Travel with One L

 Just when travelling again becomes a realistic prospect, outside forces gather to make it potentially more difficult. 

Stories abound of long delays at the passport office, so imagine Mister E’s delight when he got his new one back within 4 weeks. This time, however, he made sure to check it carefully as he had his old one for 6 years before noticing that his middle name had been misspelt. Shame on the Passport Office, it had done it again (adding insult to injury by returning the old one with a slip showing the correct spelling). Reluctantly concluding retaining a passport with an erroneous middle name (two Ls instead of one) could cause all manner of problems, he returned it for re-issue. There were the inevitable hiccups in endeavouring to communicate by telephone or email with what appeared to be an unstaffed office. Indeed the only responses were received on a Bank Holiday, two within twenty minutes and their contents in direct conflict with each other. In the end it sorted itself out within 10 weeks, just in time to allow us to book a trip that no longer held any appeal and we opted to host family at our home instead.

Then, as friends and relations began to fly off to warm horizons, the media started to cover delays at the airports; road trips became subject to 2p a day rises in the cost of a litre of fuel and the train network was disrupted by railway workers’ strikes. Mister E, however, used his bus pass (a rare event) to travel from our village into town, doubling what is normally a 15 minute journey. Curiously, he has not repeated the experience!

With so much conspiring against travel, and that’s without me even mentioning the elephant in the room that is Covid, is it any wonder that we can struggle with the planning if not the implementation?

 A couple of weeks ago, Mister E and I finally took to the road for 2 nights and found plenty to occupy ourselves in one of those off the radar places, in this instance Barrow in Furness. There, and pretty much in isolation, we enjoyed the splendours of Furness Abbey as well as the sea views and big skies from Walney Island, the walk across the causeway to the nature reserve on Foulney Island, and of course the 12 man ferry boat from Roa to Piel Island with its castle and pub. The weather, contrary to the forecast, was glorious; our hotel was comfortable and its food good; garden stops were squeezed in on our journeys there and back. 

It may not have been a long haul or even long trip, but it was definitely travel and with more than one L too: leisurely, lightweight luggage, lonely location, long lunches (all outdoors), spirit-lifting and definitely no passport required.