I’ve wanted to go to Morocco ever since I started writing my second book, Who’s Got The Biscuits. A tad late for research but not for marketing. The first place I needed to visit was a Souk. If you’ve read the book you’ll know that’s where Janine gets…. Ah, no spoilers 😂
I had to have a Gandora as I’ve wanted one ever since I watched Lawrence of Arabia years ago😉. The Moroccan people are just lovely and I received a lot of compliments while I was wandering around making marketing videos. Did you know I was a TikTok Creator? 😂😂 The hotel we stayed in was excellent, with great rooms, views, and food.
But you know how I love the trails. So we contacted a local guide and at 7:30 am began our assault on El Gouz in the Atlas range. It was only 12k, but as mountains tend to go up, it was rather steep.
We met a couple of friends on the way and they stayed with us for the entire day.
Once at the top the views were spectacular and well worth the 4 hour climb up there.
So, mission accomplished, fascinating adventure, great seaside runs, cultural experiences and lots of research and marketing material.
Sally and I had been running Night Owls, the largest Mobile Disco company in Yorkshire for five years. In the December of 2000 we had thirty mobile rigs in the store and had hired thirty five DJ’s. Christmas parties were at an all time high and we did 308 functions that December. We’d managed to get away a few times, visiting Kenya and Sri Lanka, but they were brief visits and I always felt disappointed when we left.
I was still running, completing several half marathons in a time of one and a half hours. I’d joined the local gym and taken up Kickboxing, but after two years, and in my forties, it was getting tough. One night I broke three ribs, which kinda hampered installing disco rigs, so I called it a day. The next challenge was to climb the National Three peaks in 36 hours with the boxing club.
We had a great time, but it got me to thinking. There was more to life.
Sally and I were at loggerheads, she fancied selling up and settling down with ordinary jobs. So inevitably we sold the business, paid my old bosses off and went our seperate ways, all very amicable and everyone happy. But I needed a plan, so as breather, I rented a small flat in Boston Spa and worked the night shifts for my old kickboxing instructor who owned a security business. That was fun, especially one night when I came across a guy in a lorry park, slitting open the side of a lorry with a knife. Sadly he managed to get away. I’d been single for a while and had two ideas for the future. One – Buy a smallholding in France from where I could get anywhere in Europe. Two – Rejoin the Foreign Legion if I could get away with lying about my age 😂 It was around this time I reconnected with Gillian. We’d met in 1990. I’d made a few moves on her at the time, but she was engaged and I was rebuffed 😂. After she married and Sally and I became an item, we all became close friends, but she’d divorced in 2000, and moved to Bracknell as Operation Manager of Oakley Court Hotel, which had been used for the Hammer House of Horrors back in the day. We got on famously, even though we were in different parts of the country. Eventually I moved to Bracknell and as a stopgap took a job as a Carpenters hand (labourer)
Surprisingly I enjoyed having a proper job and working on a constuction site. After six months I qualified as a Level 2 Site carpenter, a year later I took my Level 3 and the boss made me a foreman with my own site. Gillian and I married, and everything was hunky dory.
But there was something niggling at me and one day I saw an advert for Prison Officers to train and work at Feltham Young Offenders prison. TBC 😂
When the apple picking ended I needed something to occupy me until December. And then? I hear you ask. The plan was to head to Greece for some orange picking. I got a message from my niece remember her?
She was now married with three children, just moved into a house in Lincoln, and needed a bathroom tiling, a patio laying and rooms decorated. So in exchange for food and board we travelled to Lincoln, and I began work. Oh! Did I mention I built a rabbit ramp and taught them to climb? 😂The time passsed very quickly and it was great to catch up. But a circular patio, a bit of painting, and tiling doesn’t take long.
