For a while now, the front page of NilAligned, which dynamically reflects our movements over the previous few weeks, has shown nothing but Norfolk...

April has been the lightest posting month since Purple Tern began. (The Velvet Cushion, on the other hand, has been flourishing, and Vintage Travel has been born. Definitely signs of less-travelled times...)

And, just as was the case at the end of last month, we are still going absolutely nowhere...

It doesn't do to think about this too hard.

If I do, I start to feel angry and trapped and scared. Here we are, still stuck, with life dripping by. What if my cancer comes back before we ever manage to get back on the road? Or some other damn travel-impeding thing strikes one of us down? How, in that case, would we not bitterly resent this time spent in lockdown limbo?


Although it absolutely doesn't help to let your thoughts run in that direction, I can't always stop myself.

I can't always interrupt the brief metamorphosis into a wild-eyed, snorting, pawing, rearing horse, desperate to kick the stable door down.

But so far at least, I've been able to exert the will-power to tighten the reins, and wrench the animal back to the more productive pastures of hope and gratitude.

We're still alive. That's something never to be taken for granted. Because of this ruthless virus, at least 26,488 people in Britain are not.

And while we're alive, there's still hope. Hope that the world will one day open up again... Hope that the feel-good stories -- like the one today about Colonel Tom -- will somehow keep us connected despite our atomized existence.

We're also still here, in the beautiful land of flint churches, dinky villages, and jolly beach huts:





And Spring has been spectacularly purple:









The bluebells are wonderful here:



And we're following the development of the lilac and the rhododendrons with interest:




Meanwhile, my quest for pseudo-travel kept me very busy and engaged over April.

I'm really enjoying learning Manx, the language of my homeland. A bonus has been listening to the Manx accents of the instructors on the English bits of the recordings. This is truly the sound of childhood...

And it's always interesting to appreciate the "culture" behind language courses.

When I learned a bit of Maori, for example, I loved that you started off not by learning transactional stuff -- no point, really, given that English is the language you'd use to buy a cup of coffee or hire a car in New Zealand -- but rather with your whakapapa, which is your genealogy, an account of where you belong. This is our river, our hill. These are our ancestors. This is where I fit into the world.

In Manx, the background culture emerges less specifically. But it is very much there. The answer to the question "how are you?", for example, might indeed be "braew" (fine). But it's more likely to be "mie dy liooar" (good enough) or "castreycair" (middling). No self-respecting Manx person wants to tempt fate by admitting to too much good fortune...

And, no disrespect to the Island's weather, but I think it's significant that very early on you learn to say it's "geayeeagh" (windy), "fliugh" (wet), and "ceau fliaghey" (literally, throwing rain). You also learn a question that's not unique to the Island setting, but is an essential conversation starter anywhere in the British Isles: "Vel oo aarloo son y Nollick foast?" (Are you ready for Christmas yet?)


Hindi (I'm not really learning Hindi) is fascinating too, at the moment largely because of the gorgeous letters, and the connections with other languages (I'm still way too much a beginner to appreciate any cultural connections).


I'm also loving my film project. It's teaching me the value of a second. It's reminding me all over again of the joys of the ordinary. It's helping me to think differently about movement and colour and angles. (This, in case you missed it, is the one with the first eight days, and this one takes us up to the end of April.)

And I have a new replacement-travel project coming up... I'm going to "shadow" last year's 10-week journey from London to Baku.

I always felt I hadn't had enough time to digest the trip. As soon as it was over, we were full-tilt into finding somewhere to live, battling with insurance companies, dealing with smoke pollution, and adjusting to low-carbdom.

I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to do it yet. Obviously, lots of reading will be involved, but I don't want to produce only Velvet Cushion-type reviews. I need to relate what I did THEN to what I'm living and experiencing NOW. Hmmm. Watch this space.

In the meantime, go purple: