My word, what a long, cold, damp, freezing, miserable winter that was. Whatever happened to Global Warming?

We’re off, heading south, with hopes of finding sunshine, and so pleased you could join us.

It is planned that we will tour right through Italy, then cross the Adriatic Sea by ferry to Greece where we’ll tour, before dashing through Albania, then in to Croatia and Slovenia, across the top of Italy and back home through France. All being well the trip will last three months, spending roughly  a month in Italy, a month in Greece and a month making our way back.

The Chef has been to Italy before, but I’ve only passed across the top of it on our way back from Istanbul three years ago.

The beauty of the motorhome lifestyle is that everything is flexible. In order to maintain this sense of freedom we have not booked the ferry crossing from Italy to Greece, preferring to play it by ear.

It has now been ten years since we made our first ever motorhome trip, touring America in 2008. A lot has happened to the world and all of us in it since then.

In the past six months I now have a grandson. Alexander, and have attached a picture of him so that those who know me can see the family resemblance.

Sadly a few months ago I lost my cousin Vivien to Motor Neurone disease after a very brave five year battle. The Chef has very recently lost her former husband, the father of her three daughters. So there it is; people arrive in our lives and people depart. It’s the way of the world, and a reminder that we should all make the most of the time we have as we pass through.

So if you have someone special in your life, give them a hug and tell them so .................... because one day you won’t be able to.

Right that’s enough of that – let’s go and pay another visit to our European neighbours.

As always, in the back-to-front world of blogging it works like a Chinese book – start at the back (‘Earlier’), work forward (‘Later’) and read up the page rather than down.