By November I needed to crack on, but it was too early for Greece so I contacted my old disco boss. Christmas parties were looming and I knew he’d be desparate for DJ’s. I was right, he immediately offered his caravan at his base for Sally and myself. I could do as many disco’s as I wanted, and he’d pay me to help install the rigs. We arrived on 20th November at 4pm. The first thing he said was. “Take my business off me, please!” They had had enough. The new manager hadn’t worked out, and believe it or not, it was a stressfull business. Especially in December when we would be expected to carry out over 200 events. The venues I had secured during the recession would possibly give you one wedding a week. But in December they could have up five function rooms operating every night, full with Christmas parties, and as the resident disco company you were expected to supply the entertainment for all of them. By 7pm Sally and I were in the pub discussing the logistics. We decided it was an interesting offer, there was only one problem, we didn’t have any money 😂.
We went back and I offered them a deal. I would pay them a certain amount each year for ten years. I would get a mortgage through the business and move the entire operation away. In other words they could retire. I got us through that December “94” (Could be a song there 😂) And the following Spring we found a house with a huge workshop and a swimming pool attached. The only problem was the huge garden, but hey! I could get a gardener to sort that😂
I had ideas for the pool. I knocked a door through from the workshop to allow for loading, and boarded the pool over to make a store. And voila! From humble apple picker six months ago, I was now the owner of the largest disco business in the North of England 😂
Our new home was a field. It was an apple farm after all. We were the first to arrive, and the boss told us it would be few days before we would start work. Funds were low, so we had jam sandwiches for lunch and salad every day for dinner. Luckily the blackberries were ripe so a late summer evening walk provided us with a pudding. Eventually the field filled with prospective apple pickers and we started work. He paid £40 for every crate you filled and I was managing four per day. Sadly it started to rain on the first day and continued for over three weeks, the cheap Argos tent leaked and we had to put the duvet in the hop house to dry each day.
There was a great mixture of people, Scots, English, and an Italian lad. When you pick an apple you can’t dig your fingers in, you must use the palm of your and gently twist it off. When you drop the apples into the crate it has to be done gently. These are key rules to prevent bruising. Everyday an inspector picks three apples from your crate, ripens them overnight and if you have bruised apples three days on the trot you’re fired. The young Italian sang. He sang all day as he tugged the fruit from the tree and slammed it into the crates. The inspector returned every morning and gave him a warning. As entertaining as it was, I tried to tell my Italian friend, but in return he would say. “Va tutto bene, è tutto bellissimo,” and smile. They fired him on the third day. Because of the continuing damp weather Sally’s asthma got worse and she became quite ill. I looked in the local paper and found a proper tent for £30. I picked it up and erected it the same night. It was larger and older than I had anticipated and the next day the farmer enquired as to who had built a house in his field.
At least Sally was dry and she took a few days off. The two Scottish lads were the next to be fired. On their last night they told me they had sneaked into the barn and urinated on the crates in retaliation. I’ve never eaten a Cox’s Pippin since.😂 The apples you pick in September are stored and go on sale the following year, just in case you wonder why fresh apples go off so quickly. By the end of September there were only two of us left. It rained on our final morning as we attacked the last remaing trees. The farmer paid us and we retired to the pub for a hearty meal. I’d made just short of £700, but it had rained everyday. We sat by the fire and chatted as we ate. As the sweet arrived the sun broke out across the countryside. 😂
It was time to say goodbye. I had an idea to drive down to Greece and pick oranges, but the winter harvest was in full swing from November to January and offered the highest number of available jobs. What to do until November? I knew something would pop up. After all it always did, didn’t it?
We had guests over for the weekend from the south and thought it would be a good idea to take them to Whitby. Whitby Abbey is a great land mark. While we usually think of the iconic Whitby Abbey falling into ruin due to King Henry VIII or centuries of brutal North Sea weather, it actually survived a direct naval attack. On December 16, 1914, the German Navy launched a surprise raid on the Yorkshire coast. Whitby was hit by over a dozen shells in a matter of minutes. The coastguard station was targeted, and several shells struck the beautiful sandstone walls of the abbey itself.
