Blue sky thinking

Great to be back under the blue sky of Marseille after a dawn flight from London Heathrow. Marseille feels moderate after the tropical intensity and extremes of La Réunion, even the grunge and graffiti feel familiar.

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The Pirates of Penzance - ENO at the London Coliseum

Queen Victoria would almost certainly not have been amused by her loyal citizens but we, the 2025 London audience, enjoyed a top class performance of ENO’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pirates of Penzance” at the London Coliseum.
Period costumes but a minimal set, abstracted to the essentials necessary to support the absurd storyline, gives the production the flexibility to tell truths though serious and comic moments, ridiculing “duty” in particular but taking in family succession, loyalty to the Crown, women’s rights and ageism etc. along the way.

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Derwent Water, the muddy way round - Lake District National Park

Ride out from Keswick to Portinscale, where the hikers take the path for Cat Bells (451 m.). Bit of fun in Brandlehow Woods: relatively dry but enough muddy leaves, rocky fords plus a couple of extended technical downhill sections good enough to climb back up and ride again. Crossing the River Derwent at the footbridge opposite the Lodore Falls.

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Winter hedge trimming in Keswick

Trimming and shaping the pavement side of my hedges in Keswick, surrounded by birds singing happily. There’s plenty of new growth even though it’s winter; whilst there have been frosts and there’s snow still on the tops of the highest fells around, my garden certainly hasn’t lacked water.

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Ladilafé du Chai de Cilaos - vin de l’Île de la Réunion

Ladilafé is a mœlleux wine from one of the vineyards which are re-establishing quality wine production in the Cirque de Cilaos on Réunion Island, the French département in the Indian Ocean. Therefore this wine is from the southernmost vineyards of France. Surprisingly - for a Mascarene island known for its vanilla production - the wine has little or no “vanilla” flavour, instead a clear and prominent apricot nose and taste, maybe slight melon. Lightly sweet, more a demi-sec, a refreshing swig and a lowish alcohol content at 12%.

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Architecture & gardens of Hell-Bourg, Cirque de Salazie, Île de la Réunion

Difficult to pin down what is créole architecture taste in La Réunion but it’s easy to recognise: there’s the preference for a three-window pattern and a building design based on square, the choice of colours is distinctive. Residences of the petits-blancs (white settlers) have more restrained colours and more architectural detail.
The gardens of Hell-Bourg are similarly diverse. Almost all flowering plants are imports; the tree ferns are imports that have become indigenous. There’s a striking absence of garden versions of plants used for agriculture, so I didn’t notice any flowering ginger, coffee or sugar cane.

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Tropical jungle hike: Le Grand Sable, GR R1 - Parc Naturel de la Réunion

Ginger plant in flower

The terminator - shadow of the sun - is creeping down the opposite side of the Salazie crater

Arduous hike out from the village of Hell-Bourg in the Cirque de Salazie (volcano crater). Hard going, both the sun and thirty degree heat but mainly the steep tracks. The “reward” is hiking through tropical farming, flowers and forest, glimpses of highly-coloured song birds and hearing them calling and singing. Though there’s drought everywhere in this crater, so a lot of dust. GR R1 means Grande Randonné 1 de la Réunion, it’s the long distance route equivalent to the UK Pennine Way.

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Volcano to ocean: MTB descent from Le Maïdo (2205 m) - Île de la Réunion

2200 m.

Le Maïdo overlook (2205 m.) to the Mafate crater, Cilaos and Salazie beyond.

An intense mountain bike ride from the volcano crater overlook at Le Maïdo (2205 m.) down to the beach on the Indian Ocean at Saint-Gilles-les-Bains. Massive altitude drop over about 32 km of off-road trails, with some technical cuts through tropical jungle.

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Glenderaterra Valley gate in the snow - Lake District National Park

Hike from Keswick, up Spooneygreen Lane to Lattrig Saddle and onwards to the gate in to Glenderaterra Valley, which has Lonscale Fell and Skiddaw one side with Blencathra the other. A familiar route made magical by the snow. Frosty on Latrigg but soon getting to be heavy going traversing Lonscale Fell because of drifted snow up to knee height. The clouds were closing in over the fells beyond Ullswater as I took my picnic. The path past the rocky shoulder was even more heavily drifted so it was time to come down.

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Calanches de Piana - Corsica in November

Golfe de Porto

Embarking at Marseille

Corsica in November, my escape from storms on the continent and taking advantage of Black Friday pricing. Seeing snow on the Corsican mountains at dawn was the first of many memorable sights. The road from Ajaccio to the red rock Calanches goes over two good cols, both reasonable surfaces for a bit of sportsbike fun, though a bit of sand washout. Cool but not cold first thing, and by midday I was opening the vents on my jacket and boots

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