Some thoughts

Today was the last day of the summer holidays. The past few weeks have been busy preparing for results days, and then ensuring everything is ready for the start of the new school year.  I went to Brussels for the bank holiday weekend last week, primarily to visit Waterloo and its battlefield:   The Lion Mount and Panorama on the battlefield. The Hougoumont Farm Memorial at the farmhouse Napoleon's last headquarters And Wellington's HQ (now the museum) I also went to Liege for a day, while there I was wandering around a park on Sunday afternoon and came across a group of  ‘ puppy players ‘. It definitely, IMO, comes under the category of ‘do what you want in the privacy of your bedroom, but don’t frighten the horses.' Liege was pretty, with an impressive station, and a very old school aquarium. Finally, I went to  the Cantillion Brewery, Autoworld, And the Basilique Nationale du Sacré-Cœur. Overall a nice weekend away. 

School broke up last Tuesday, and on Wednesday I went to Belgrade for 4 nights. This was my third trip this year (in Feb I went to Malta and in April China and Japan), bringing my total number of countries visited up to 44. My aim is 50 by 50 so am on track for that, after getting behind during the pandemic. Belgrade was very hot, an interesting mix of old and new. One thing I hadn't known before was that it was right on the border with Hungary before WW1 (the Sava and Danube rivers were the boundaries), and there is a suburb on the west bank called Vemun that was a Hungarian town. I spent my time there mainly in the old town, visiting various museums, churches, and galleries. I also did an evening boat trip on the rivers and went to the cinema to see Deadpool and Wolverine. Coming up I'm going to Brussels on the August Bank Holiday weekend, in October will be visiting Glasgow and Belfast, while next Feb will be going to Cape Town and the Garden route in South Africa. 

I had a pleasant weekend away, Lille is a small city and two days was just about enough time to fit in everything I wanted to do.  The Eurostar from London got me there at about half 11, and my hotel was a short walk away. After checking in a dropping off my stiff I went exploring, visiting the nearby  Musée des Canonniers de Lille, which had some cool artillery pieces outside and passable English descriptions. After a walk around looking for lunch in the afternoon, I visited the Musee de l’hospice comtesse, Notre-Dame-de-la-Treille Cathedral, and Palais des Beaux-Arts, before having dinner. I suspect the restaurant gave me the wrong dish though, I'd ordered a veal escalope but it looked and tasted more like a regular steak. On the way back to the hotel I got some Belgian Kriek and relaced in my room On Sunday morning I went to the modern art gallery and then had a walk around the citadel before having lunch and taking the train home. Here are a few photos I took:

 How has it really been a year since I last posted here? This past year was a mixed bag, work was hell but I changed jobs to one much less stressful in November that has given me much more free time. With this in mind, my new year's resolution is to resume) writing and blogging.  Apart from work I didn't do much this year, I only went on holiday abroad once, to Antwerp in August. I also explored more of the UK, going to Manchester (April), the Isle of Wight (June), and Portsmouth (July), plus I just go back from a few days in Cardiff. I also started learning to play the piano.  Looking ahead I have trips planned to Barcelona and Croatia, carrying on with the piano and trying to get a book written this year (yeah I know that's been on the cards for a while...

 One year ago today, I set off for my Chinese New Year trip to Vietnam. This was my 39th country visited, and my last big trip before the pandemic. I spent 2 weeks in the country, flying from Taipei (where I was working at the time) to Hanoi. On arriving and passing through immigration I bought a local sim card then took the bus to the city center and (eventually) found my hostel. That first day I just had a brief wander around the old quarter and Ho Hoan Kiem lake. The next morning I set off for my twp night tour of Ha long bay. I'd booked this in advance online so was picked up from my hotel and taken to their office to meet the rest of the group. We drove to the bay and transferred to our ship, from which we went kayaking and spent the night anchored in a quiet cove. After dinner, I had a go at squid fishing with a line and caught a small one (which we had for lunch the next day!) The following morning we sailed to  Cát Bà island, which we cycled and hiked ar...