Yep, this morning I had a fit of minimalist rage and cleared some books off my bookshelves and emptied a couple of file boxes of old travel brochures.
I stacked the books in the spare room ready to either give away or to consign to the recycled paper dump at one of our local supermarkets. I've had some of those books for decades. Perhaps I should write another blog post about them before I get rid of them.
As for the old brochures, I shredded a whole bunch of them.
Then, while chilling out under the air-conditioner this afternoon, I was checking out recent Hive posts when I happened to notice that @mipiano had set the theme this month's collectors' challenge on the topic of "travel reminders!"
@mipiano/reminders-of-your-travels
Aargh!
Luckily, I had not shredded everything, and will keep some of what's left over for a while longer.
So, with that, here are some of the brochures that survived this morning's shredding session:
This collection consists of pamphlets from England, brochures from Japan, and one slightly embarrassing brochure from Italy...
Travels Around Japan
The most recent brochure is of Oura Cathedral (大浦天主堂) in Nagasaki, which the Mrs and I visited last October when we went to see our daughter's cheerleader group performing at the Nagasaki University festival. (We first visited that cathedral with our daughter when she was four years old, so it was fun to revisit after eighteen years.)
The second most recent brochure is of Kousanji Temple on Ikuchijima, an island on the Inland Sea. I'll shred it after publishing this blog post since there's a perfectly good website about the temple here: https://www.kousanji.or.jp/english/
All the other Japanese brochures are of Japanese inns at hot spring resorts and a seaside hotel, all of which I visited well over twenty years ago.
Brochures of Old England
I will keep the oldest of the four English brochures, which is the "What is Stonehenge?" brochure, which I bought when my Dad took me to Stonehenge and the New Forest when I was nine years old. Here I am, proudly posing between the stones:
The other brochures are of Walmer Castle on the east Kent coast, Southwark Cathedral in London, and City of London churches. The one about the City of London churches was written by the late Sir John Betjeman, poet and jolly good chap in his day. Since I have freed up some shelf space by removing several old books, there is now space for those brochures so they have a stay of execution.
Il Duce's Mausoleum, Predappio
I was an English teacher in Imola way back in the late 1980s. Then, in 2003 I revisited Imola and travelled through the countryside of Emilia-Romagna and the Marche, slowly heading for Ancona and a ferry to Hvar in Croatia. My route took me past Predappio, Mussolini's home town, where you can visit Mussolini's tomb, and curiosity got the better of me. Fortunately, it was a quiet day, so the fascist memorabilia shops were more or less empty of "tourists" - and no, I didn't buy any souvenirs while I was there.
That's another brochure for the shredder, later today!
From now on, my camera and my blog will be my only brochures.
Cheers!
David Hurley
#InspiredFocus
P. S. @mipiano concluded her blog post with this comment:
Some of us had a collection of shoes in the previous month - it is time to see where they have travelled!
Well, the only pair of my shoes that have been to any of these places is my newer pair of green side-zip Converse sneakers. (Actually "newer" really just means "less old." I also wore them when I went out this morning and I noticed that the heel of one of them is detaching from the shoe.) I wore them to Nagasaki last October, and to Ikuchijima last August.