Gillian had made a lovely picnic, and so my fish and chips plan was thwarted. When I last picnicked out in the wilds, a seagull had appeared from nowhere. This time I felt the edge of a graveyard would be safe, and the feathered beggars were nowhere to be seen. Of course once the food is laid out it’s kinda inevitable.
The small church has a sign that says: “Please don’t ask staff where Dracula’s grave is. There isn’t one!” 😂 After my post last year you’re all familiar with the fact that Dracula came ashore at Whitby disguised as a dog, so I won’t repeat myself, but he’s still here in the Dracula museum, after all these years.
Of course the Goths have made it their Jerusalem (might be a bit dramatic there, but I am supposed to be a writer😂) Walking through the streets this past Saturday, I couldn’t help but think about how this town transforms into a sea of spectacular outfits every Spring and Autumn for the Whitby Goth Weekend.
Whatever the weather, whatever your situation is, Whitby is always a great place to visit. Our guests loved it!
Torquay was a beautiful town, but we arrived in 1993 with £25 to our name. I thought (foolishy) if I went to the Social Security I might get some help. But without an address it was unlikely, also I’d need one to get a job. So by the end of the day I’d sold the van for £300, bought a newspaper, picked the cheapest bedsit on offer, and I was in the office of Alfred Marks recruitment agency being interviewed for a job at the NHS Hospital laundry in Newton Abbott. The problem was it was shift work and I had no transport. The lady told me her daughter was selling her bicycle for £30, sorted. The day after, I was cycling an 18 mile round trip up and down seven hills to start work at 6am.
Early starts meant early finishes so I could be in the gym by 3pm and get a run in before teatime. The laundry was entertaining, no disrepect to the residents of Newton Abbot but it was a little ‘run down’ As an example: one day as we put sheets through the drier a chap said, “These don’t have a label, write the name of where it’s going on some paper. You’ll have to write it and take it to Raymond.” He was taking the laundry off at the other end. “You write it because I can’t write.” As I set off with said paper he shouted after me. “You’ll have to read it out, Raymond can’t read!” It was a hard winter cycling with plastic bags over my feet and hands and a binliner over my shoulders. Yup, hospital launderies didn’t pay much 😂 Sally landed a job as assistant manager at a hotel, Frognell Hall and by Spring of 1994 life was ok. I enrolled in a Karate class and took up a Combat Course on Sundays
The hospital laundry agency job came to an end and I was offered a job as breakfast waiter and barman at Frognell Hall by the owner Lynne. This suited me, as I got to run after breakfast and spend the rest of the day on the beach. We’d rented a cottage not far from the hotel and had no need for a vehicle. Torquay had small buses called Hoppers. They ran every 7 mins and it was £1 to go anywhere. But alas, all things must come to an end. After a falling out with the husband of the hotel owner. I guess not everyone can like you… that’s a clowns job. I decided to move on and there was good money to be made apple picking in Kent, but that didn’t start until September, I needed something for 6 weeks. I had been in contact with my sister, they had just moved to a new farm and there was a lot of work needed doing. So it was agreed in return for food and lodgings, Sally and I would travel up to Yorkshire and work on the farm. Time passed quickly and September soon arrived. It was time to head to Kent I had three addresses of farmers who employed apple pickers, an old Hillman Hunter Estate and a two man tent from Argos.
This looked like fun. But you never really know until you get there? Happy Trails, Folks x
The wind whistled through the narrow arrow slits, and the crows cawed as they circled above. My eyes are locked upon the empty space between the inner and outer walls below, where men must have bled out in battle centuries ago. I was deep in thought when she slapped a hand on my shoulder. “There you are! I was looking everywhere!” To say I was startled is a huge understatement, but she thought it was funny. Carcassone 1992.
