Nothing in my experience had prepared me for the events of the next two years.

I had returned from Poland in the early months of 2020, amid the newly unfolding repercussions of Brexit. As I sat at home typing up my notes and preparing for the next stage of my adventure – to include trips to the seven countries of the EU that would be new for me – the world crashed into a solid wall of restrictions brought about as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Stay at home!, our newly Brexited UK government exclaimed – and they were willing to enforce the command,

Don’t come near us, said the president of the USA (and others) we don’t want your nasty foreign diseases, as they suddenly realised that a globally integrated world made this sort of plague a little awkward.

As governments dusted off their pandemic plans and ignored the WHO advice the world pulled down its shutters and flying became more dangerous than it had been since the Orville brothers kicked it all off in 1903.

We were all in shock. Governments panicked. We were learning what it meant to be part of the Anthropocene – this almost felt something like the massive asteroid strike of sixty six millions years ago, now known as the Chicxulub Impact – you know, the one that caused a mass extinction, and probably ruined a few Dino Blogs [yeah, cause it’s all about you as usual. Ed].

I am not going to attempt to explain the period of maximum chaos that demolished our hopes for 2020 [Thank goodness for that. Ed]. Millions of words have been written already, smarter people than me are analysing and ‘learning lessons’, books will be written – I might even write one myself.

No, I’m going to stick to my general ramblings. I will present a few chapters that describe how I ventured out briefly in 2021 (by way of a Scottish journey) and then shut my front door, re-emerging sometime in 2022.

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