Hey Bob G, a heart warming 'dicky bird' video ...............

[SydneyRover]

It's 25min but everything is well done from the editing, camera work to the incidental music.

''Between Moon Tides: hacking nature to save the saltmarsh sparrow''

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/09/wildlife-conservation-america-endangered-birds-saltmarsh-sparrows-rhode-island-rising-seas-climate

Hope you can fit it into your travel schedule.

[BobG]

Hi Sydney. Thanks. Didn't know anything about that. I shan't ever be going there though. I'm never going go to to the US again.

BobG

[SydneyRover]

No problems Bob, tell me about your travels what are you up to atm.

[BobG]

Lol. I'm sat sitting here. But I've got an idea I'd really like to follow up - Algeria: visiting the Ahagger Mountains and Tamanrassat. Two really interesting places. Expensive though as I'll need to hire a guide and a jeep and pay all the expenses. The Ahagger are a long way into the Sahara. But I've been spending a fortune this year organising and changing the status of various assets so they are less of a problem when I pop my clogs. Once that's settled down I'm going to re-assess the old bank accounts and go from there. Lol. Still want to go to Chile and the Far East again too.....

Bob

Later: and if it's ever possible, both Venezuela and Russia as well. I could spend a year in Russia....

Or what about Ait Ben Haddou in Morocco....? That place is surely a must.

[SydneyRover]

I read a comic as a kid about a guy called The Flame i think (but will stand to be corrected) and his adventures set in Algeria and wanted to go there, alas not to be, yet.

Vietnam is an exiting place, we've been back a couple of times but not recently. You can enter through China in the north or via Cambodia in the south through the delta or directly into any of the airports of course.

Any place you're at is interesting, we got off the le tren in Rennes yesterday and are having a great time. Good food, interesting buildings from the medieval times. To cap that off we have just arrived back at the digs after watching a murmuration of starlings virtually overhead in the middle of town, it was fantastic so close.

Get your financials sorted and get on the move.

[BobG]

 

Yup. You're dead right. Just driving around the Cotswolds I keep finding little places I've never heard of but fall in love with. I played bridge last week in a village called Coates. Nice place, but the best bit is it's the southern end of what was for ages the longest tunnel in Britain: Sapperton tunnel. A canal tunnel opened in 1789. It's over 2 miles long - and has no towpath. Boats had to be 'legged' through it. Bet their thigh muscles were huge... I think even today there's only 2 tunnels in Britain that are longer.

Anyway, reading .gov about Algeria isn't too nice. And I've  a mate who's been around North Africa. They're both saying it's a bit fraught. People keep telling me to go to Namibia if I want desert - which I do. But...

Lots to see and do in France. If you're  ever near the central part of the Loire look out for the Abbaye de  Fontevrault - it's only 12 miles from Chinon. It's reachable from Tours, Anger and Saumur too. A proper surprise who's  buried there. Multiple whos actually.

Bob

PS. 20 years ago there was a regular and large murmuration near the old railway works in Swindon. Haven’t seen it in years though...