Snow

Somewhere I'd like to be at the moment is Switzerland in the snow. I've been to Switzerland in summer. There is some incredibly beautiful scenery; the mountains and lakes in summer are gorgeous. Some of the mountains are still snow covered even in summer, with huge glaciers flowing down the slopes.

In winter, it must be totally different, in some ways maybe even more impressive than in summer. Have a look at this amazing photo taken from space, showing some of the highest mountains and a glacier. Can you imagine what it feels like to be there?

Where in the world...??

I've been thinking recently about where I would travel to if I could go anywhere in the world. This is something I think about a lot, as I'd like to do a lot more travelling, and see a lot of new places.

I think it might be easier to list the places I don't want to go, because there's hundreds of places that I'd like to visit. New York was always one of the top places on my list, and having been there, I'd love to go back.

There are lots of others though. I'd like to see some of the other great cities in the world, I'd like to visit some wilderness places, and see some historical sites and amazing natural and man made wonders of the world.

I'm going to be writing about some of the places I'd like to go in the next few days.

Are you a normal daydreamer?

Have you ever wondered whether you are the only person sat in a meeting that is thinking about other things? Thinking about, for example, what other people are thinking?!

Answer these 12 questions about where your mind wanders to, then compare your answers to others to see whether other people daydream in the same way as you.

PS. It seems from the survey that my daydreaming is not entirely normal! (but I don't care).

New York

Near the end of last year I visited Manhattan for a few days. It's somewhere that I had always wanted to see, so when I won a competition to go there, I was (apart from being amazed) ecstatic.

It was an incredible experience, we went to Liberty Island, top of the Empire State Building, top of the Rock at night, Brooklyn Bridge, Macy's, Bloomingdale's. The best thing for me though was just walking around, looking at the buildings, watching the people, and just generally taking in the atmosphere.

I would love to go again. There's so much more that I didn't have time to see, I think I could spend a long time in New York City, but ever since I've been, my mind has often wandered back there.

There is such a diverse mix of people and cultures in the city. Walking around, the city totally changes every few blocks, and just within the relatively small area that is Manhattan, you can feel like you have been in a million different places.

I imagine living there. I'd love to live in an apartment in Manhattan, fairly high up with a view out over the city. Obviously the apartment would be like Monica's in Friends. I'd spend a lot of time in coffee shops just watching people and relaxing. I'd also spend summer afternoons in Central Park, and in winter skating on the ice rink.

I'd like to visit some of the museums and art galleries (trying to be cultured and intelligent), and try out a lot of restaurants!

An incredible place and I can't wait to go back.

Music

For Christmas, I got an ipod. I've been spending most of my time since then finding music on the internet and copying my collection of CDs on to my ipod.

I'd forgotten how much I like listening to music, and how just listening to music can send your mind wandering into a complete dream world. My favourite at the moment is Aerosmith Walk This Way.

Imagine what it's like to be a rock star, travelling the world, performing in front of millions of fans who know your music, having all those people singing your song back to you. I went to a Take That concert at the Manchester arena, we were sat just a few rows from the stage. It was amazing, a really good show with lots of dancing, lights and special effects.

They did a couple of songs with the band playing very quietly, and all you could hear were their voices and the voices of almost everyone in the arena singing their music back to them. That must feel incredible. I need to have a go at writing songs!!

Happy New Year

2008: Another year of my daydreams, mind wanderings, hopes, imaginations, escapes from reality and random thoughts.

So who am I? In the real world I'm called Richard, I live in the north-west of England, I'm an engineer and I have an imagination. In my imagination's world, anything is possible, my mind wanders and takes me to places that I might never really go to, doing things I might never do, with people I might never meet.

This blog is my daydream world. Daydreams are random, they are different every day, they range from exciting, interesting, unreal things to thoughts about the mundane every day things. I make no apologies for the fact that this blog is completely random, one days thoughts may be totally unrelated to the previous day, some days may be empty, some days may be travelling around the world. I can't predict where my daydreams are going to take me.

Let's see what happens....