1. Coffee
OMG we are back in the Land of the Latte. Brits drive the Italians mad by calling it a Latte, obviously it is a Caffe Latte otherwise you will only get a funny look and a glass of hot milk, but ever since maybe Hungary we haven’t had a decent cup of coffee.
In Serbia, Bulgaria and Turkey the high-quality coffee is called “A Nescafe” but for a real treat people wheel out the “3in1”. This is a drink of great nostalgia for me, as it was the hot drink freely available to staff working in ADIA and across the Middle East. The Three are coffee (ish), whitener (of sorts) and sugar (lots). We called it Red Drink (after the packaging colour) and rationed ourselves to 3 a day in order to stay rational. Unmistakeable and, I had hoped, unrepeatable.
Turks do not seem to drink Turkish coffee. A big disappointment.
2. Travel Essentials
Talking of ADIA as I was, reminded me of Ian Yuill who was my partner in crime there. Over the course of several weeks our conversation ranged around many topics and for some reason we got talking about Travel Essentials. I believe it was because one of those PollyFilla articles was about Things You Must Take, and recommended a kettle. Ian and I were very taken by the concept of travelling with impractically large objects and started to think about what really should go in the Seasoned Traveller’s Luggage. I was keen on a Travelling Toaster but Ian won the conversation in the end with a Portable Exercise Treadmill.
On huge parts of this trip I have regretted not travelling with a really large box of fly papers. That would now be my luxury of choice, buzz buzz swipe buzz buzz swipe buzz buzz swipe buzz land stick die ha ha that’s shown you only 546 thousand million more flies to go.
3. Coat Hangers and Washing Lines
Previously, my Travel Essential was a few wire coathangers. They weigh nearly nothing and free you from the tyranny of Captive Wardrobe Hangers, not to mention the irritating habit of Coat Hanger Rationing that you find in many hotels. Sid has invented (or rather, #conceptinvented, the fine details will be delegated to some lowly* engineer) the Portable Hook For Captive Wardrobe Hangers. You can envisage how it would work immediately, it turns the CWH back into a normal hooky hanger. Maybe even with a suckery end bit so you could stick it on various surfaces. Cool, eh?
And we forgot to bring one of those useful elastic camping washing lines. But then, there are lots of things we haven’t brought, many of which should be added to the Travel Essentials post above.
*Please no grumpy comments from engineers who I know are essential to make everything work.
4. Dogs
Male dogs like female dogs. We have had several chances to see this close up in the last couple of weeks, in a way that I have been spared in my gentle genteel protected life to date. And when a male dog really likes a female dog he seems to drool an awful lot, before things get underway as it were. Anyway I thought you might like this picture of a dog getting drooly – no female dog in sight, but he was banging his undercarriage up and down on the road while drooling. Maybe it would have been better if I hadn’t started this topic.
5. The Straightness Of Things
Sid is a firm believer that Things should be Straight, and was therefore made very happy the other night when we were given a chequer-ruled tablecloth, a square packet of napkin/cutlery AND square plates. Much adjustment of the table until it was all Officially Approved. I have taken the liberty of including an Edward Monkton cartoon on the subject, which I guess is a sort of #virtualsouvenir once removed, as I got it from the interweb.
8. Spare Wiring
“When I put phone lines between houses I often have wire left over. So I keep it there, in case I need it later” This pic is from deepest Turkey but to be honest it could have been a lot of other places.