the tour guide beckons

February 16, 2019/Paul Windsor/

I am almost 60 years of age.

Just time for one more job before I retire.

What will it be?

Easy peasy.

What about becoming a travel agent cum tour guide, taking people around India? That’ll do just fine.


I started working on my CV this week, by finding all the posts on this blog that capture photos/trips within India. Nineteen in total. Yikes.

That is a bit much for a portfolio and so I’ve decided to settle on a ‘first eleven’ – in no particular order:

On 10 November 2013, it is the most viewed post (out of 628) over my fifteen years of blogging and it tells the story of taking Barby ‘on a date to Chennai’ to pick up our luggage.

On 22 January 2011, it is one of the early trips, this time with all our children, and some of the ‘images that stick’ as we make memories together in the land of their parents/grandparents/great-grandparents.
On 19 September 2014, it is an early trip here in the South, something we never did as two kids growing up in the North – and it was love at first sight with the ‘tea gardens in the Nilgiris’.
On 30 September 2017, it is a post from a part of India that our parents and grandparents were never able to visit because of the security concerns at the time – ‘ahh, the Northeast’.
On 26 July 2016, it is a signature post, with the discovery of how many cool things can be done in Delhi, without straying too far from a single line on their Metro – ‘a yellow day in Delhi’. Can I slip in a post about a ride on the Bangalore Metro as well – on 11 September 2017? Sure, why not? No one is counting, are they? Bangalore is not quite Delhi, but still a lot of fun to be had on their Metro.

On 13 December 2014, it is that love which I have discovered which is what draws me to this new career – showing friends around ‘our India’, this time Bill & Jan and Stephen & Bonnie.

On 15 December 2018, almost exactly four years later, it is another introduction to Hamara Hindustan to good friends, this time Andy & Ines and Graham & Ruth.

On 13 February 2018, in between those two visits, it is Andrew & Miranda who come – at very short notice, but enjoying some of the most spectacular photos of ‘the beauty of India’.

On 22 February 2014, it is a little pause, after six months in Bangalore, to capture my six favourite photos of the sights around where we were living.

On 8 January 2015, it is a visit to the place (finally!) whose name so captured me as a child, as it seemed to reach all the way across the Bay of Bengal to Thailand: Visakhapatnam.

On 16 March 2016, it is memories of a holiday together by the beach, Agonda Beach, in Goa.


nice chatting – but happy to keep doing what I am doing and being a tour guide in the margins.

Paul

Archive

Categories

Recent Posts

Receive new posts to your inbox

I’d love to keep you updated with my latest news and posts.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

About Me

paul06.16

the art of unpacking

After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.

Posted in

Leave a Comment





This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Recent Posts

on being truly human

October 8, 2025

It was 1984. After finishing my classroom work for an MDiv from TEDS, Barby and I flew from Newark to London on People Express ($99pp). We were looking forward to a few weeks with my parents at All Nations Christian College in Ware (UK), where Dad was the principal. He met us at the airport…

missing and dismissing

September 17, 2025

I grew up with My Fair Lady—and for you younger ones, that is not a reference to my mother or one of my sisters. It is a movie, and like a number of movies from my childhood—Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines also comes to mind—they can be rather jarring to ear and eye…

on football—and preaching

September 9, 2025

Football helps me train preachers. See, when you speak to me about football—or, ‘footie’—I need to know where your feet are before I can understand what you mean. Are your feet in Ireland, or Brazil, or the USA, or NZ—or in crazy Australia? It must be the most fanatical sporting nation in the world. Within…

a silent patriarch

August 17, 2025

Having been born in 1959, I don’t remember much about the 1960s. But I have heard a lot. Hippies. Drugs. Rock ‘n Roll. Assassinations. Moon-walking. A quick trip across to ChatGPT informs me immediately that it was ‘a transformative decade across the world’—marked by the civil rights and feminist movements, Cold War tensions, consumerism and…

lyrics for living 26 (always)

August 6, 2025

Saturday was a rough ol’ day for our Amaliya. It was her birthday. She was sick—and sick enough for her birthday party to be postponed. Grandma and Grandpa popped-by later in the afternoon to give her a hug and some gifts … … and then she gave us a gift. Between taking our mouthfuls of…

four cities, twenty days, nine photos, one video

July 7, 2025

Abomey Calavi, Benin I’ve had three 50+ hour door-to-door trips by plane over the years. This was the fourth one. It was after midnight on the Saturday when I was finally able to put my head on a pillow—but not before our driver/host asked if I would preach the next morning. Yikes. Not for the…

bothwell & bethany

June 9, 2025

If saying that “Barby and I grew up together in India” is of interest to some people, then “We met before we can remember” tends to be of interest to most. The first time we met was probably in a church creche of some kind at Kellogg when I was about three and Barby was…

the catastrophe of smyrna

May 26, 2025

I have vague memories from school of a chap called Milton writing a poem called Paradise Lost. Well, this is not that Milton. Nor is this that paradise. And this sure ain’t no poem. This is Giles Milton telling the story of the ‘lost paradise’ of Smyrna (Izmir today). Here, watch some of it for…