For new year Ingrid and I met up with Ingrid’s friend Ros at Barcelona airport. We went from there to Cadaqués on the Costa Brava. A winding drive over steep hills leads you down to a cute bay with the typical white houses and terracotta roofs. All the window frames were painted just the right shade of blue. The surrealist artist Salvador Dalí lived and worked in the area. This meant a trip to Figueres to see his Theatre-Museum and on new year’s eve a walk over the hill to Port Lligat to visit his house.

We left Gulfoss and drove through the countryside to Fluðir where our next hotel stay would be. The hotel had cute little cabins arranged around a central square and the room itself was comfy and warm. Our dinner was nice enough, although we had a bit of a Fawlty Towers moment with Ingrid’s chicken salad. First it went back because they didn’t leave the BBQ sauce off. Then it came back with tomatoes.

After a day on foot in Reykjavík, and with some trepidation, we returned to the car for our drive through Iceland’s countryside. We started by heading out on route 1, which is like Iceland’s M25 except that it encircles an entire country and about thirty times fewer people. We went to house of Nobel Prize winner Halldór Laxness, only to be turned away because it was being renovated and wouldn’t open for another month.

We arrived in Reykjavík a few days after a monumental snowstorm. As such the city was still under at least six inches of snow. We collected the hire car from the airport and drove out of Keflavik. The scenery normally looks like a moonscape, but for us it was a frosty white wonderland. After about an hour’s drive, we arrived at the Hotel Nattura. From the outside it looks like a huge secondary school but as soon as you step inside it’s warm and comfortable.

We bought a cheap package holiday in the British Airways Black Friday sale. The weekend spanned Ingrid’s birthday, so it was ideal. £99 each for flights and a hotel, and we bagged a hire car quite cheaply too. Because our flight was from Heathrow and the trains from Chichester are both expensive and inconvenient for early flights, we spoiled ourselves with a taxi to the airport. It felt very strange to be whisked through the Sussex and Surrey countryside at six am on a Friday morning!

Just before Easter Ingrid and I went to Lausanne in Switzerland for a few days. It was a much-needed break and my first trip out of the UK since I got back from South America. We caught an early train to Gatwick. It took a strange route along the coast via Worthing and Hove, which was annoying because we could have left later if a more direct train were available at that time of day.