Summer holidays - yippee!

The schools are quiet. Children and young people stroll along the High Street in my market town - often with a supervising grandparent in tow.

So it's time for a blog-break till the Autumn. I shall still be reading and writing. But I shall also use the long days to flop about in the sun:

To watch cricket:

And to play with grandchildren:

All of this add up, in my corner of the world, to the best sort of summer holidays! What about you?

When coming home is hard.

It's not easy, coming home after a long trip.

For a few days I felt like this:

Then, when I looked at the list of all this things I needed to do, I felt like this:

And now? I'm picking up the pieces, reconnecting with friends and family, running my fingers along my (dusty) bookshelves, deciding what to cook for supper. Within days the Galapagos feels a million miles away.

Except I can't stop talking about it. About being somewhere so geologically new. About being so close to birds and animals that I'd expect to run away from me. About swimming in a sea that really is turquoise. About being so close to a snake constricting and eating an iguana. About seeing two huge tortoises squaring up for a fight. About watching a baby frigate bird feed from its mother - putting its entire head down the mother's gullet. About watching sea turtles have sex (which has its comic side as she has to come up for air from time to time, and then he falls off ...). 

It is as astonishing as everyone says it is. But, as each island is different, it's hard to write about it as a unified experience.

So will there be a book? 

I'm thinking about it. I need to find the story. Woman has great time Ecuador and the Galapagos isn't a story. Let's preserve the fragile environments isn't anything new. 

And while I'm thinking I'll leave you one last picture: this is the boat was on, travelling round the islands.