The waters of Tyne.

The first post of two thousand and twenty-two nearly remained unwritten. Slowly over the years, the feedback has dried up and I question the efficacy of pouring one’s heart out into a void. The world of Covid hysteria and the end of freedom of movement has shaken my foundations and almost destroyed the seamless adventuring to which I have become accustomed over these past years.

Fighting spirit, crossing from Denmark to Germany in 2021.

Returning to the river of my childhood has left me fractious and filled with a sense of doom. This country has become a fear-filled, sordid, suspicious place full of denial and simmering rage with a majority of folk succumbing unquestioningly to blatant propaganda from a bought and paid for mainstream media and bent politicians who have made small fortunes by investing and speculating on Big Pharma medical practices. Any opposition or questioning of this wave of ignorance is met with sloganeering and ridicule. People seem to have taken leave of their senses, and those who control us have managed to split us right down the middle. I’ve rarely seen a more desperately unhappy country.

Recently, a few folk have asked me when I will publish another post. I had considered wrapping the blog up, after all, the average attention span these days is diminutive at best; however, there are beautiful souls out there who have crossed my wake before now, and they are worth the effort. This is for you, my loyal friends.

Approaching the Tyne after two days at sea.

St Peters Marina has been my home since arriving in the Tyne last September and I have joined an interesting community of characters, mainly local. My original plan had been to winter in Inverness but that proved to be one step too far after an horrendous crossing of the North Sea, still smarting from my accident in the German Bight. I was shattered, so much so, that I have decided to spent another year licking my wounds and tending my poor old sailing boat, ‘Free’.

The world is changing so fast and I remain convinced that the forces of evil are firmly in control. The cost of fuel has accelerated to the point where I will not be able to leave the Tyne in the foreseeable future. Society is dancing to the tune of malevolence and I sense that we are being guided into a cashless, social credit type system along the lines of the Chinese model. Freedom could well become a thing of the past, a hazy, carefree time of free-spirited bliss. I feel the suffocating wall of nanny statism and health and safety culture closing down around us. What will become of the old adventurers now? These times are not sitting well with me; I have often felt that I was born a hundred years too late. A friend of mine suggested ‘a thousand’, and he may be correct!

My childhood town, South Shields on the left as ‘Free’ begins her River Tyne passage up to St Peter’s Marina.

What a wonderful life I have had since rejecting the rat race back in two thousand and six! I have so much gratitude for the beautiful (and not so beautiful) places that have graced my keel, throughout Europe and the British Isles. The list of incredible experiences and people will for ever be written in my heart.

Wanderlust defines my very being, and as long as I feel it, the wind will take me. My traveller blood, albeit small, seems to define my spirit. I find it so difficult to stay anywhere for very long; so recently I bought a wee camper van, a Mazda Bongo, to enable me to escape into the wilds of Northumbria and the occasional return to Scotland. The huge expense has left me reeling, unfortunately. I have been away from vehicle ownership for so long that I had no idea how much prices have risen , nevertheless, I did manage to return to Scotland for a wee sojourn, and visiting some old pals.

Near Dunure, on the Ayrshire Coast with ‘Romy’ my camper-van.

That brings me to the end of my first post of two thousand and twenty-two, the strangest of years, as we leap from one episode to another; the so-called pandemic, then a rather convenient war in the Ukraine, in which no one seems to be interested in peace. Am I the only one who feels we are being played? To be quite honest I am almost past caring. If folk are happy to to be lied to, disrespected and have their freedoms and human rights removed, well so be it. But please don’t start whining and complaining down the line when the world that so took for granted is no longer open for you.

Freedoms are hard won, taking years of bloodshed, courage and toil to realise, but alas, so easy to lose…

Is that where we are going?