summer

Grand Tour

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Smile Restaurant, Athens. 20.02.

I was half-tempted to go to bed without eating this evening, but after walking past a sign in a shop window saying LOOK AFTER YOURSELF in big white print and then seeing a team of chefs preparing sea bass in the next window along, my instincts got the better of me. Chances are this will be my last meal out of the summer, so I might as well make it a memorable one.

I got to bed shortly after six fifteen, after Thomas and Maria dropped me off at the apartment. The wedding festivities went on until well into the early hours of the morning, with the last of the dances wrapping up around half three. Alex, Peter and company enjoyed a few Cuban cigars, blowing liquid smoke rings into the night sky, while the venue staff slowly started to pack up. There was talk of a swim to cool off – had I brought my swimsuit? No, I hadn’t! But that didn’t seem to be a problem. A short pit-stop at Elena’s parents’ house sourced me a pair of trunks and then we found a parking space down by the beach.

Naturally, at half past four in the morning, it was nearly deserted. Just a couple of Greeks listening to trap music over a boombox and a lonely soul sitting on the breakwater and watching the stars.

I’ve never done a night swim before – at least, not in the Mediterranean. I might have gone for a dip after dark with Lucy and Emily many years ago in the summer I left school, but those memories are hazy now – and the cold waters of Whitstable are incomparable to the Aegean. It felt like stepping into a bath. The water was so clean and so clear that I could see all the details of my toes and the ripples in the sand below by the distant lights of the beachfront alone.

My mother used to tell me stories of starlight swimming in the Mediterranean in Barcelona back in the 80s. I’ve clearly been missing out. These beaches are absolutely rammed during the day, but by night you pretty much have the place to yourself, and the water is only slightly less warm. To the Greeks, perhaps, it might have been tepid, but after the chill of the North Sea and the cool waters of the Humboldt Current, it felt incredible. I didn’t feel in the least bit tired, either, though that may have more to do with the fact that I’m almost certainly still on South American time rather than the restorative properties of the Mediterranean Sea.

I slept until noon and waited out the heat of the midday sun in the cool of the apartment. I ummed and ahhed about going up to the Acropolis and ultimately decided I’d be mad to be in Athens and not see its most iconic feature up close. Missing Machu Picchu was… a choice, I’ll admit. But Machu Picchu costs hundreds to see, whereas the Acropolis is a flat 30€. So I packed a bottle of water and set out into the afternoon.

Athens is very quiet around four in the afternoon in August. Most of the city folk are sensibly avoiding the lingering heat. It’s only when you reach Makrigianni Street and the Acropolis Museum that the city suddenly springs to life – with tourists, that is. Germans with peaked caps. Koreans with parasols. Spaniards with GoPros and Americans with sweat-stained XXL tee-shirts and portable fans. All of them defying the 37°C heat to see one of the most famous architectural treasures in the world.

You have to meet your timeslot with these Acropolis tickets, but once you’re in, you can spend as long as you like in the area. The city seems to descend en masse shortly before sunset around 7pm – the lines were immense as I left – so I wouldn’t recommend leaving your visit to the last minute.

With time on my hands, I hunted for cicadas in the olive trees along the path. It wasn’t hard. Once you get your eye in, they’re very easy to spot, despite their cryptic camouflage. You just need to listen closely and look for the little white stripe at the bottom of their abdomen.

Check the trunks from different angles at first as your eyes adjust, because they really can disappear against the surface of the bark. Once you recognise the white stripe, you’ll see them everywhere. I found four on a single trunk by the Sanctuary of Dionysus.

It can be hard to find peace and quiet within the Acropolis complex, as its swarms with tourists at almost all hours of the day. But there are quieter spots. Curiously, the Erechtheion doesn’t get as crowded, despite being directly opposite the Parthenon itself. I suspect many tourists only go up to the great temple itself and then come straight back down.

An olive tree grows in its ruins, in the same spot where the sacred tree that was the symbol of Athena’s gift to her namesake city once stood. A couple of Americans called it a cicada (sick-aider) tree when asked. Two others said they were glad they’d got ChatGPT to give them the lowdown so they didn’t have to hire a guide. I even heard one family – specifically the adults – opine that the only way they could have got a crane inside the Parthenon was by airlifting it into the centre by jet.

Sometimes – just sometimes – I’m extremely grateful that my American adventure ended in heartbreak. Some of the most intelligent people I’ve had the fortune to encounter are from the States, it’s true, but also, some of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard have been said in that American drawl.

I’m always terribly conscious that I’m just another tourist with a smartphone in places like this, so I sat in the shadow of one of the Parthenon’s colossal columns and sketched the temple ruins in my journal. I’d like to think somebody might have sat here doing just that a hundred years ago, and perhaps a hundred years before that, in the time of the Grand Tour, before Apple put a camera into every hand on the planet.

That being said, it is a fantastic place for people watching. So many different people from so many different parts of the world… You could come up here with a sketchbook and spend hours drawing, if you had the time.

The internet seemed to think that wild tortoises might be found around the boulder-strewn path up to the Eptathrono, just opposite the Acropolis. I looked everywhere, but I didn’t find any. I guess I lucked out with the giant tortoises last week, which are – admittedly – a heck of a lot easier to spot. Still – you should always leave something to come back for, right? The view from the top was worth the climb, too.

