My last post – written in the shadow of the frustrating discovery that we had not, after all, contrived to visit parts of the world in which COVID appears now to be endemic and is yet, ‘irregardless’, largely ignored by the local inhabitants – we had not contrived by our diligence and native cunning to avoid succumbing to the same! In short – we got caught!

Now – the wording of that post might perhaps have given the impression that this regrettable lapse had inevitably taken the shine off the trip. Not so! Not so! We had a wonderful time and – could we but turn the clock back – we would do very little differently.

To any sensitive readers with whom we met in the UK and who might perhaps be fearful that they may inadvertently have played a part (so to speak) in our infection, we say: “Unlikely, chum!“. We suspect that a two hour delay in the Eurostar terminal at St. Pancras – where we were reluctantly obliged to share the space for an extended period with the teeming mask-less hoards who comprised the passenger compliments of four (or more) different trains – may have proved the straw that landed the camel with a hefty physiotherapy bill.

Over the next few posts I am going to share some images and impressions of our joyous travels, but first I just want to say a little about the nature of the expedition itself, because – for all sorts of reasons – this trip was very different to that upon which we ventured back in 2019. For a start regular readers will be well aware that we were extremely nervous of traveling abroad at all, in the light of the events of the last few years. That we were eventually persuaded so to do was in part because we had had encouraging conversations with those who had already done so, but also because of the invitation that we received to a celebration of good friends that we did not want to miss. The nature of our trip was inevitably defined by both of these considerations.

We rapidly abandoned initial thoughts to tour extensively because, at the time that we would have needed to make the necessary bookings, so much was yet up in the air and we would have created too many hostages to fortune. As a result the trip that we eventually planned was good deal shorter than one that we first had in mind. The celebration itself was to take place a considerable distance away from the capital – the which would inevitably skew our physical presence throughout our stay.

As a result we had sadly to accept that we would not get to see all of the good friends that we would have liked to have seen. We are most grateful to those with whom we were able to spend a little time; to those with whom we could not – our humble apologies and we hope that you understand.

Anyway – enough with the words… Next time – photos!