After ten weeks of catching up with friends, making some new friends, travelling with family, exploring new corners of Europe by foot, bike, car, ferry, bus, train and plane, I am back in Wellington.About those planes - Simon took me out to Makara Peak this afternoon to put some trees in the ground. I'm not claiming it offsets profligate carbon emissions, but in lots of ways I'm trying to do my bit.
Some highlights:
- bike school in London
- that first fresh peach
- Bjork in concert
- sunset on the Mediterranean
- swimming in Swiss lakes
- staying in a grass-roofed trekkershut in Delft
- the 2 cent ferry near Delft
- meeting Corsican cousins and seeing wild boar
- walking in the Alps
- sweet Swiss bike trails
- scoffing icecream with a knife and fork with my sister
- cheap beer and good chocolate
- finding a sought-after retro cycle cap in Belgium
- Dutch cargo bikes
- generosity from friends and strangers
- getting rained out of my tent at midnight in Somerset
- discovering I'm not a cycling god on the merciless slopes of Alpe d'Huez
- roaming phone bills
- Heathrow
- mixing up my laundry with little Patrick's and travelling with undies many sizes too small
- polite Dutch cops when you bike on the motorway
- Corsican geezer who hadn't heard of Nouvelle Zelande, l'Australie, and possibly the southern hemisphere
