The final adventure on my rail tour of Europe took me to Luxembourg. By this point I was pretty tired, and wondered why I hadn’t booked a holiday to Spain or something, but hey, there was a new country to go to – the closest country to the UK that I had yet to visit. After a pretty un-scenic train journey of around 50 minutes from Metz, I arrived in Luxembourg – I decided that I’d be a proper tourist and do one of those “free” walking tours. Which was a wise choice, except for all the further walking I …

After falling in love with Strasbourg, it was time to head to my next destination, Metz. Metz wasn’t somewhere I was particularly bothered about visiting, the reason I was there was that I wanted to go to Luxembourg yet was put off by paying £130 a night for a hotel, so thought I could travel there from Metz – which was 50 minutes on the train, and half the price in a hotel. I soon found myself in a pretty town, of old stone buildings. But where were the people? Everywhere was quiet. I’d gone from buzzy Strasbourg to boring …

Continuing my lookback at my European train adventure in June, my next stop after Basel and Liechtenstein, was Strasbourg. Let me set the scene for you. I’d spent 3 nights in Basel, in Basel there was nobody homeless, nobody edgy, the weather was poor and the people were all fairly identikit – no punks, no goths, no hot women – everyone kind of dressed the same in 1980’s M&S clothing. Everything was expensive, I didn’t have any especially good food, the trams were all on time. Everything was just very regular. Upon arrival in Strasbourg, it was hot and sunny! …

I’m not entirely sure why I decided to go to Basel, it certainly wasn’t on my list of places to visit, unlike say, Lucerne. Basically I decided to get some trains across Europe for a week, and tick off two new countries – Liechtenstein and Luxembourg. Staying anywhere in Switzerland is like £100+ a night for a half-decent place, but I could stay in Saint-Louis, over the border in France but on the tram lines of Basel, for £70 a night. Sounded like a deal. Annoyingly it was the first warm and sunny weekend in London for ages, and it …

I guess writing about what Gareth Southgate meant to me might have made more sense in June/July, but hell, I was enjoying life too much. My prologue is really the epilogue, at least of his England manager career – and were it not for that last minute overhead kick when it looked like we were being dumped out of Euro 2024, this may have a different tone. 6 pints in and on the 6.5% beer by this point, I’d pretty much given up. Yet England hadn’t. Jude Bellingham hadn’t. The team managed by Gareth Southgate hadn’t. From then on, I …

Before I tell you who I’m voting for in the 2024 General Election, if the cover hasn’t given it away, a reminder of what I believe in. I Am A Liberal I am a liberal. I believe in social liberalism – the right to live your life how you want to, to be free to make the choices within the construct of society (ie you are not free to not pay tax, for example) and law (ie you are not free to steal, etc). I believe in personal responsibility – you have freedom but also you are responsible for your …

It was was time for a day trip to Liechtenstein – the smallest country that I have been to. Just the 6th smallest country in the world. Let’s see if I can write this in the time it takes to get from Basel to Strasbourg, for the next stage of my adventure. Doing some research beforehand, a lot of Swiss people seem to think going to Liechtenstein is weird – because there is little there, and what there is there are better versions of in Switzerland (ie mountains, forests, galleries, etc). So I went with the idea that maybe I’d …

Why Bilbao? We kind of picked Bilbao at random – it was to be the first holiday with my folks since 2018-ish. Somewhere not too expensive, somewhere walkable, somewhere with good food, and hopefully good weather in June. Ah. The rain in Spain falls mainly in Bilbao? Actually it poured down elsewhere in Spain, and was more intermittent in Bilbao, but hey, I wanted sunshine. Something About Bilbao It likely won’t have missed your attention that some places in Spain are protesting about “mass tourism”, which possibly boils down to not building enough homes for locals – Ibiza is a …

I realised that I’ve been meaning to finish this post about Málaga for 6 months now…and I’m about to go to España once more. Last October I moved to Spain. Alas, only for 4 ish weeks until my flat purchase completed, but it was an opportunity to live one of my dreams. Most of the time I stayed down the coast in Benalmádena, but I did also spend a week in Málaga, and had multiple evenings there too. Why not?! Doing Tourist Stuff I always used to have Málaga down as being a bit basic – an association due it …

