I don’t know. I spend my time blogging insightful comments on literature and dropping pearls of historical wisdom from every pore and by far the most popular post so far this year has been my rant about medical non-services! There is a lesson in this somewhere. Then, over the last few days, practically the whole of Australia has hit on my website for no apparent reason. They haven’t been directed there via another website, so have I been mentioned in a down-under talk or a magazine perhaps? These appeared to be genuine visitors and they are clicking through to the Amazon pages of my books and judging by the Amazon ratings, making purchases. I’d love to know who to thank. Answers on a postcard………

Actually, this is more of a blog about non-travel. This really should be a post about the first day of my holiday but no. There I was, two days ago, all set to be driven off in order to be near the terminal for an early morning ferry the following day. You know how it is, you’ve unplugged stuff, eaten a odd variety of food so that there are no left-overs, poured the last of the milk down the drain, put the bin out, just the lap top to shut down. In pops an email. They regret our ferry has been cancelled due to forecast bad weather, can we ring this number? We can and do and learn that we will have to wait to sail for an additional 24 hours, so that’s the first day of the holiday disappearing into oblivion. Magnanimously the ferry company tell us that they won’t charge us for changing our booking! Weirdly, the ferry company’s website still claims that a ship will sail for our destination at the later time of 11am but we are told that this is not the case. We now have to buy more milk, break out a new bin bag, raid the freezer for an evening meal and feel cross at the loss of a day of our holiday. We do try and put the latter in perspective. It does seem petty to be moaning about a curtailed holiday when the storms elsewhere have rendered hundreds homeless. Hopefully holiday posts will follow tomorrow.