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Balkans or Brompton?

 So here we are more than 6 months into my retirement and it turns out the answer to the title question of this blog is “not a lot to write home about really”

I’ve been dabbling in watercolour painting a bit, but my retirement, for us, was always going to be about having the time to travel, to do the bucket list trips. It hasn’t turned out like that – well yet anyway.

Covid restrictions haven’t helped, although we did manage a trip to the UK to see our new Granddaughter in October which was lovely.

With all the bureaucracy involved I found travelling a stressful experience, but thank goodness it seems that the world (well the 1st world anyway) is now in a position where that side of things is easing a little –  just in time to start worrying about an actual war in Europe; Thanks Vladimir!

Don’t get me wrong, we are lucky people, we live 365 in a place where some people pay thousands of euros to come to for a couple of weeks a year, but you do feel like you need to get off the rock sometimes.

So lots of looking at holiday web sites, but no actual booking ‘cos you know…. Covid variants and of course your Balkans. (By the way when did it become politically correct to pronounce Kiev “Keeve” instead of “Key-ev”? – just another sign of getting old)

I hadn’t realized how much the second World War and the Chamberlain Nazi appeasement story was part of my psyche until the media, prompted by the British MOD to be fair, started comparing current events in Ukraine to Munich in 1939. I think it comes from being the “late in life” baby of a woman who was 37-years-old when I was born and who had actually lived through WW2 as a young adult.



source: BBC TV & MOD twitter feed

Mother told stories about the Blitz and being bombed out in Hendon and of course I grew up watching “All our Yesterdays” (For those who aren’t old enough to remember, it was a documentary programme from Granada TV which screened old newsreel footage from that week but 25 years before)

So all-in-all maybe a good thing to hang fire on the trip to St Petersburg for a while in case history does repeat itself!

Apart from searching the Saga Holidays website for inspiration, (I never thought the word Saga would ever come out of my mouth, but how much walking is involved in an activity is a very real consideration these days) we seem to spend hours on the internet. Mostly it’s playing Wordle or mildly cyberstalking our friends and family but we can loose whole days if we’re not careful!

Recently my internet use has involved dissappearing down a rabbit hole of 17th century Parish records and taking my family tree back to the late 1500s in Devon, Oh and scouring records of Brompton Cemetary in London in the 1800s. The latter prompted me to comment that “I would love to visit the Brompton cemetery next time we’re in UK” to which my husband replied “Sure why not” –  he’s not a genealogist, but he does get it!

So there you have it; World events permitting, the travel plans short list is down to “a river Cruise somewhere” or the Old Brompton Road, I’ll keep you posted.




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