Middle-aged flash packers

If 2020 taught me anything, it’s that planning and looking to the future is the road to insanity.

Seizing the moment and looking back are fine. The video compilation of my travel photos my phone likes to send me each morning are received gratefully. A quick reminder of how life once was before settling back into the lockdown routine of eat,sleep,fill your time so you can’t think of anything else,repeat.

But the minute I succumb to flicking through an adventure travel brochure which I’m sure Lucifer himself has pushed through my letterbox, I’m undone. How about seeing the boiling lava lake in Ethiopia? Or trekking in the Langtang Valley of Nepal? And the old favourite but one that has continued to elude me – Machu Picchu and all of Peru?

Giving in to the foolish temptation of even thinking about escaping the confines of my immediate surroundings will then have me fighting to keep a positive attitude uppermost in my mind.

Which is why from now on, brochures are immediately binned and plans are for the insane. I am living in the moment, and taking pleasure in the day to day things that make up my life right now, including local walks as the photos below show.

But let me tell you this: as soon as this pandemic loosens it’s grip on us, any anywhere, yes anywhere (ok realistically there might be a couple of exceptions) that’ll have me, I’m going.