Two countries with 2 lots of bugs..? 16 7 8 (14) 25 1 23

On this our 49th wedding anniversary!

No, I am not going to tell you my age: like my wife reminds me sometimes, the age difference between us is just getting bigger and bigger as increasingly she claims to have been an ever-younger child bride. Well she was pretty young at the time I have to admit but then I wasn't so far behind!

Whatever! It has taken me all this time however to come to the conclusion I am basically a man of two parts: 1) the first and major part being this émigré who moved from his native England to Scandinavia all those years ago and 2) the Brit who whenever he gets the chance moves back to UK just to climb a few more hills???

One reason I say this is that after spending 6 weeks in UK this spring from May 3rd I engaged in some most unusual activities very uncharacteristic for the major player in this drama, the increasingly reclusive émigré, like renewing old acquaintanceships from over a year ago for example, and both sides so it seemed enjoying the correspondence which ensued...

And reluctantly recognising that the ever-eager Brit who likes to return home is increasingly incapable of climbing new hills if only because each year for the last three he has come down sick at an ever earlier point in his sojourn and as a result was more than ready to return to his reclusive bolt hole in Scandinavia long before the 6 weeks had elapsed...

So the one who makes new friends it would appear is not the émigré but the Brit and behind this lies two important differences in that the first lives in a shrinking community of the same people, whilst the other is visiting one of the world’s more densely populated countries and is constantly on the move interacting with new people all the time…These differences go a long way also to explaining why the second of these people comes down sick being subject to a different set of bacteria and bugs than in his more isolated home town…

But it also has to be said it is not the émigré who is learning new tricks and refining his ability to cope in ever more difficult circumstances but the Brit which overall allows one to keep the focus that it is important to keep the Brit alive as long as ever possible.

So for next year’s trip we have already decided all the family parties will be tagged onto the end of the sojourn once the hill-climbing part is out of the way so that the effects of any excess of exuberance for socialising and festive over-indulgence will hopefully be minimised: whilst retaining the bodies’ relatively high resistance to disease wrought from daily dips the whole year round here on the Baltic Sea.

That and perhaps a greater commerce with my new found acquaintances and/or friends: a record high on F-b of 8 added to the 62 before our latest trip in who knows a future wherein the two sides to one’s nature become more at one the one with the other? Hahaha. Have a good day everyone as I leave you with pics of where the two guys of this blog are apt to reside…

Today's pics: my tent some of you will recall from an earlier blog; some of the people one got to interact with in Scotland's bonny wild places; and last the abode to which i thankfully returned at the end of the sojourn. 

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