A post reflecting on the highs and lows of 2023, including travel, books, work, movies etc.

While sprucing up this blog a bit during lockdown, I fell into reading my old posts about South America. I enjoyed it, mostly for the memories, but also because the current lockdown is warping my sense of time and space. Hours feel like weeks, but then I blink and a month’s gone by. I find myself traipsing similar orbits each day around the house, and then perhaps over to the supermarket or the park.

As a wedding present, Ingrid’s Mum Maria kindly took us for a trip along The Great Ocean Road, the longest war memorial in the world. Stretching 151 miles from Torquay (not that one!) to Allansford, the road was deliberately built as a tourist attraction as a means of providing meaningful work for troops returning home from the First World War. Regarded as one of the world’s greatest scenic roads, it certainly holds it own against things like the roads I experienced in Chile and Bolivia when I travelled over the Andes.

On our second full day in Australia we went shopping in central Melbourne, before Ingrid’s mum Maria picked us up ahead of our trip along the Great Ocean Road. We took the metro into the city. I always love watching the fabric of cities knit itself together around train lines and Melbourne is no exception. Along the way, Ingrid had plenty of stories to tell about the various places she had lived.

On our first full day in Melbourne we took it easy. It was warm and sunny, so different to the weather we’d left behind! Ingrid needed more time than me to sleep off her jet-lag. I sat in the sunshine and read the book I’d ignored on the plane. An easy read, it drew me into its characters. I’ll post a review later, perhaps after I have read the sequel.

It seemed to last forever but we made it. We left for Heathrow at 6AM and left London at around midday. I waved goodbye to home for nearly four weeks. We stopped over in Dubai for an hour or so while the plane refuelled. We walked in circles trying to shake off the fatigue. I’d equalled one of my longest ever flights just getting to Dubai and now I was facing almost twice as much time again.

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.