fionaistravelling

Seasons Greetings from Fiona 2020  Hello! and hope you're having the best break you can despite everything.... The blog I wrote this time last year was mostly about my wonderful mum, who died at the age of 93 a year last October.  This year, too, has pretty much all been about my wonderful mum.  I’m kind of glad that she didn’t have to live through the pandemic, but of course my sister or I would have gone and lived with her from when it all kicked off, which would have been lovely.  She was unfailingly happy, kind, and generous. (Here she is at her 90th birthday teaparty). We held a Zoom Stonesetting for her in July, with lots of family, which was absolutely lovely, and with the help of a work colleague I made a  ‘ sound and photo collage ’  about her which included her friends reminding us of her happiness and warmth, AND a recording of her own grandmother singing a Yiddish song!    We then held a REAL stonesetting for her in October, where...

Happy New Year 2020... and an account of a seismic 2019 Dear friends Thanks to any of you who have sent me a Christmas card – I love getting them, but have great difficulty sending them  - so here’s my Christmas card equivalent; a Happy New Year letter. The main thing about 2019 is that our wonderful, kind, well organised, vibrant, buoyant, funny, and universally loved mum died in October, at the age of 93. I was in Poland when she died – which says a lot about her. We knew she was ill, but she was absolutely happy for us to travel and do whatever we wanted to do – as long as we facetimed her every day. (She LOVED her Ipad, was frantic once when I took her charger away by mistake, couldn’t wait till I could get the charger back to her the next day, so she went into town to buy a new one that same day…) So many people came to the funeral and the prayers in the week after the funeral – some, people we’d known as children, making the journey from London or Manche...

I've done it!!!!!!!  https://anchor.fm/fionaistravelling one year on from setting off on my travels, my first podcast is not only on my website but is actually OUT THERE IN PODCASTLAND.  'Fiona's Travels; fascinating conversations and traditional music' is out there on Anchor .  Listen to it here .  It's exactly a year since the Repeal the Eighth abortion referendum in Ireland, and abortion up to 12 weeks is now legal in Ireland.  Beyond that time some women still have to travel, and we have to remember it's still illegal in Northern Ireland to have an abortion, where women procuring an abortion - or medical staff who are part of the process - face jail sentences up to life, even longer than the sentences being put forward in Alabama currently.  In my first podcast on Anchor, 'I'm looking forward to the day when I don't have to tell my story' West Cork goat farmer and political activist Vanessa O'Sullivan shares her very persona...

Exactly a year ago on Monday 30 April 2018 I set off with FAR TOO MUCH LUGGAGE on the train down to Wales on the way to the little village of Kilmore Quay - a perfect way, and a perfect place, to start my six months travelling adventure. Today I  ducked out of all my commitments and instead came to Glasgow to the funeral of a lovely lady who took me 'under her wing' in 2011 when I was hiding out in a flat in Glasgow trying not to meet anyone while I wrote up my PhD. Her granddaughter did a eulogy where she said that her grandmother loved people. She loved feeding them, helping them, supporting them, phoning them up to see that they were ok - and that she could tell by all the nods in the room that her hunch was right, that everyone had that sort of connection with the lady. After the funeral I wandered round the strangely named 'Western Necropolis' looking for my grandparents, till i was advised to check the painstakingly researched Scottish Jewish Cemeteries websit...

Hello ‘Fiona is travelling’ fans, new readers and 'passing trade' I’m writing this on my last day of a two week return to Cleire Goats , my friend Ed’s goat farm on  Cape Clear Island in the Republic of Ireland. It’s been a pretty momentous two weeks - with four births - three twins (one little goat didn’t survive but the other six are doing ok) ... one little kid separating from the herd and getting lost - we looked for him till it went dark the first day, and all morning the second day, till our opposite neighbour called to say he’d heard a strange bleating noise in his garden! one of yesterday's twins the little escapee I’m exhausted and elated from working on the farm since I’ve been here - it’s still completely beautiful , you get to see the sea and the mainland on the walk from the farmhouse to the goatsheds and the light and colours change every hour.   I was in bed this morning listening to a gale blowing outside ... let’s hope the...

In this blog - a bit of an  update , two  announcements  and an  invitation   Thank you so much for your support and encouragement over the past months. This year has been pretty brilliant and I’m so glad I pushed myself to do my Six Months Travelling Adventure - at the end of the year I’m broke but happy! I’ve been back in the UK now for exactly eight weeks. It’s been an odd time. The main thing that has changed is that I absolutely don’t want anything to do with any of the stuff that I packed away in the storage unit before I went away. My lovely tenants and I shared a storage unit, they put their furniture in there and I put my ‘things’ in. And none of us have been quick to empty the unit! I’ve been three times and taken a handful of things like the microwave, sheets, cutlery...and have a list of about 20 other things that I’d quite like to keep. But apart from that, I’m just not interested in surrounding myself with all the books and other ‘stuff’ tha...

I’ve been back in the UK for a week and a half, back in my house for nine days. And still feel very peculiar and different, somehow. The main thing is that I am having an aversion to ‘things’. Johnny and Charlie, my tenants, and I, shared a storage unit when I went away - I put all my ‘things’ in it and left them my furniture, and they stored their furniture in it. I now have a real resistance to unpacking the stuff: I’ve written a list of about five things that I’d really like - my dressing gown, some towels and sheets, my sewing kit ... but I can’t imagine what all the other stuff can possibly be and why I accumulated it. I certainly haven’t needed it over the last six months and to be honest can’t imagine why I would ever need it again.    I feel like this is a very important place to be in my life, so I’ve decided to keep the storage unit on till the end of the year which will give me a bit more time to decide what’s going to happen.  I already did the ‘Mari Condo...