We started this blog when we went overland to China for our ruby wedding anniversary, although ultimately it fell to me to write up our story depending on dodgy WiFi and other restrictions. It continued as a record of our various promenades, mostly in our camper van, but shorter jaunts within France and trips to the UK for weddings and celebrations. Around COVID it became more reflective before returning to its original purpose but I got lazy and started to write up each outing retrospectively. Nothing wrong with that but it didn’t/doesn’t seem to reflect the spirit of the thing, writing in the moment rather than trying to remember reactions and the tiny nuances of what makes traveling such fun and so compelling. So we’re off tomorrow to Dublin, our ultimate destination after Paris and London and I’m going to try and write on the hoof, as it were.

We’ve never been before but family and friends assure us we will love it for its vibrancy, not least for its pubs! We’re taking trains and boats and using Eurostar for the first time so new experiences. Our last long train trip was eleven years ago when we went overland to Bergen to pick up the Hurtegruten cruise on the old post boat route. I remembered the unwieldy large suitcases we took. On the sleeper between Copenhagen and Paris there was barely any leg room once they were pushed into the tiny floor space. Then I fought to lift mine onto the train at Austerlitz smiling but declining the help a young man offered and then nearly dropped it. ‘I did offer’, he said, reprovingly. So mortifying as I nursed a bruised knee! So small cases and the awkward odds and sods in a backpack each. On y va!