Far far away....

I remember singing this in primary school so, sometime in the 1960s. Loved it and have wanted to go to Dubrovnik ever since...or at least the Adriatic.

I nearly got to the then Yugoslavia in 1973 when on Inter Rail* before one of the 4 girls travelling fell off the train at Trieste. We spent the day trying to 'spring' her from the Italian hospital she had been imprisoned in - only to have to miss out our day trip beyond the 'Iron Curtain'. We couldn't go to stay as one of the 4 didn't have insurance for an 'Iron Curtain' country. The remaining 3 of us did. What was the problem? What was going to happen to us in an 'Iron Curtain' country that meant that we'd have to claim insurance anyway...???

So nearly 40 years on - I'm getting to draw back the Iron Curtain (which is no longer there) and visit. In September this year I will at long last see the pearly Adriatic.


Far far away is my pearly Adriatic
Far far away, my pretty island home
Far far away is my lovely Isabella
Far far away from her I must roam

For I'm a sailor
Sailing right across the ocean
Tossed by the billows
Tossed by the foam
Chirry chirry birry I'm a sailor
Chirry chirry birry I'm a sailor
Chirry chirry birry I'm a sailor

Sailing away from home 


(Ok it is cheesy and completely wrong that small girls dressed in kilts sang this.....but it was 1960-something)

*Inter Rail: Unlimited travel by train for a month for £39 in 1973. We all did it that summer. We got so blase about meeting people we knew unexpectedly in locations across Europe that we actually ignored a love rival of my best friend's outside Venice Youth Hostel - we couldn't talk to her...oh no! Pal Jill had literally stolen her boyfriend on the 3 legged pub crawl that year. But that's an entirely different story! And when we passed two incredulous Aberdeen lads (ex-boyfriends actually) in Florence station while hurrying to catch our train, we just waved and went 'hi'. Their jaws dropped as they raced after us with 'amazing', 'wow - what a coincidence' 'gee' (but beginning with 'f') we just said 'yeah, whatever, can't stop got a train to catch. See ya'. 

Time to dream

I had a vivid dream last night.

That means I must have slept pretty well - something I don't seem to get much of these days.

I was at Disneyland or Disneyworld, however in true dream fashion it wasn't really Disney...

While waiting in line to get in - the queue stretching down a town high street and the entrance being much like a small cinema - customers could get on the free roller coaster ride over the whole park. I really felt like I was on a roller coaster. It was exhilarating but so scary I had to keep my eyes closed most of the time. Well, they were closed since I was, in reality, asleep.  I seemed to know this in my dream. Then I realised I didn't have the safety belt on. That's a pest, I thought. I might fall out.

I can't really remember the rest. Dreams are like that and very annoying for it. At the time, you have very real experiences which seem to make some sort of sense. Then when you wake up, you barely remember and can only grasp at small snatches of feelings and memories. They are odd.

I have often thought that dreaming is like database maintenance. Databases get a bit out of synch from time to time if they are not routinely 'cleansed' of some of the messy bits that get in the way of normal functioning. Sleep seems to have the same effect on the brain. The oddness of dreams mirrors the messy entries in a database that hasn't been through database maintenance routines. When we are sleeping we re-order some of the experiences and memories we have and sort them in to neater virtual piles, ready to recall when required. But this happens at a completely unconscious level.

Are we really just mega-computers that someone else invented? Are our brains just a mix of data and software, which was programmed thousands of years ago and which became self perpetuating? With the 'internet of things' taking our use of the internet to a new level it seems that practically anything is possible. Even true psychic behaviour. Are mediums just tuned into a pre-historic internet via their own personal wifi network?

Hmm. Perhaps.