About

The title of this blog is a line from Tolkien’s poem ‘I sit and think’. It reads thus:

I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago,
and people who will see a world that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.

Anyone that knows me will know that I’m a huge Tolkien fan, so it seemed only fitting to reference him in this new venture of mine; which is, of course, to be primarily about travel (ironically enough, Tolkien himself didn’t travel much). The tagline, as you can see, is a Jack Kerouac quote – another, very different writer who has without doubt also fueled my feelings of wanderlust over the past few years. While Tolkien’s works explore fantastical other worlds, Kerouac’s is very much in the gritty here-and-now. Travel, for me, is a unique mixture of these two traits, and something I hope to capture and relay through what I post here.

I hope you enjoy the journeys and adventures as much as I do!