Syed > Recent Status Updates

So good so far

Beautiful.

Just Beautiful.

“Pity her too,
and these words to her bring:
‘I was married on high
at the gates of the sky
to the child of a king.’
But no word be said
how, when I was wed—
(O lamb, never tell!)
how a star fell,
that the sun and the moon
were holding our crown,
that my guests at the feast
were maples and firs,
the high mountains, priests,
and minstrels, the birds,
many thousands of birds,
and candles the stars.”

"... there were dozens of streams to drink from, many of them thick with watercress, and as I flung myself face down beside one like a stag at eve, I thought how glad I was, at that particular moment, not to be standing properly at ease on the parade ground at Sandhurst. Oxford would have been better; but this was best."

Just reach The Carpathian Uplands.
Impressive. Very Nice.



A few pages awaay from actually reaching this nice number, but whatever

"Angéla and I sat on in the great smokey room holding hands, deeply aware that it was the last night but one of our journey. There are times when hours are more precious than diamonds... The moon had triumphed over the mute fireworks to the east... We leant on the sill and when Angéla turned her head, her face was bisected for a moment, one half silver, the other caught by the gold glow of lamplight indoors. "

Reached Alba Lulia by motorcar, accompanied by Elemér von Klobusitzky and Xenia.

A gues at the kastely of Elemér von Klobusitzky.

Arrival at Corvin's Castle.

5. ACROSS THE FOREST, in Transylvania.

In Ineu, Rumania.

Arrival at O’Kígyós, a palace.

Will continue from here later.

Spent a night in the substantial country-town of Mezötúr.

Before, he passed by the train station, Pusztapo

Riding a chestnut horse across the Great Hungarian Plain and thinking of an elephant gifted to Charlemagne by the Caliph Harun Al-Rashid.

Riding a chestnut horse across the Great Hungarian Plain.

Continued reading after a fortnight.

Like the author standing still, as he gazes on Esztergom, hesitant to plunge onto Hungary, I am hesitant too, to be over with A Time Of Gifts for now.

I will finish on the night of 10 September, 3rd year anniversary of my second night anniversary in Srinagar, when I was up deep into to the night listening to music and soaking in the luxure and coziness of my hotel room, finding it hard to believe I was there.

If not for mein headache which is intruding on my capacity to taste more deeply, I would have completed it now.

Ah, the nigh end of one of the most wonderful books I will ever read; I take comfort in there being two following sequels and a corpus of Leigh Fermor's works left for me to yet delight in.

O' Paddy, if only you could also be my Pipps Schey.

Making very NICE progress. In Vienna now.

Reading with exceeding delight, but like a sloth, accompanied by Google Earth, Leigh Fermor's Biography and Nick Hunt's account of him retracing Paddy's footsteps, but in 2014.