When I first came to live in Amsterdam over twenty years ago I was travelling a great deal for work. My work was managing a multinational non-profit organisation and my work was in English. Buried beneath all this is any British person of my generation’s guilty secret—we’re really bad at learning languages because our language education was so poor.

This photo was taken from a video my partner made. He’d walked through the forest towards me sitting at my new table and videoed as he went. It’s the kind of thing he often does but this time he wanted to make a point. An inexpensive camping table had provided the means for a whole new range of activity while bathing in nature and provided me with a blissful few hours with myself. This is the story.

As you know, the Netherlands is a largely flat country, with areas often lying below sea-level.

For the last few months there has been a strange distance with one of my closest friends. It’s been really uncomfortable.

We Brits say ‘sorry’ all the time. In most cultures you only say sorry when you believe you have done something wrong. In the UK it is used as a communication tool. 

Do you remember the first time that you were talking to your doctor about some complaint you were experiencing and their response included the words, Well, at your age..?

When I first moved to Amsterdam from London more than twenty years ago, some friends told me that although they had a residents’ parking permit, they tried to use their car as little as possible because of the difficulty in finding one when they came home.

After all the planning, the talking and the apprehension this was the heart of my trip—sitting around a table eating delicious food and hanging out with three old friends.

Another frontier to cross in my mobility journey. I am travelling to the UK to see old friends and some family and to get a taste of British Christmas.