Reprising the Bucket List Blues.

This blog is ailing. My life is shrinking, you see. Most of the things which used to give me pleasure are no longer available and there’s very little left, so there isn’t much to write about. And my circumstances have taken a turn for the worse which would be too tedious to talk about.

But last night I had the chance to cross one of the items off my bucket list. I took a cruise up the mighty Yangtze River, courtesy of a video on YouTube.

It was a bit disappointing, actually. There were none of the mist-shrouded pepperpot mountains I was hoping to see, and the river was hopelessly oversubscribed with tourist boats.

Aside

I’ve long been in the habit of only visiting tourist spots at times when I could be reasonably sure that there would be few, if any, tourists there. Tourists are one of my major bêtes noir, and the current relaxation of Covid restrictions is offering ample support for my view. Tourists are too often prone to showing me the stupid, selfish, disrespectful side of human nature, and so I have little time for them. I lived close to a beach once that was popular with day trippers at the weekend and on public holidays. It was awful. To continue…

The Three Gorges Dam was impressive from an engineering point of view, but it wasn’t exactly traditional China. The facsimile of the Sydney Harbour Bridge looked oddly out of context (although it was painted red, as it would be in China), and when we did drop anchor to allow the chance to go ashore and explore ancient pagodas at the top of innumerable stone steps, I had to remain onboard because of the old leg problem. I saw no hint of peach blossom or pouting goldfish, and nobody treated me to a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. But at least I now know that I’m not missing very much.

So what of the other two items on the list: viewing the aurora and being treated to a piece of baked Alaska, lovingly made by a comely wench with the touch of a master chef? Unlikely, I think. I suspect I would find Svalbard a little on the cold side for my taste these days, and comely wenches lie dead and come to dust deep in the trunk of my personal history.