The summer is nearly here, although you wouldn’t know it. While Sarah’s folks were here, we had ten days or so of shorts and sandals weather. The last week, however, it’s been very capricious weather. It’s a brave (or naïvely optimistic) man that leaves the house without the security of a brolley at the moment.
Last Friday, Geoff, Jason and Vivian pitched up and spent the weekend here. Jason and Vivian like it raging hot, so they really missed the mark by a few days. They’d spent the week before in Delft, where Jason and Geoff were attending SANE 2006, and pretty much arrived on the day that the mini-heatwave gave way to more restless climes.
That fact meant that we didn’t do an awful lot outside the house, so we mostly just chatted and drank coffee. I do hope they weren’t too bored.
Geoff took the train to Paris today, but will return on Friday to spend one last weekend with us before returning to the evil empire.
That’s pretty much the only reason we’re still in town at the moment, actually, because next week, we’ll be driving to Czechia (or the Czech Republic, as Sarah still prefers to call it) via Leipzig and probably Dresden.
I’m really looking forward to heading out east. We have no firm plans, other than to go to Prague and eventually head further east into Slovakia, paying a visit to the High Tatras. I daresay we’ll turn Budapest on its head on the way back, but other than that, we’ll be playing it by ear.
With no jobs to return to, we’ll be returning home when we run out of traveller’s steam — and not before! We expect to be back in late June, but who knows? We’ve been waiting a long time to be unbeholden and at liberty to travel freely; I’m happy to say that moment has now dawned.
So this week is being taken up with belated research and planning. Proper travel is always a lot of work beforehand; otherwise you miss things and fail to appreciate and understand the things you do see. It really enhances the experience to have a good understanding of your destination, its history, culture, people and — if there’s time — language, too.
With nothing else on the calendar for this summer, we can travel at will. Denmark, Sweden and Italy are all vaguely on the schedule. It’s going to be a fun summer, that’s for sure.