It's been a mere two months since our last trip up north, and what a lot has happened during that time.
First there was the small matter of the Brexit vote; and then the minor constitutional inconvenience of a new Prime Minister and Cabinet. The apocalyptic commentary that came with the EU poll result was, to me, as derisory as the baseless campaigning (from both sides) that had led up to it. Particularly irksome though has been the assumption by the Remainers that anyone who voted 'Leave' must be a xenophobic halfwit, without bothering to actually find out why they (or should I say we) voted that way. However, at the time of writing, things are looking fairly positive, with new PM Theresa May providing some welcome stability in contrast to outgoing PM Dave's knee-jerk tendencies – but it's early days and, as ever, time will tell.
Then there were the Rio Olympics. This was the first time that we'd ever been away during an Olympic Games, and after a lacklustre first few days, we were just now picking up momentum and starting to win some serious golds. Keeping tabs on Team GB would become a defining characteristic of this leg, and was to be ably assisted by our having televisions at our disposal every morning and evening – my usual extensive pre-trip research had shown that there were practically no campsites to be had along the largely developed-tending-to-urban coastline that we would following this time, and so before we'd even left home we'd resigned ourselves to B&B-ing for the whole leg. We'd both brought our tents along anyway though, just in case the worst happened, and we ended up needing to rough camp in a pear orchard at 2am on a rainy night – well, it's not as if it hasn't happened before...