Someone left the cake out in the rain, I don’t think that I can take it, ‘Cause it took so long to bake it. And I’ll never have that recipe again – Donna Summer
And today as we mark a historic milestone, the coming of the Messiah of Travel 55 years ago, a word on cakes, songs and one particular song, MacArthur Park.
My own party piece for a family birthday is to leave the cake outside on the patio table before cranking up the song and then bringing it inside.
But what of the location of Donna Summer’s disco masterpiece cover.
The story goes that composer Jimmy Webb wrote it about the break-up of his relationship with Susie Horton.
That they would meet regularly for lunch in the park opposite Susie’s insurance office near Downtown LA where I’ve seen first hand its cultural snd historic growth.
And that he did see a cake left out in the rain and the old men playing checkers by the trees.
Wings over Los Angeles
It’s a thing in the States, outdoors chess and checkers.
And on a family trip to New York the Son and Heir played with a dude who claimed to have played with Bobby Fischer.
And just saying in the passing Mrs M will surely find the recipe again…
And this Christmas will be glorious…. when King Billy comes trotting along on his charger.
Come again! I had a double take when I got news of the Christmas celebrations planned for the Boyne Valley in Ireland.
Which every schoolchild in the UK and Ireland knows is where William of Orange (King Billy) defeated King James VII of Scotland and James II of the UK (they’re the same person).
Every day’s a schoolday
Child’s play: And you’ll learn all about the famous battle
Every schoolchild, yes, but not every adult as one lass in my charge (I’ll call her Simone because that’s her name) thought that King James had won!
She tried to laugh it off by saying she didn’t pay much attention to history at school.
The Battle of the Boyne site is on your route up, or down, from Belfast to Dublin, just as it was back in 1690.
And it doesn’t matter which side of the religious divide you are on, we are all children of history after all.
Santa, stop here!
Love is a battlefield: The Boyne fields
Our friends in Discover Boyne Valley have been furnishing us with Santa’s movements but you’re as well to check out for yourself.
If he swaps his red robe for an orange one.
Once you get a taste for the Boyne Valley which is situated in Co. Meath, with Drogheda its main town, you’ll want more.
And this torturous pun is to entice you into the latest from Wendy Wu for 2021 with, eh, Cornish scones, jam and clotted cream.
No me either, but I’ll never turn my nose up at what Wendy and the gang send, with their Chinese New Year lunch in Dublin the stuff of legend.
So before we savour what Wendy Wu Tours have to offer in Asia, which will be the go-to destination in 2021, let’s try and explain Cornish scones.
Because this is a thing, with the English West Country counties of Cornwall and Devon taking very different stances on how they spread jam and cream on a scone.
Devon: The Devonians, in contrast, go the other way, cream on the bottom with a topping of cream.
Me, I don’t take cream, which meant more for the Scary One and Daddy’s Little Girl.
Twenty-Wendy One
A golden sun over Asia
But I digress, Wendy Wu Tours held a webinar today and showed again why they are the cream of the crop when it comes to Asian travel.
Wendy is all about the giving and to mark 26 years in business, which isn’t even a special milestone although still, kudos, she has this for us, her friends she invited here.
Free return flights on 26 of their best tours worldwide for 2021 and 2022 which will give you savings of £800.
And the last word is from Donald, a bit of a scoop from your favourite Travel blog.
While the rest of the world has been trying to talk to the Big Mouth we got him… well, we are old pals.
And Donald has a message for the world: ‘I love you all and I want you all to come and see me again soon in America.’
The Happiest Place on Earth is now also the Safest on Earth with reservations, social distancing, alternate rollercoast carts and new hospitality measures.
While Mickey, Minnie, Donald and the Gang aren’t about to let the virus turn their smile into a smell.
And are dancing, waving and welcoming us all in their own inimitable way.
Watch this space for new Disney features coming along soon.
I had all planned to take a whizz around the Florida Keys before the other Donald closed America off in March but hope to put that right when I get the chance.
And it’s those areas with natural distancing like the Keys and island nations (and yes a lesson here to the UK and Ireland too) who have an advantage.
Sail away in Croatia
Water wonderland
And when you’ve got 1200 islands then there’s ‘one for everyone in the audience.’
As they like to say in the world’s longest-running TV chat show, Ireland’s The Late Late Show, or whatever the Croatian equivalent is.
But here is a country which, as a Balkans state, dealt better than the rest of Europe with the virus.
And which is perfectly placed to host the tourist’s new requirements during and post-Covid.
One area is in small boat holidays and yachting around the islands, another adventure in the Great Outdoors.
Kayak attack: In Croatia
My go-to people in Ireland for Croatia are Croatia Tours, and I went on pilgrimage with them to neighbouring Bosnia & Herzegovina where I started out on the road to Dubrovnik.
They have a seven-days Rivers by the Sea package, making the most of where the area where the Krka River enters the Adriatic, on June 26 £1255pp.
Where you’ll get to sea kayak, cycle, canoe, rock climb, hike and raft.
The Tuscan Islands
And Firenze too
We’ll also be spreading our wings more next year even when we do visit our favourite cities.
And that’ll help hotspots like Firenze breathe as we explore greater Tuscany, its adventure trails, cycling opportunities and thermal waters.
And its seven islands, chief among them Elba, the first island of exile for Napoleon, and Montecristo, it of Alexandre Dumas’ Count.
Able was I ere I saw Elba.
As every schoolchild, well, at least those of certain age and lexical bent, will tell you.
And Tuscany was, and is, ere able to thrive in ‘il novo normal’.
