Come on 2023

 I am finally starting to feel like I can fly again

The last few years have been tough and coming out of the fog this year I was wondering whether to start tours again or not. I was egged on by previous guests and now I am finally very excited that I decided to give it a go.

What I like about my tour work

•        The research… what is there, where is it, history, what is the view from local eyes.
•        I love to read like crazy, quiz the internet until my fingers are numb, ask questions on the ground
•        Visiting and sitting, watching people [ not stalker like- should I say people watching, is that better?]
•       You learn a lot just sitting and letting the world happen around you
•        Wander the streets at sunrise, watch the world wake up- it is generally all locals not visitors
•        Making connections, meeting artisans
•        Learning new textile and craft skills
•        Being influenced/inspired by what I see in what I make myself
•       Eating, getting a feel for local specialties

Basically, I am a sticky beak, and my job encourages that 😊

-        Tours mean I get to share this with others, nothing better than knowing something wonderful is coming up and watching your guests as it unfolds.

-        I love the feedback I hear from guests about what worried them before a trip, what they learnt during and how it impacts their world view.

Mostly my tours are to the Developing World and a comment I have heard often is a fear of facing the poverty.

I realised early in my travels we are all very similar whether privileged or impoverished and some of the most content people I have met have had to work the hardest to put food on the table and they are some of the most generous too.

When I first moved to India, I used to work in a Street Kids Programme, we would help get kids into school, meet them after, help with homework and then feed them lunch.

Down the road were the parents of one of these children, they worked together over a tiny forge as metalworkers. They had a small lunch box with them and skerrick for lunch and every time I went by, they smiled and would try to feed me! I learnt a lot about being happy in the day to day and the small pleasures of the day from those people.

They had almost nothing- like really nothing and yet exuded a contentment and a generosity that was a lesson for me.

There is poverty in the dollars and cents way and there is a poverty of the soul that comes from lack of appreciation of the world around us.

When I first went to India it was the Made by Hand aspect that really hooked me.

The crafts and textiles are all hand work- active sectors of the community. Akshardham Temple was just being finished- built mostly by volunteers and representing millions of hours of labour – it is all made by hand, carved by hand and extraordinarily beautiful.

The story that fuels my Rajasthan Tour is the Made by Hand

After Indian Tours started, I had a group of students at a textile retreat say they wanted to go to Vietnam, and said I would be just the person to find textiles and take them… it seemed a bit of a challenge but I had put in a lot of thought into what I wanted to offer in India so I knew the bones of what I was looking for.

Praveen and I went on a jaunt to Vietnam in 2007, wondering what we would find…. Lots of poking around but we forged connections and cobbled together a support system that still flourishes.

My Moroccan foray unfolded in a different manner….

In Delhi you will find the Lodhi Gardens, the style of architecture in those monuments I had heard was similar to those found in Andalusian Spain from the time the Islamic World linked Spain to India. The story of Ibn Buttar’s 14 century travels linked the places for me and I wanted this trip to have a real sense of travel.

It is exactly what we do…travel through Moorish Spain, off the most southern tip of Europe- Tarifa, cross where the Pillars of Hercules must have once spanned [Strait of Gibraltar] to another continent, the lands of mystery -Africa.  To me it always feels like such an adventure just getting to Morocco.

This is the first time I saw Morocco in the distance [it is there in the mist] and this guy was standing there looking out from Tarifa in Spain with longing- it had a great impact on me and influenced my desire to follow this route to Morocco.

these stories also had me fired up

Then winding through the beautiful landscape of Morocco itself. I Love a bit of travel with lots of craft and textiles thrown in and a bit of storytelling on top. My Moorish Delights of Andalusia and Morocco is just such an adventure

Just before the pandemic I started working on the idea of collaborating with others…. Using my connections and tours to host tutors and making a movable workshop experience.

That idea is finally starting to take off, and I feel very excited to be working with some great people- we will travel together and develop a creative record of our travels.

 

Jo Beal is fun to travel with, we've enjoyed her company a number of times and loved watching her work on her travel journals, now we will get to create one too.

Gillian Travis has been a mate for years, I am always so inspired by her travels and well as her creative work.... now we are offering the opportunity for people to travel and create with her. 

For years I have had the idea of stitched travel journals but too busy to really start. My Vietnam Scroll is underway, and I am working the leaves of a Morocco Travel Journal, ready to take with me and stitch into as I travel.  Very happy to see these start to come together.

 

Vietnam Scroll

My Moroccan Journal is in kit form at the moment- I have been fiddling and looking at what is possible.....

Handmade paper and ephemera I collect along the way can be stitched in.... permanent markers and Inktense pencils are good for little sketches

It is small enough to be easy to carry and stitch into.... very pleased to finally get out of my imagination and into my hands to work on....