Countdown …

Very soon I will be off on my “Euro 2025” adventure, and the usual symptoms are well underway. I have found in recent years, during the weeks leading up to the departure day, my nerves go all unnecessary. It usually starts when the calendar rolls over into the month before the departure, so I can live through this for anywhere between four to seven plus weeks. It then peaks on the actual going away day at the airport, when if I can speak, there is very little sense comes out my mouth.

I think it all stems from the amount of planning I do for my trips. In a similar way to last year for “Euro 2024”, I have created pages of detailed route maps, which then causes me constant concern, about whether I have mistakenly written down “take a right” instead of a left or vice versa ~ I just did my third check on those maps and indeed found a scary amount of such errors.

Another concern that keeps the nervous churning in my stomach, is flight time changes. On this trip I am using two airlines, and daily I find myself checking their web-sites for any change of a flight time ~ it happened on three of my seven flights last year. The airlines do send out a notification email about such changes, but there may be one time they forget to send it to me ….

In addition to the above, there always seems to be constant checks that my driver’s license and (Canadian) passport is valid ~ I did have a serious incident back in September 2019, when as a Canadian citizen, I could not return to Canada like I had done many times before, on a direct flight from Britain using my valid British passport (I did not have a Canadian version at that time). I recall on that trip, a Sunday afternoon call from the Canadian Embassy in London, where they very helpfully recommended, that I fly instead to the USA and walk across the land border ~ there will be a full chapter about this event in my book …!!!!

Another headache is the permutations of baggage rules and regulations for different airlines, this does seriously drive me nuts. At $75 each way across the Atlantic I am allowed 50lb of stowed baggage and a carefully sized carry-on bag. But within Europe, the stowed baggage drops to 44lb and a smaller sized carry-on ~ why can they not be all the same …????

In an attempt to temporarily relieve myself this constant state of turmoil, I took a wonderful afternoon wander on Crescent Beach. The tide was on its way in, the west wind was fierce but very warm and the entertainment was excellent.

Incidentally, after I arrive at my destination, I am always fine, no hint of nerves and never fail to have a great time ~ I suspect Euro 2025 will be no different.

This afternoons pics …