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But Mouse, you are not alone, In proving foresight may be vain: The best-laid schemes of mice and men Go oft awry, And leave us nothing but grief and pain, For promised joy!Well, do one could have predicted just how much our lives would change in the year since I wrote my last blog post. Back then, in early 2020, we had just returned from spending 3 months travelling around Australia at the end of a year that I had spent almost all of on the road somehwere. Then the pandemic hit and everything changed for everyone, everywhere. Since my last blog post, I've hardly been out of the house, let alone to faraway places. As I have an underlying heart condition, I've been taking sensible precautions and avoiding contact with others where possible. So all the plans I mentioned in my last post have come to naught, and whilst we have been doing stuff (I resurrected an old hobby making model motorcycles, we have had our back yard upgraded and a motorcycle garage built), there really isn't anything exciting to write about.
So, until life returns to being interesting, I won't be updating the blog. I hope to receive the vaccine before the end of Spring, and will then make plans to get our travelling as soon as we are allowed, but until then, stay safe and well.
, Having returned from sunny Australia to the freezing cold of Winter in the U.K., we are both feeling more than a little restless. In the first couple of weeks back I managed to get out walking in a vain attempt to lose the weight I'd put on whilst enjoying myself on the other side of the world. I bought myself a little car - a 2007 Mini Cooper - so that I could get about without having to ride everywhere, and to make it easier to get to the start of various walks. I also visited my good friends Kevin and Julia at Globebusters to see if they could make use of my skills as I would have plenty of time on my hands now I'd "retired".
At this point it's worth recounting a conversation Tracy and I had when I came back from supporting the Globebusters Africa trip, which was repeated a couple of times whilst we were in Australia. I told her that I was done with long trips away from home, either on my own or working as a member of the Globebusters team on various trips. I meant what I said at the time, as I'd been away from home a lot over the past few years and wanted to focus on selling our house and moving to our forever home (one with a garage and garden). Tracy would simply reply "Yeah, right" and look knowingly at me. It seems she knows that the desire to travel continuously runs deep within me...
Anyway, back to my meeting with Kevin and Julia. I drove down to their HQ in Chesterfield and we caught up with my travels and their plans to head out to New Zealand with their Hi-Lux for a much needed break (they've been running tours now for over 15 years without a real break). Then the conversation got around to the trips that are running this year, in particular the Trans-Americas Expedition, which Dom was supposed to be leading. I say "was" because the Friday before I visited (I was there on Monday) he'd rang them to say he wouldn't be able to do so for a very good, personal, reason (which I won't go into here). Kevin and Julia also didn't want to run any long trips and had a lot of other projects in the pipeline, but as I'd said I didn't want to either, had resigned themselves to having to cover sections 1 and 2 themselves. These cover the first half of the trip from Alaska to Panama, with another of the guides, Tiffany, covering the lower 2 sections from Colombia to Argentina. Kevin said he'd have liked me to lead the first half but understood I wasn't up for doing so. I replied that he shouldn't be quite so hasty and to let me think about it...
Back at home later that evening I sat down to let Tracy know how my meeting had gone and no sooner had I mentioned that they were looking for someone to lead sections 1 and 2 of the Trans-Americas than she replied "You should go". Once again, my wonderful wife had tapped into my desires even though I was unsure of them myself. As soon as she'd said that, I knew I wanted to go. I rang Kevin and once again agreed to step in and cover for Dom!
Which leaves my plans for the year not looking decidly unlike those of someone who wants to stay at home and not travel. I've got the Globebusters 3-week trip to Morocco at the end of April and early May (where I'll be a customer for a change!), then a trip to Garmisch for the big BMW event there at the beginning of July, and as soon as I get back from there I'll be flying out to Vancouver at the start of a 3-month trip to the top of North America and then down to the bottom of Central America!
I'll try to find time to write about my experiences, but bear in mind that when I'm on a Globebusters trip in an official capacity what I can write is limited - not least because there's never a moment to sit down and write anything!