As a travel writer I’ve been to more exotic locations than I care to remember, every Continent and most Countries in the World. Now that I have long retired but not yet in my dotage I enjoy just travelling for my own pleasure and even more so seeing more of this England, this Sceptered Isle.
Next week, in a brilliant spot of genius, my close friend who has been a mate for thirty odd years, and I have booked a few days exploring Dorset to include a couple of days fishing from a charter boat. I’m planning to introduce Billy to Lulworth Cove, Durdle Door, Lyme Regis and Chessil Beach, all new to him and not visited by me since the 1970s. I might even spring the Cerne Abbas Giant on him.
This year Billy has spent a month touring across India followed by a family holiday in a Gite in Brittany but this simple break, named by our teasing chums at the gym as a ‘Jolly Boys Outing’, is being anticipated with as much pleasure as any exotic escapes we’ve been to before. My planning genius has even included forecast of hot weather, bright sunshine and even a ‘soldier’s wind’ (less than 2mph and on the beam) while we are on the boat, ‘perfic’.
For absolute perfection all we will need is to land lots and lots of fish. My sermon to Billy is a famous Assyrian proverb – “The Gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men’s lives, the hours spent on fishing”. At our great age, that is some consideration.