And, of course, the Caribbean
Daddy’s Little Girl, as all our little girls do these days, is wont to show me amusing things she finds on the internetty thing.
And one we both find funny is a Jamaican tour guide who extols the benefits of inhaling the island’s plants.
I grab every chance to hook up with my Caribbean friends, Barbados,Tobago, Anguilla (heck, all of them) albeit these days over Zoom, if only to hope that I can draw some sun out from the screen.
And as usual their warmth came flowing us out as they reminded us that in their island their neighbourliness has helped them through this crisis and referred in passing to London where ‘people don’t know their neighbours but had been getting to know each other this year.’
Los Filipinos
For those of us too who in the second half of the century of years some of us are blessed to live, our cultural touchpoint for the Phillipines is the Thrilla in Manila, the nation’s capital which hosted Ali-Frazier III.
And of course the Philippines are knockout and our old friends at G Adventures are all over it.
Manila is on the island of Luzon, one of 7,641 in the archipelago.
And you’ll not be surprised to learn then that out of 7,641 islands that it should have boasted the world’s most beautiful island, courtesy of Conde Nast Traveler in 2016.
The exotically-named Atty. Maria Anthonette C.Velasco-Allones, the Tourism Promotions Board’s COO has an equally lyrical way about her.
As she described her islands and what they have to offer.
‘When the dark night is over and the sun rises, wake up in the Philippines.
Give my regards to Broadway, Remember me to Herald Square, Tell all the gang at Forty-Second Street, that I will soon be there.
Because it’s come to my notice that they’re making a movie out of Hamilton for release next year and we’ve been binge-watching musicals during lockdown.
I’m taking a Yankee Doodle Dandy dander through the American musical with a stop-off in London’s West End and Dublin’s Theatreland too.
Come From Away: Which is all visitors coming into North America anyway.
These ones, of course, were the 38 planeloads who had to land in the small Newfoundland town of Dander after 9/11.
And found out a lot more about each other as I did when I saw it in Denver.
We all come from far away and have become friends over the years at IPW, the American Travel Fair, who bring the best of Broadway to whichever town is in town.
No, you didn’t read that wrongly. Our friends at United Airlines might just get us back on transatlantic planes out to Bidenland as we’re now calling it.
For customers travelling from November 16 through December 11 from Newark to London Heathrow free of charge.
Mississippi… do you remember me?
I touched down in the land of the Delta Blues with United a couple of years ago.
When I flew into Memphis from Newark for an MLK50 (Martin Luther King) road trip.
And sat beside a Memphian coming home who pointed out the Mississippi below.
As we drank craft beers and discussed the future travel for America.
And on the tee…
Mountain a challenge at Slieve Donard
I thought it was just an hour the clocks went back… you know the old saying Fall back Spring forward.
But then I find that one of those Spring rites of passage, the Masters golf tournament will be held this year from this Thursday, in Augusta, Georgia.
Glittering prize
Of course there will be more than a few references to azaleas, or the lack of them, this week.
We’ll miss the galleries though and the hollers of ‘You’re the Msn.’
And this year’s Champion Golfer is…
I was one at Royal Portrush at last year’s Open Golf Championship when we were 20 deep shouting on Ireland’s Shane Lowry to victory.
All of which deviation off the tee brings me to Hastings Hotels and Slieve Donard‘s richly-deserved recognition as Northern Ireland’s Best Golf Hotel at the World Golf Awards.
Once I get these fingers repaired I’ll be bringing the game I’ve developed.
From watching from out of my window onto North Berwick on Scotland’s Golf Coast.
And on the toboggan run…
Now I don’t need an Austrian toboggan run to shred my body.
A shopping trolley and a supermarket car park will do just as well to break my fingertips and tear off my nails.
Of course the prospect of a toboggan run as a detour during my famed booze bus trip to the Oktoberfest had me salivating.
I didn’t trouble the Winter Olympics talent scouts at Kirchberg and Kitzbuhel.
Though with rider and toboggan going separate ways seconds after launch.
I can’t recall what brought my short-lived Cubs career to an end nor much about what we did in the Scout Hut, but I do remember the Haunted House next door.
In these less innocent and imaginative days haunted houses seem to have gone out of fashion.
But the ghosts and ghoulies haven’t gone away, and with all of us consigned to our houses these days you’d better not have been ignoring them.
Scotland’s Scary One
Bram Stoker was certainly alive to their presence and spirited up the Dead when he was inspired to write Dracula on a visit to north-east Scotland.
And placed the nocturnal room in Slains Castle in Cruden Bay as the dwelling of one Count Dracula.
Although much like his crypt if you delve inside you’ll find there’s lots to sink your teeth into.
Dublin’s Bram Stoker Festival is always finding new ways of reinventing themselves and they’re billing this year’s digital offering as a Grave New World.
Slains Castle
Which is what we’ll all be doing too, turning our homes into Haunted Houses… and The Scary One and her Mini-Me have been dressing up for the part.
Now I don’t know where the Scout Hut is in my new hometown of North. Berwick but my mother-in-law never sees a guising.
Pumpkin time
And here’s an Irish Halloween blessing to keep away the gremlins…
At all Hallow’s Tide, may God keep you safe,
From goblin and pooka and black-hearted stranger
From harm of the water and hurt of the fire
From thorns of the bramble, from all other danger,
From Will O’ The Wisp haunting the mine,
From stumbles and tumbles and tricksters to vex you,
Back to Cape Kennedy here and I’m thinking space helmets would be even better than face masks.
And they’re offering launch viewings too!
Everything is sunny
Cape Kennedy has been on my bucket list for years and I can’t even blame Covid for not getting out there last year for the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landing.
