16 countries, 30 days - not quite Russia but definitely the trip of a lifetime!

You guys have said some absolutely wonderful, lovely and kind words about the blog. Thank you. For reading, for taking an interest, for subscribing, for commenting, for your support, concern and care. <3

One friend went so far as to ask me to carry on blogging in day-to-day life now I'm back. That's sweet, alas I fear there will be very little to report on now in humdrum land. That said, I thought you might like to know about my return to work...

I get up early on Monday morning. "I can get back into the swing of things." I tell myself.

Before I left for this trip, getting up for work was tough. And I had abs. I've come back with flabs and am determined not to get into a tough rut of waking for work. That, plus the rising fuel prices, meant that I was super motivated to jump on my bike and pedal my way into work in the sunshine.

Everything is breezy. I shower. I use my pass to get into the building. Until I go to log in to my laptop....

*tap tap tap* 

Computer says no.

At first I thought I might have been on gardening leave (that just seems like the cushtiest thing ever - I've got to be missing something there though?!). Anyway, when I get to IT to explain that I can't log in, they explain very calmly that they intentionally blocked me out...

"Urm... What? Why?!" I ask, clueless and innocently. What have I done? And why is IT Ed so calm about this...?

"Senior leadership asked me to."

"WHAT? WHY?!", I ask, becoming increasingly concerned, frustrated and worried.

"Because you were going to Russia."

 😆😆😆😂😂😂😂😂

I explained that I was never planning on taking my laptop!!

They told me it's because I took my phone, so that had been disabled too.

Wowzies! I hadn't taken anything!

It sounds like there was a right hooha when I left th UK and people super panicked in my organisation. Lolz.

I explained that I'm back safe and sound and even showed off that I have all my fingernails (safely de-Russia-ed!).

So, anyway, that was the highlight of that day. Back to reality. One week back and we're already itching to go somewhere else (Anf rang me on Friday night asking if I want to do it all again next year!).

I've been able to map out the route we took roughly on Google maps:

We went to 16 countries, I calculate (UK, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia - even if we didn't get in, we kind of touched their land, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Andorra.) and Anf is still calculating the miles we did.

Maybe, in time, there will be some updates from our Anf and you'll get an account of the trip from a different perspective. If you've subscribed to email updates, it'll let you know when there's new content automatically. Anf has said a few times he'd like to fill you in on the journey from the UK to Finland but I think he's getting his head around documenting our trip and planning another way into Japan for the moment - he mentioned North Korea but I don't know if he was joking...

Peace out.