Category: europe 2018 trip

And that was it…

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This morning – right now, in fact – I find myself sitting in front of a computer in an office adjoining a laboratory.

This isn’t right, is it? Is it?

Surely there should be boats and fields and seaside and beer and family and sunshine?

Sure there should be… freedom?

But no. We’re back, after yesterday’s marathon twenty-something hour trip. It’s been a truly amazing few weeks away and I’m not quite ready for this sudden return to work. There’s sleep to make up, thoughts to process, photos to edit, stories to share (oh, so many stories – this one was eventful), reviews to post.

And on top of all that, there’s real life to catch up on.

I’m in that weird place between the exhilaration of travel and the crushing realisation that it’s all over. Limbo. A twilight zone.

Forgive me while I get things in order here.

Believe me, I’ll be in touch soon.

Coming home spin off

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I thought that given that we were Coming Home today, a Coming Home tune might be in order.
But then I found that I’d already featured the Coming Home tune I was thinking about in this post, entitled Coming Home.

Damn.

Still, deep in the aforementioned Coming Home post was this line:

Next up from the album is my favourite track: the rather Killersy Meanwhile Up In Heaven, whose video will almost certainly get a blog post of its own here.

I looked. And, as far as I could see, that suggestion had never been followed up upon. Until now:

Boom.

Ricky Wilson wanders around an ethereal fairground, which – it becomes clear – is populated by those whose loved ones have thrown a seven, kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, joined the choir invisible.

Snuffed it.

Great song. Good video. Wholly inappropriate for a post about coming home after a holiday.

Never mind.

Traveling

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It’s July 14th – Bastille Day in France (and, I suppose, everywhere else as well), but we’re nowhere near France right now.

We’re traveling home today:

IOM – DUB – DXB – CPT

I have had a word with the 6000 miles… crossword expert, and he’s come up with an appropriately travel-themed crossword for July.

I will present this to you now:

[crossword]

There’s it.

Something to occupy the next 26 hours then. (I hope it doesn’t take me that long.)

Last times…

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Last time we were on the Isle of Man, it rained. It rained a lot.
It very rarely stopped raining. And then we went to Sheffield in it rained some more.

Now I know that the UK (of which the Isle of Man isn’t part), has a bit of a reputation for this kind of thing, but the summer of 2012 was unprecedented in its raininess. There were literally a couple of nice days during our entire three week stay. The Flickr collection I made is testament to this.

We deserve better this time.

Of course, I not forgetting that we did get better back in 2009. The holiday where I regularly ended up taking our toddler son out (not in an assassination kind of way) at 6am before he woke up the whole household because he’d forgotten how to sleep:

This one was taken at the Calf Sound, where there was only us, some rabbits, some seals and a small yacht.

He’s twelve now, and does sleep occasionally. I’m hoping that this holiday is one of those times.