After Paris I decided to head south. Fruit picking seemed the obvious choice for work, after all I was an accomplished grape harvester, and I figured there’d be more work in the south. We visited Carcassonne because it’s a famous castle, and it was used for the movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. We all like a bit of Costner don’t we? And who can forget Alan Rickman?
But it was time to make some money. Now, at the time my French was pretty good, at least speaking it was. We camped in a field owned by Fred and Elsie, they might have been called Raphaël and Geneviève, but I thought Fred and Elsie suited them far better. They told me to go to the market at 5am and speak to les producteurs. For those of you who aren’t fluent in the language these are the producters 😂 In other words Growers. Upon arrival I headed directly for the cafe and asked the owner, in my best French, where I could find les producters . He kinda shouted about three sentences. This was my first inkling that speaking French and understanding French are actually two different things. I gave him a smile, in truth I probably looked ‘gaumless’ and left. We asked a few producters if they had any work but to no avail. A few days later I called in on a farm, the farmers wife leaned from the window and I asked if there was any work. She spoke for about five minutes, as I listened attentively. I thanked her and returned to the van. Sally asked me what she had said. I looked at her and said. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” 😂 Without labouring the story this was the overriding theme for the next four months.
One day we had a crash. Who puts traffic lights behind a tree? Later, after we had swopped details, I realised my insurance had run out. Luckily I had a friend back in England who could be described as ‘Shonky’ Liz Makenzie describes the word very well on her blog Mywordshare. He sent me a backdated insurance certificate three days later. Shortly after that the van was broken into, strangely all they stole was my income tax documents which I had intended to complete, en route. I’m not sure if that would make my tax debt null and void, but at least I had a witness in Sally. 😉
After four months it began to dawn on me that this wasn’t Gran Canaria, we couldn’t go fishing, and Sally wasn’t Peter, although she was having fun (stop it! we’ll keep this a family show 😂) she was getting a little fed up. Decent amenities were rare, plus we were running out of money. So my offer to return to England was well recieved. But I couldn’t go back to where I’d come from. I looked at a map and decided that Torquay, Devon had a certain attraction. After all, in 1815 Napoleon Bonarparte gazed from HMS Bellerphon at the Torbay coastline and said “Quel bon pays,” comparing it to Porto Ferrajo on the island of Elba. Hence the term, The English Riviera. If It was good enough for the little corporal, it was good enough for me. I was sure some form of adventure could be extracted from the place. 😉
I had two weeks before we were due at the ferry terminal in Hull and decided a rest would be in order. I booked a week in Gambia for Sally and myself. I’d never had a holiday but now, years later, I’m told my life has been one big holiday. Gambia in 1993 was one of the poorest African nations with a small tourist industry. We were instructed to never leave the hotel compound. A young man, Ebrahim, who squeezed and sold grapefruit juice on the beach, offered to take us out and show me around. So we sneaked out, hopped on a bus and went for a look round.
It was obvious there was a rising tension, the place had an atmosphere, and subsequently there was a military coup a year later. We visited his family home and met Charlie the crocodile at the Kachikally Crocodile Pool. Another boy, Cultural, worked the beach selling cannabis. These boys, or “bumsters” as they were called had a scam going. Ebrahim warned me about the scam, but made me promise to tell no one that I was aware or that he had told me, otherwise he would be beaten. The “bumsters” would sell you the cannabis and immediately afterwards signal a corrupt policeman. He would then threaten you with the infamous Mile 2 Prison, the Gambia’s notoriously grim maximum, security jail unless you paid a fine. You would then be marched to your hotel safe and he would take all the money you had. Drugs were never my thing anyway but I had some very interesting chats with Cultural, during his various sale pitches. These ranged from Bob Marley, Rastafarianism, to Nelson Mandela, as he claimed he was South African with a Jamaican accent. Ebrahim later told me he was from a local village. 😂
We returned home and I began to get rid of everything that wouldn’t fit in my camper van. Finally, all I had left was my Snap-On tool chest, weights and diving gear. I dropped them off in a secondhand shop for a half decent price. When I laid everything out the bloke asked. “Who are you? Rambo?” 😂
The following day we docked in Zeebruggue and drove straight to Paris. It was rush hour and driving around and around the Arc de Triomphe trying to find the correct exit was so much fun, some very angry drivers over there! There was an amzing restaurant I needed to visit, Nos Ancêtres les Gaulois, you paid 18francs, which covered your meal and unlimited wine. At the end of the evening each table broke into song. One table began to sing “On Ilkley Moor Baht ‘at, its an old Yorkshire song that tells of advice given to a young man who courts Mary Jane on Ilkley Moor without his hat. I asked if they were from Yorkshire ? But it turned they were from Holland, go figure.
