If a blog can merit its own patron saint, then I choose Basho, that wayfarer and Zen monk whom I commemorate above with a quotation. In his travel writings—prose interspersed with haiku—he tours Japan on the pretext of pilgrimages. (See typical extract below, in my first comment.)
I went a little further afield yesterday, drawn by two attractions in the same vicinity. One was marked on the map as a huge sewage works. (Previous posts testify to my choice of sewage works as a pilgrim destination. At any rate they remind us we are not all spirit.) The other attraction was, to my mind, unquestionably a place of world-wide interest and literary pilgrimage, immortalized in the introduction to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in these terms:
And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going on all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. … Sadly, however, before she could get to a phone to tell anyone about it, a terrible, stupid catastrophe occurred, and the idea was lost for ever.
This is not her story.
…
I decided to start near the sewage works and walk to Rickmansworth in search of that café. The journey, as it turned out, was better than either of the destinations I had chosen: for my walk took me along the towpath of the old Grand Union Canal, whose narrowboats have become permanent or holiday homes. Woodsmoke came from the chimneys of some of them. In the old days the canal revolutionised transport, towing goods between London and Birmingham as a much more efficient use of horse power than wheels on roads.
Suppose I am given the rest of my life to do nothing significant, just to go a-wayfaring? To contemplate existence in places as peaceful as this. Extraordinary! The rest of my life! However long that is, it’s time enough to discover something, even when I have no idea what I’m looking for. And if this notion of discovering something worth writing about is just to lend spurious meaning to the idleness of a man in retirement, so what? The destination is merely a pretext, as with mine yesterday, as with Basho’s.
I took some photos. The sewage works was mighty, but shrouded in trees from where I walked. There was a magnificent scene involving two tiny tugs and a team of men lifting an old barge with a crane. Then there was a derelict factory, reduced to a skeleton, with what looked from a distance like two naked dwarves winched up on a hoist swinging gently, silhouetted against the sky. 
When I got close enough I saw it was some kind of cartoon animal, almost lifesize. I didn’t take pictures of the bargemenders or the stuffed toy. I told myself to but my fingers didn’t obey, for they didn’t want to tangle with the day’s ephemera. However, the posters warning against Fish Theft fascinated me for their interesting choice of languages.
I kept on walking.
PS Rickmansworth has a selection of cafés: one is dedicated to coffee, another to Thai food, another to health food and so on. Any of them could have provided Douglas Adams with his inspiration; but none was preserved in a décor that might have existed in 1978 and none carried a commemorative plaque.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Here's an extract from Basho, as promised:
I went down to Ise where I spent ten days with a friend named Fubaku. I visited the outer shrine of Ise one evening just after dark. The first gate of the shrine was standing in the shadow, and the lights were glimmering in the background. As I stood there, lending my ears to the roar of pine trees upon distant mountains, I felt moved deep in the bottom of my heart.
In the utter darkness
of a moonless night
a powerful wind embraces
the ancient cedar trees.
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from “The Records of a Weather-worn Skeleton” published in The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches, Penguin Books, 1966.
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Vincent-san,
As to your last comment 2 posts ago, your observation is helping immensely; I've been thinking a lot since your challenge, and may see a way to start.
The payoffs for reader and writer would be unorthodox insights into the whys and forms of sex and love, the legos which constitute beauty a way of (mentally, at least) getting above one's own compulsions, possibly with a shot at personal transformation thrown in.
There was tremendous tension in me, self-destruction and suicidal paradox. Understandably so: I was a devout Mormon, yet a worshipper of females and their forms since a very small boy. One of my most delightful memories was watching women try on clothes at a factory outlet store when I was probably 3, not older than 4. It was like watching some fascinating form of wildlife. Then my mother found me.
I became a fat bookworm until adolescence, was casually persecuted by the cool girls in school during that time, but later became a feared athlete and ultimately a technologist.
While genuinely glorying in their bodies and selves, the back-fabric is possibly tinged with revenge with an edge of psychological sadism, and there were times I felt like a rapist. I found and exploited every weakness of women, and the expressions of my desires have taken real virtue, even ruined lives. To an outsider it might appear almost a systematic quest, and I gradually learned how to stop.
All identities must be protected (as for the beauty queens, they were a sort of investigation). It would be very difficult if not impossible for me to disclose real details of anything said or done in private. My temptation would be to dwell on their distinct aspects, physical and mental, and even though I'm not up to those writing tasks, honesty would be on my side.
