I’m writing this in my shed as rain rattles the roof and the first strong autumn winds flurry leaves from the trees. The seasons are changing, and the world is changing too. David Attenborough has joined Instagram “because, as we all know, the world is in trouble”. On that note, perhaps, you might want to spend 40 sobering seconds of your time watching the Antarctic ice sheet disappear or read why I turned vegan.

🌶 On the other hand, perhaps you’d rather cheer yourself up with this list of National Dishes that got me both drooling and charmed by the delights of travel.

🚲 High on the cheeriness spectrum is this man “dealing” with kids playing on his driveway.

📗 I thought I’d share with you some of the best books I read during lockdown.

💪 And this new book of Tough Women Adventure Stories: Stories of Grit, Courage and Determination looks fantastic.

🗻 Renan Ozturk is one of my greatest inspirations and standard-setters from the world of adventure story-telling overlapping with creativity. I’d love to meet him / go on a trip with him one day!

🧭 One of the guests at the recent Night of Adventure (which, by the way, raised £22,000 – thank you!) was the astonishingly knowledgable Tristan Gooley. He has just launched a beginner’s online course in natural navigation.

🚲 A good article on the history of Cycle Touring – a thousand freely-chosen paths.

🗺 And an online, collaborative map of adventure for the UK to help you plan and/or dream.

👇 Finally, if you want more links, then I always share a newsletter from ‘the archives’ at the bottom of each newsletter.

If you enjoy my newsletters, please would you do me a great favour and quickly forward this email to a few friends who might appreciate it? Thank you.

Have a lovely weekend!

Alastair

• A ‘You’ve Been Framed’-style Swimming ‘fail’ that made me wince and laugh (but mostly laugh), lest you feel that the rest of this week’s links are a tad gentle, cerebral, or light on laughs.
• I appreciate Adventure Films that go beyond adrenaline: Here a young-ish woman (her words!) has fallen out of love with her own body. Committed to making a change she sets herself the simple goal of swimming in open water at least once a month for a year. (A half-plug also, for Waterlog – a short film I made, and the fab book that inspired it.)
• A Newsletter I Enjoy: the gentle musings of Caught by the River will appeal to those who like wild swimming (and rivers / nature in general).
• An Essay by Cult Hero / Massive Brainbox Robert Macfarlane on the power of extraordinary place-writing to change the ways we see, feel and act.
• A Slim but Powerful Novel about Water: If you like your kayaking books with maps, mileage, and kit lists, Cove may not be for you. This novel “powerfully explores disorientation, survival ‘“ and love” (Guardian review), and it gave me new ideas about adventure and travel writing.

• Would you like to try out my other newsletters: The Working Adventurer or The Doorstep Mile?
• I have three podcasts you can listen to: Living Adventurously (a series of interviews), There Are Other Rivers (a story about walking across India), and The Doorstep Mile (a friendly kick up the bum).
• I’ve written 12 books. Hopefully one of them might appeal!
• This newsletter is ‘free but not cheap’. If you enjoy it, you can buy me a virtual coffee to help keep me writing. Thank you!
• You can also really help me by forwarding this newsletter to anyone you think might enjoy it. Thank you!