My mum always set great store by the entry to a house. A proper entry was vital. It needed to be welcoming and give a good impression but without necessarily letting someone you didn't know straight into your living space. Some countries could take a lesson from my mum. We crossed three borders in the last week, all different. With the UK we were leaving and, apart from the loss of our spending in their country, they didn't really seem too bothered by the fact. On entry to the UK, on the Eurostar from France some months ago, we were interviewed, skilfully but gently, by an immigration officer who established who we were, what we had been doing, intended to do and for how long. For the USA we arrived after a long flight, longer because ... read more

This British regional thing has been keeping us interested. Each county with its own particular, even peculiar, character. Constantly changing accents and, when you cross one of the actual country boundaries – the ones with somewhat separate governments – you even get a different language. Scotland is working hard to bring Gaelic back, although you might wonder why, and there are Welsh people who, I am informed by my language advisors, never did learn to speak much English, although I have a sneaking suspicion that it is really all about taking a bog standard word and adding squads of consonants. Take LLLs and WWWs out and the poor buggers couldn't spell anything. We drove into Wales the day after their Prince or, to be more precise, his son – who is apparently William of Wales – ... read more

But first a word on Chester. Chester wasn't really a surprise. One of those places that seems always to be described as a lovely little city. We expected something pretty good and we were pleasantly surprised to find our expectations met. We can't really talk with any knowledge about the nightlife but it is a very pleasant place to walk around. It is one of the only cities in England that still has its complete wall. You can walk around the top of the wall and receive a potted history of the city from the signage, so we did. The history dates back to the Romans and there is still an amphitheatre in place. It claims to be the place where the mayor banned football and sponsored horse racing with the footy ground turned into the ... read more

It is useful to have a theme to guide your travels. The 'must see' list can be useful. Buildings, museums, food, villages or mountains are all good. Alcohol can be a very acceptable theme. For this leg, though, we are using family history. Three out of the four 'lines' of our respective families originated in the British Isles. Fortunately, a few of them came from places that we would have liked to visit anyway. Unfortunately, some of them left this part of the world, partly at least because they didn't like it much. You would have to punt, therefore, that some may not be high on the 'must see' lists. We sat down while we were in Brittany to work out precisely where we need to go and tried to plan a little where we might ... read more

There are a lot of people who talk about the difference between a traveller and a tourist with most wanting to see themselves as the former. I particularly like G K Chesterton's description. “A traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he comes to see.” I do have a sneaking suspicion, though, that a traveller is something that you call yourself when you don't like being called a tourist (and that is a quote from a blog I read somewhere). One thing that I do know is that, when you are on the road for a long time and you have been doing a bit of the touristing thing, there comes a time when you need to just sit down. So for the last week or so that is pretty much what we have ... read more