Sorry, but . . .

I have spent significant portions of the days in these past 2 weeks looking on-line at train schedules and bus schedules in an attemp to inject some measure of cohesion and optimization in my planned 'Bucket-List' trip - see my prior blog for more about that  - but it entailed comings and goings between (and within) South Wales, North Wales and Southern England - not to mention the pond-crossing part of it all.

Well now a wrinkle has developed. To be more correct, two wrinkles have appeared.

The first surfaced three days ago when my intended North Wales-based host announced a major turn in his personal life. It doesn't involve cancellation of that part of my trip, but adds a new dimension. He suddenly suggested that the opportinity may be ripe for just the two us to relive a part of our lives that ocurred more than 46 years ago!

He and I had spent three summers conducting post-graduate studies in adjoining parts of rural Ireland. It was there that I met my 'Anam Cara' - though it was a few years later before she and I married - in Wales, and left for the US. Anyway, without further (or at least less) digression: my host-to-be and I had decided in 2002 - at our first reunion since 1968 (we had no contact whatsoever in that 34 year interim) - that 'some day', we should return to that area for nostalgia's sake. Of course, I have been there dozens of time - as my wife's family still lives there.

It seems by bucket grew a handle!  The on-line searching just got enlarged and the calendar got shaken up as I am now making plans to include ferry-schedules to the list of searches - to accomodate that part of this expanding trip.  I'll take a train to North Wales, spend a few days with him, take his car on the Holyhead - Dublin ferry, and we'll both step back to our haunts of the '60s - in Ireland.

Oh - you thought I had forgotten about the second wrinkle, didn't you? No - that one only arrived on my 'to-do' list this morning. It took far less deliberation on my part than 'wrinkle number one' before deciding I would have to forego inclusion of yet another place on my trip. To the relief of many, I'm afraid I will NOT be accepting any invitations to visit Italy in March - I'm sorry, but I'm just not up to the job.