I've been gadding about in the British Isles for the past few weeks on long service leave, and it has been an interesting mixture of "having a wonderful time" and "just plain exhausting".
I started with a bus tour of Britain and Ireland, which was worth doing, but definitely too long. By the time we got to Wales everyone on the tour was a bit over it, to be honest. I think we would have benefited from having a long weekend in the middle of the tour to do a spot of nothing.
But, I saw where Shakespeare and Burns were born, where Yeats was buried, where a whole bunch of authors, poets and playwrights went to school, and where Jane Austen danced on her 18th birthday, so that was pretty cool.
I also found a few statues I'd wanted to see (Peter Pan and Paddington, for example) so that was quite good.
It has occurred to me that my experience of Britain is somewhat literary.
While I was tootling around the UK and Eire, I must confess that I forgot to keep up my collection of beaches. On one of my last holidays I started photographing the beaches I visited. And, while I did photograph a few on the bus trip, I largely forgot about it.
I've seen some interesting beaches and coastlines, that's for sure. I've even been to the Cliffs of Insanity, although the beach was largely out of shot while I was taking photos, it has to be said.
Pretty much all of my photos of the trip are on a different device, so you'll have to wait for me to return to my regular computer before I can coordinate a spot of sharing.
This last phase of my trip has been taking it easy in the Channel Islands, and they know how to put on a beach or two.
It has been interesting to contrast Guernsey and Jersey. Guernsey has a superior bus service, and it was easier to see most of it, but the weather was too bad to get out to the other islands (Sark and all that), and I kind of felt that we'd run out of things worth doing before we left.
I probably would have enjoyed going on a few walks, but I came down with a rather nasty cold. I'm blaming it on one of the many babies in Guernsey that was coughing merrily over whoever happened to pass by. I don't know why mothers these days seem completely unconcerned with their children coughing on others, but I hope that they are at least equally unconcerned with people coughing on their children. It's only fair.
Jersey's bus service isn't as comprehensive, and costs twice as much as Guernsey's - literally. You could circle the whole island of Guernsey for 1 pound, but on Jersey it will cost you 2 pounds and you won't even get from one village to the village next door. The bus routes appear to have been designed by someone who doesn't expect people to travel by bus if it can be at all avoided. Actually, that would also explain why they've put decals over the windows so you can barely see the scenery.
And why so many busses only run on an hourly basis so that it would take a good 3 hours to make a half-hour journey if you were planning to "pop in" somewhere that looked nice to visit, but probably not for a long stretch of time...
So I've seen less of Jersey on the whole. But, fortunately, half the things I wanted to see closed for the season a few weeks ago anyway.
Having said that, I've fallen in love with St Brelade's Bay. It's such a lovely spot for a holiday.
And it has a seriously good beach.
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