"Hello and welcome..." debtravers's Profile

When reading up on Burma on the net, I found this picture of a rock formation near a lake. The photo can only be taken on a specific day once a year when the sun rays touch the rocks at a certain angle. Look at it sideways....Genuine? Maybe not, but a beautiful picture nonetheless.

Oke is small, friendly town where the shop ladies call you 'love' and people still say thankyou more than is really necessary....several good pubs where you can chat and while away Sunday afternoons when its raining and not much you fancy doing other than drinking a decent pint.....great location on the northern edge of Dartmoor..handy too, for north and south coast beaches and Cornwall...we even have a castle (whats left of it) that is one of the oldest/largest in Devon....haunted too by one Lady Howard who married four times and allegedly murdered all her husbands, drives her carriage, (ahead of which runs a skeletal black one-eyed hound), made of her husbands bones between here and Tavistock every night, she has to pluck a blade of grass from Oke park every journey and when she's picked every blade she will be free..... the castle fell into ruin when that old rascal Henry VIII beheaded the owner...

ice sculpture at Sapporo ice fest 2006

Good karma...I try to live my life where I don't do to others what I wouldn't want done to me..... to be kind, courteous, tolerant and caring...and help where its possible and to love my family. I firmly believe that bad things people do will come back at them tenfold, if not in this life then maybe the next... Life is too short to harbour grudges about past grievances... and you need a light heart and soul to travel happily (oh, and a light pack & heavy wallet helps too...!)

Lluc monastery, Mallorca

I like...Getting lost in a good book......Locking the front door behind me as I set off on a new journey........ People watching .....Champagne....Chocolate.....Walking through leaves in the autumn....Sitting by the sea and watching the waves..... Log fires on cold days...Going to the pub.....Staying in and snuggling up....Laughing... Eating seafood... Waking up and remembering its sunday...Snow...Singing in the car whilst driving...Ice-cream sundaes......Fireworks...Irish accents...Cheese & onion crisps...

I do not like......... Liver (eurgh!)..... Arrogant people...Shopping....Housework....Snakes... Conflict...Going to the dentist (aaargh)... Bad Manners... Feeling shy...Time slipping away...

bird**** church aka San simeone piccolo

Losing our tent during a mother of a thunderstorm in Maine....Then boyfriend getting sick in Yugoslavia and trying to find a doctor...Getting held up at knife-point in Tangiers - all for a bottle of water...Walking through Venice early one morning covered in pigeon **** after sleeping in a church doorway...Having a stray cat get into our tent in spain and peeing all over our stuff...Ending up in Harlem after catching the wrong train on a boozy night out in NY...Realising the advertised 'shower' was having to haul water from a well to pour into a bucket full of holes...Getting an eye infection and having to use my friend as my 'white stick' til I could see again!...Having to jump hastily from the lorry we'd stupidly hitched a ride in when the driver got a little too 'friendly', at night in the middle of nowhere (dumb dumb dumb!)..

Being 'adopted' by the Italian family camping next to us after getting hassled by guys once too often...Bombing along in a Fiat 500 we hitched a ride in, knees to chin, backpacks in too...Getting to sleep in a warm log cabin after losing our tent in a storm...Wallowing in HOT volcanic water in an onsen whilst it snowed all around us...Getting dressed up to the nines and having a cocktail on the 107th floor of the World Trade Centre...

Sapporo snow festival 2006

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an off-hand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today
And then the one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
And shorter of breath and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter, never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desparation is the English way
The time is gone the song is over, thought I'd something more to say

Has to be the one city people seem to either love or hate....... Venice! I've visited this unique city six times over the past 25 years and still I'm entranced by her... not yet managed to get here in February for the 'carnevale' but one day....