Who knows what might end up in the supper.

Mycelially yours,

Joe

*Philippe Philoppe