Ultimately it's about finding my self while finding the right girl, which I finally did. Funny enough, she would be right at home in one of those Playboy magazines I was so fond of at age 4.
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Beautiful pictures Vincent. You are lucky to hve such a scenic walk along the Canal nearby.
If was living in the area, I would have incorporated it in my daily routine ( along with a possible coffe break with one of the boat dwellers in return for a weekend dinner.
You mentioned the Middle earth in your other comment. It has been used by Tolkein in the 'Lord of the Rings' and also by a Chineses monk of long ago in his descriptions of ancient Buddhist India.
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Ashok, it's about 20 miles away, and I'd previously intended to take several buses to get there, but it would have been too time-consuming especially as even getting there by car, the round trip took 4 hours, including 10 miles of walking. I used to drop my wife off to work each day at Amersham, a much nearer town, and often take walks amongst its hills and villages. But now she walks to work locally and we leave the (elderly) car in the street for days at a time, with me occasionally starting the engine just to make sure it will be OK when needed.
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“the legos which constitute beauty”: I took this as a typo to mean “logos” rather than “legs”!?
You have written something very close to a synopsis for a publisher!
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Another thing Marc, I had hesitated in earlier comments to say anything about the moral aspects of your adventures, so I am glad you have mentioned it yourself. As I wrote somewhere in my “Metaphors” post (main text or comment) it wasn't that Raskolnikov's sin consisted in disobeying the commandment “thou shalt not kill”; but that his murder had the side effects of hurting those whom he loved (himself not least).
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If that Canal is twenty miles away then a frequent visit is not practical Vincent.
Personally I find walks near bodies of freshwater – lakes, streams, rivers or canals very relaxing, besides forest and nature trails, and then walking is such good exercise. Unfortunately though there is none of this near my present home, although there are good parks. However the latter is not as much fun. Now that I too am partially retired I am hoping to move to another district in the North where I spent my childhood. It has an abundance of springs, creeks, rivers and lakes over the next year or so if the associated tasks can be taken care of. If I was in the U. K. I would have aspired to live in the lakes district.
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Vincent,
“Legos” as in the Danish interlocking toy.
Raskolnikov. Oh, yes. Read C&P when 13 or 14, before setting out on the adventures.
Murders and seductions can't be forgiven, only redeemed.
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Legos as in Legoland, Lego the Danish interlocking bricks? I thought of that but never imagined you could have meant that!
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Perhaps not the most obvious metaphor, legos, but as an observer of beauties, each has her own architecture of many pieces, each is an arrangement, a happy collection of small things which extend down into genes, upbringing, environmental stressors, choices, learning. Wisdom, which can also be both innate and acquired, provides some parallel. Both can, like legos, be broken and torn into constituent pieces.
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To describe examples of female beauty as an interlocking architecture of admirable qualities would be a very desirable and avant-garde literary endeavour, and the identities of internationally-known beauty queens would have to be protected with fictional detail; and even then I can imagine your sense of betrayal if you published in your or their lifetime.
But still. Something could be done!
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Gorgeous, Vincent, just gorgeous. makes my soul lift just to see!
I worry a bit about being land-locked. Easy view of the ocean seems so essential to my spirit here.
Still, Michigan-the-land-itself loves ponds and encourages them, so digging one and surrounding it with willows and grasses will give me a place for contemplation, not to mention, fishing! And I'll only be a 20 minute drive from Lake Michigan, which is ocean enough for me. And of course… there is the creek on the family land just 10 minutes drive away…. I am reassuring myself I see! Your photos woke that fear of being away from water…
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A powerful wind embraces the ancient cedar trees.
I have started it.
Thank you, sir, may your leg be well enough to offer more excursions.
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Hayden, I used to feel that way, living near to the sea for so many years. Cowes, Isle of Wight is my all-time favourite and you've reminded me to revisit soon. (we have time off in March.)
I noticed in a recent post you put up pictures of that beautiful bridge (on which I noticed you called bolts “rivets”) and the ocean views – feeling nostalgia even before you leave the place. But you will be able to create ponds as you say, and make a pilgrimage to Lake Michigan once in a while.
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“I have started it.” the very special memoir, Marc? May the Muse be with you.
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