We had an enjoyable five days exploring, but then it was time to move on and find some work! I needed to head south. Next stop Carcassone…
Malham Tarn hike is quite lovely, probably lovlier when the sun is shining. But we decided to go on the first rainy day of the summer. These hikes have taken a different turn these days. Now I see them as potential TikTok posts, apparently I am an influencer 😂 My last Godfather post on TikTok\Instagram recieved 5,000 views, not as many as Lady GaGa yet but I’ve noticed that in the six months I’ve been doing it I’ve sold 2-3 books a month. Not a lot but 2-300% more than previously 😂 Anyaways I digress. Just over 4miles it was an interesting walk. Apparently Malham Tarn was formed 10,000 years ago.
As you hike futher on you get a good view of the cliffs opposite the Tarn with a pleasant hike up onto the moor, and some visible wildlife but they were quite still😉
There were some eerie looking houses on the way. With, I figured, a certain Miss Haversham interior as they looked deserted.
Places like this are great for pondering, and I do like a good ponder. In fact if I wrote as much as I pondered I’d probabably have ten books finished by now 😂 Once we got up onto the top I was surprised to find a smelt mill. Built in 1815 by Lord Ribbelsdale to process lead, copper and zinc.
Even with the inclement weather it was a good day out. With ice cream at the end. The scenery fit with our current viewing as we are watching the final season of Outlander. If you’re familiar with it the heroine passes backwards and forwards through time by pacing her hands on the “Stones” I gave it a try but as Gillian remarked. “Oh! you’re still here!”
As a DJ (that’s a different story) I spent a lot of time around York, (or as the locals call it “Yark”) but not much sight seeing. So we decided to visit, walk the walls and grab a bite to eat. The Roman fort dates back to 71 AD, but the actual walls were built in the 13th and 14th centuries. And you thought I was old?
Whenever I visit places like this I get inspired, at least I like to think I do. Five caesars visited York unless you count Constantine but he was already there when he was proclaimed Emperor, so I guess the Romans were quite fond of the place. I have to admit the only one I know is Hadrian but I always thought he was a bricklayer. It’s 5k to walk all the way round, and there is a great view of the rear of York Minster it was wooden originally in 627 AD, turned to stone by the Normans in 1080, but the one we see now was built 1220 to 1472.
It gives you time to think, and I got a TikTok video out of it. You’ve probably realised by now this isn’t a lesson in history 😂 I did get some ideas for the new book though.
After the walls I got my reward. Food, there always has to be food involved with any trip or else I don’t go 😂 This time it was the Ivy, which is related to the one in London. I’ve been there. There’s something about these places, where writers and artists frequented in the 1920s. The Ivy in York is a spin off from the one in London, and the food and service is amazing.
I like to eat vegetarian sometimes when I go out as I’m a bit of a carnivore at home. This time I went with a Cheese Soufle and a Sweet Potato Curry. A pint of Guinness, half a bottle of Merlot and a double Jack Daniels. Well, c’mon a day off training? I may as well enjoy it 😂
That’s probably my last treat for a while as it’s the Yorkshire Three Peaks run in five weeks. Twenty four miles and 5,200 feet of elevation.
