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Returning home after a holiday is always an anticlimax. It’s nice to be home, but we’d still prefer to be doing something different, somewhere else. Best of all though, is not having to go back to work the next day! Neither of us! The journey home was uneventful, but bitty.

After breakfast and a chat with our host, Noreen, then

• We walked to the tram stop and caught a tram into Dublin city centre, then
• We walked around the corner and caught a bus to the airport, then
• We walked to the gate, via the shops, then caught an airport bus, then
• We walked to the aeroplane and up the stairs and flew to Gatwick, then
• We walked off the plane and caught a bus to the terminal, then
• We walked to the station and caught a train to Clapham Junction, then
• We walked to a different platform and caught a train to Tolworth, then
• We walked across the road and caught a bus to Gosbury Hill, then
• We walked around the corner, home, sweet home.

Interestingly, we walked straight out of Gatwick airport, nobody and no machine checked our passports. It was a bit of a shock to be out on the concourse with hundreds of members of the actual public.

Liesel declined my invitation to come for a walk the following day, despite it being sunny rather than the predicted wet. And walking around the streets of Chessington, I was reminded why I usually take out my phone and play music or radio programmes. The sound of traffic is inescapable, even away from what might be described as main roads. The birds around here have to squawk really loudly to compete with the traffic. Walking in the forest last week was so peaceful, hearing the birds singing without having to shout. And the silence in between was only disturbed by the susurration of the wind in the leaves.

Today was the day we caught up on all of our admin, not very interesting really, having to pay bills and check bank accounts and process all the mail, throwing a good 75% of the paperwork straight into the recycling bin.

As far as the house-move is concerned, some progress has been made. We responded to our vendor’s enquiries and our seller’s solicitor has answered some of ours. One thing that is a little disconcerting, that we hadn’t previously even contemplated, is the question: Is our new flat likely to be affected by the impact of the High Speed Railway (HS2) from Birmingham to Manchester?

While away, we tried to follow the Giro d’Italia but now we’re home, we can watch it on TV, or at least, the highlights. Simon Yates has been leading for most of the race but today, he cracked on the final climb, so, excitingly, it’s all to play for! (As they say.)

Today is the final day of the service provided by Which.net, the site of my first websites and our first email addresses. Over the years, I’ve said farewell to a number of different email addresses but I still have a soft spot for some of them:

• delphinus
• more-chocolate
• dark_horse
• mickeydoodah
• mick_the_wonder_horse
• mickey_moose
• mickeydoooodah
• mickeydoodledoo
• mick.freed (yes, one of those had to go because it clashed with an American who shares my name)
• cc_s435 (my very first one, at Kingston University)