Travel Plans for 2024, at last!

More Railway Adventures Await

Well, the King and the Princess of Wales have both told the world about their cancer diagnosis, and so perhaps it’s time I admitted to my own as an explanation of why it has been so quiet on this weblog recently. I am just coming to the end of four weeks of radical radiotherapy during which time I have not been able to travel and have not liked to make many plans in case the side effects prevented me from going. Now, as I am in the last couple of days with side effects not too bad, my head is full of possibilities for when the weather improves! Coinciding with the season of Lent has meant that the dietary deprivations have not affected me as much as they would have at Easter, and the rainy weather has reduced the annoyance at not being able to travel.

Meanwhile there are two exciting plans that I do already have for some train travel this year: a Great Rail Jouneys escorted tour to Switzerland, including the new Golden Pass Express, which was booked before I had the diagnosis and is well after the side effects should have disappeared, and an independent trip to Venice, returning as far as Paris on the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, booked recently but with confidence that I should be fit by then. In anticipation of the Venice trip, I was given not one but two Lego Orient Express kits for my birthday! I shall be able to make up a train with four coaches instead of the standard two … And building it is something I can be doing on those afternoons when the post-radiotherapy fatigue sets in. I hope that on the Swiss trip I shall be able to visit Meiringen and the Reichenbach Falls, still on “the list” at present.

We have also been invited to visit our friends in Chichester for a theatre evening, so although the train tickets are not yet booked that is definitely another adventure to look forward to. And I can now begin planning a few more! There are so many possibilities that have been put off by one issue or another, and it’s also time I saw some of my family: where to start is going to be the difficult decision!