Arriving in Essaouria

We have arrived n Essaouria, about 130 miles west of Marrakech. The road wasn't too bad and once we had got out of the city, the route was fairly straightforward across miles of dry dusty desert, peppered with argan trees and small bushes. I can't believe how many sheep seem to survive on nothing as there is no grass but you often see small herds with their attendant shepherd crossing the spartan terrain.

Essaouria is known as the Windy City and it certainly lives up to its reputation. There are huge waves crashing on the massive beach which is just visible from our rooftop terrace. We've been lucky enough to find a house to rent through Facebook friends. It's a big house with beds for at least six people and it's clean and tidy and beautifully decorated, owned by some english people. Adam really likes it too.

There's something special about renting a house rather than staying in a hotel. you get a degree of freedom and privacy which you can't get in even the best hotel. We ate fresh fish from a stall near the harbour this evening: red snapper, sardines, scampi, prawns and sea bream - all for around a tenner between us (and that was probably expensive) but I, for one, was too tired to go shopping around all the stalls.

I do love Morocco. It's so different to the UK - even though it rained heavily today! Tomorrow I am hoping to ride a camel on the beach (or a horse). I love camels! I rode one in India years ago and really enjoyed it. I know everyone says they are smelly creatures with bad breath but I like them because they seem to have very powerful personalities.

Leaving Marrakesh

So today we are driving to Essaouria. I've enjoyed staying in this riad. The beds are clean and reasonably comfortable, the shower was hot and our room opened out on to the central patio area where there's a small, clean, unheated pool. There's an orange tree outside the door too and last night an old white cat came and sat on my lap for hours. She was friendly and not manky like so many Moroccan cats.

Breakfast has been OK, with bread and jam and pancakes and coffee and fresh orange juice. Friendly people here but hardly any english and "mon francais c'est tres mal."

It's good to visit Morrocco at this time of year as it is fairly cool and there aren't lots of annoying mosquitos. There are lots of birds, big fat sparrows or finches - I'm not sure - although I have watched them through the binoculars...I wish I had a birdbook here! Yesterday I spied a fat kestrel flying above us in the Atlas mountains. I'd like to have seen a leopard but obviously they are very shy and also very rare. In some of the shops in the souks there are animal skins hanging up which is rather depressing (as were the chained monkeys in Al Jeema Fna Square). We might go and get a coffee there now before we head out to the coast - I'm as yet un decided but hey....I better go pack!

Morrocco

So here I am in the Riad Hadika Maria in Marrakesh. The riad is reasonably priced at £35 per night between us. It's in the Medina which means it's in the city centre, within the walls, sited near Marrakesh museum on the edge of the souks and not far from the tanneries: http://www.riadhadikamaria.com/visiteGuidee.php.

Morrocco is a real culture shock, especially after the quiet lanes of Devon. The people are pretty friendly although they often seem to talk to you just to make a dhiram or two - but that's how they make a living. The first night we arrived in our hire car. It was the most chaotic driving experience ever and I was the passenger!

Too tired now....I can't stop yawning....

Another page of senseless ranting....

Having re-read yesterday's musings, I realise it doesn't make much sense. This may be typical of the archetypal armchair activist who raves on about putting the world to rights, but who doesn't actually do much. That's me. I never feel I do much.

It's all very well living by your beliefs but especially when you become a parent, it's hard to believe that you may be having any impact on the world at all, because your time is so fraught. Your life is suddenly full of the practicalities, childcare concerns, so the latest demonstration against suffering is a minor issue when compared agianst having enough money to buy milk for breakfast. Yet is exactly because we want to protect the future, protect our children, that the activist ever has an involvement in being an activist, in the first place.

I remember an ironic story told to me by Charlotte Wild, an east London-based activist who was part of the print workers movement in the 1970s, when the big corporations starting moving in on the newspaper industry, buying up the nationals, trampling on the smaller publications. Charlotte told me about the long meetings they'd have around her small flat, drinking tea etc completely oblivious to the fact that she was a single disabled mum on benefits. The guys would rant on for hours about the unfairness of the system (as so many of us do) but would think nothing about eating the childrens' yoghurts from the fridge and leaving no milk for the following day.

At least one of Charlotte's daughters folllowed in her mother's footsteps as an activist. When I mentioned "young people" yesterday, I was talking about teenagers, so many of whom don't seem to have any interest in changing the world for the better. The education system doesn't seem to allow for question and choice. In fact that's the irony of the GCSE system - multiple choice answers when the system only allows for one correct answer. There's no consideration given to possibilities.

Hmmm....have to sleep on this now....I think I'm making more sense but writing a blog isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Be patient with me. Practice makes perfect.

The Armchair Activist - my first page - where's this going?

Well that's me, really - it sort of sums me up in so many ways - the Armchair Activist. That's quite an apt description, not just about me but about so many of us. I have a wealth of opinion to share but how much of it is really lived? Put into practice? I consider myself so right, so correct, so absolutely accurate in my assertions. But there are other factors to consider and this is going to be my way of doing it.

So what do you think? Do you have opinions? Do you agree with mine? Do you have opinions to share? Do you want to ask me what I think? What I've been doing recently?

One of the things I find so difficult to handle in contemporary society, is the complete lack of opinion, a lack of original thought. Opinion is tempered by prejudice and by the media circus. People rarely seem to think outside the box. Me, I want to jump out of it!

But if I'm in an armchair, I am hardly jumping! More like creaking, creaking into activism. The creaky ones, older people are much more likely to be activists than younger people. Younger people, people my age seem to be inactive and inert. Young people seem to lack articulation, if they have even opinion.

I want to talk about renewables, recycling, world peace, animals, loved ones, music, events, politics, adventures, people, books, films, food, tv, internet, facebook....now I'm getting frivolous....