It’s time to think about a long term plan. I’ve clearly got my shit together. I have a career and I’m reasonably well paid – well paid enough for a £1,438 a month mortgage and several holidays a year. Also I’ve lost weight and I’ve had a quote to sort my teeth out. In 6-9 months time I might even feel comfortable enough to smile – and go onto dating apps. Yet there is a cloud looming over the horizon. Artificial intelligence. Though with thanks to Google Photo’s AI for filtering my photos to find those of clouds. Could AI …

Why has it become so hard to find good new music recently? I don’t want to be one of those middle-aged blokes who drone on about how music was better in my day – just 2-3 years ago there was plenty of music to excite me. Why am I unable to find good new music now? It’s not for the lack of effort. On an average week I guess I consume 100+ tracks that I’ve never listened to before on YouTube (mostly). These are found mostly from combing DJ set lists, a few radio shows by the likes of Hessle …

And finally I start writing about my holiday to Palermo, in Sicily. I’ve got into this groove of going away late March, to celebrate the end of my detox, and also to try to find some warm sunshine. In 2022, there was no shortage of sunshine in Las Vegas and San Diego. In 2023 there was likewise no shortage of sunshine in Malta. Yet there is no guarantee of warm sunshine anywhere in Europe in late March…it needs a bit of luck, and a good weather forecast. Having just had a sudden stratospheric warming, I thought this ruled out Spain …

Those that know me well know that I’ve had my ups and downs over previous decades – not depression, but I’ve had some emotional struggles at times. But it’s kind of struck me recently that actually, I feel like I’m achieving emotional stability. What happened? Having My Own Space Holy cow, having my own flat, my own space – being able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it, is so refreshing. I can play music when I want to, at the volume I want to, do the washing up the next day (or never …

I was reminded of this exchange with Match.com recently, and realised that I had never posted it. Basically, back when I thought I was vaguely dateable, circa 2017 (and I didn’t even own property back then), I came across a special offer from Match.com which was that if I didn’t have a girlfriend by Valentine’s Day, then I’d get a full refund. Challenge accepted! How hard could it be to still be single 6 months after signing up? Refund Request to Match.com Dear Match I succumbed during a weak moment of loneliness around a year ago into signing up for Match.com. I …

Another one of those posts that I meant to write a long time ago – like 4 months ago, but hey, Welcome to Croydon. I arrived in November, after living in the south of Spain for nearly a month. Once the initial wonder of actually having my own place settled in, albeit I’d had my own place(s) in Spain for the previous month, I was wondering around in the cold and dark, wondering what kind of place Croydon was. I was a little unnerved – appreciating the M&S within walking distance, but really missing Spain. Christ, what am I doing …

Detox is over…long live retox. The feeling is a bit like moving into my flat…phew…it’s over. What took it so long? Yet it officially ended on Monday, and it took me two days to celebrate it. At first I really wasn’t feeling it. The first few weeks of January I was pretty miserable – memories of 4 weeks in Spain were long gone, the weather was cold and crap, bills were flooding in, I didn’t do as much as usual – little in the way of trips to theatre, etc – and I couldn’t have a beer. It almost put …

Back in September, when I was on the beach in Gandia, I started to think how nice it would be to have one week’s holiday every single month. Alas, 5*12 does not go into the 25 days’ holiday allowance that M&S offers. So how many holidays could I have in a year? Definition Of A Holiday I guess we need to start by defining a holiday. I think it needs to be some stay away from home, which isn’t my parents home, for a minimum of 2 nights.. So a weekend in Devon, staying Friday and Saturday night is a …

Yay it’s one of my favourite blog posts of the year – that of my 2024 Goals. I try to ensure that I can track every one of these goals, yes I do have too many spreadsheets and keep too much data. I should get out more, but also I now have an expensive flat so I shall go out less. There’s only so much I can do in a year – this is to try to ensure that I get maximum enjoyment out of life, but also improve my conditions so that I can continue to enjoy life even …

So in 2022 I managed a 61.6% success rate in terms of reaching my goals – could I beat it in 2023? Time to review and see how I did: Health Lose 12kg. Well I actually lost weight in 2022. Not quite 12kg, but 6kg. Happy with that. 50% success. Do 3 forms of exercise that are not walking. Lol, maybe in 2024. 0% success. Get some data on my health. Well I’ve started measuring my blood pressure. 33% success. Find out what sorting my teeth out will cost. I did send an e-mail to a private dentist but didn’t …