I’ve made it back to the apartment and have managed to put my feet up at last. I’m quite happy with this afternoon’s adventure. This time tomorrow – for the first time in nearly two months – I’ll be back home in Somerset. All good things come to an end eventually, right? But not before their time – and it really has been a truly wonderful time. The very best of times.

I might post once more tomorrow to hit a 50-day streak. It’s been fun writing every day all summer, but it does help when you have something to write about.

See you in the UK! BB x

Guest of Honour

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Lake Vouliagmeni, Athens. 22.10.

I’ve been to a couple of weddings in my thirty-two years – one intimate, one magnificent – but I’ve never been to one quite like this. The backdrop is totally different. No Ed Sheeran, no Pharrell Williams, no Walk the Moon. Instead, the haunting double-reeded hum of a zurna floating over the hypnotic beat of a daouli drum. Cicadas screeching in an almost perfect polyrhythm. Every now and then, an enormous praying mantis – known to the Greeks as the Virgin Mary’s little horse – flutters past the blue lights, casting a fleeting shadow over the dancefloor.

I did always love a ceilidh, but this is something very different. It feels… older, somehow.

The festivities started last night, with a motorcade ride to the bride’s house to dance by the light of a scarlet flare. Summoned by the revving of no less than six motorbike engines, the bride and her family came down into the street to dance with the groom, his brother and Peter, a colourful character from Naxos. It was only a flying visit – some lingering tradition of not spending too much time with the bride the night before the wedding, perhaps – and after the dances were over and the flares were used up we rode back home.

I spent the morning recovering lost sleep (I’m still adjusting to European time) and made it over to Alex’s flat just after three o’clock in the afternoon – in perfect time to catch the ritual shaving of the groom. There seem to be all sorts of traditions to a Greek wedding. As one of the guests of honour, I had to offer him one of his wedding shoes, while his parents set his suit upon his shoulders.

Alex is something of a motorhead, so a motorcade was waiting once again as we set out for the wedding. Each motorcycle had a white ribbon trailing from the handlebars, but the jewel in the crown was a shining scarlet Cadillac hired out for the occasion. Alex insisted I sit in the front, so I had front row seats – quite literally – to the wedding procession as it sped down the highway through central Athens and beyond to the coast.

Alex and Elena chose a beautiful little chapel on a forested hill at the southernmost point of Glyfada. The priest – a young man, but the perfect caricature of an Eastern Orthodox saint – arrived dressed all in blue and smoking a cigarette, but for the ceremony he reappeared in black and gold.

The Greeks seem far more interested in the ritual over the written word: there don’t appear to be many speeches at all in these proceedings, beyond the magic of the Orthodox ceremony itself – which is sung almost in its entirety. No hymns, no readings from the family and friends, no sermon. Just the magic of tradition.

The celebration is taking place just a few minutes away by the shore of Lake Vouliagmeni, under the illuminated walls of a great limestone cliff. The music is predominantly Greek – only every so often does an English or Spanish song slip through the cracks. It feels like being back in the Middle East – a reminder that, in spite of the apparent universality of English, our dominion extends only so far as our influence. Here, as in Jordan, Morocco and Spain, there is a fierce devotion to the ways things were.

In our rush to become a cosmopolitan country, I sometimes feel we lost some of this magic back home in England.

I have no idea what my wedding would look like, because – frankly – I have no idea where I will be. I have dated an Afrikaner, a Pole, a Brazilian, an English girl, an Iraqi and an American – each a different nationality, with radically different perspectives on the future. I suppose I’d like something traditional – being an incorrigible romantic at heart – but until she appears, I remain open to seeing where the winds of fate carry me.

The only thing I know for certain is that, if and when my time comes, it will not be in England. Somehow I’ve always known.

If it could be even half of what I’ve been a part of today, it would be the wedding of my dreams.

Friendship in the old mould. The kind you read about in books. In the decade we’ve known each other, Alex and I have seen each other four times. Once, when we worked together for a couple of weeks at a summer school many years ago. Twice, when he was in London for a show last year. Three times, when he flew out to London with Elena to invite me to the wedding, and here we are at number four. Friendships that survive time, distance and the silence of working life are the most precious of all.

I have already had the most incredible summer of my life, but this just puts a seal on the whole thing. There’s not a day of the last seven weeks that I wouldn’t relive. And you know what? After eight years shut away in a boarding school, I think I’ve earned it.

Here’s to the summer of 2026. A red letter year in every possible way. May it be the first of many more to come. BB x

Dry Country

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Hartley Wintney, England. 22.20.

I left the UK for Chile at the end of the first week of July, just as the heat wave was ramping up and the first fires were breaking out. When my plane touched down at Gatwick yesterday, it was through the first rain clouds the country had seen since June. Like the first snows of Patagonia, I arrived just in time to catch the changing of the seasons.

What a change it’s been here, though. I’ve never seen England so dry. Dying trees. Trickling streams. Empty ponds. Parks and gardens a shade of yellow that would be more at home in a Van Gogh painting. Chile gets ravaged by the heat in summer as well, but at least they are ready for it when it comes. We even closed the schools back in June, it got so bad – and that takes some doing. We don’t even close for snow these days.

I dread to think of the impact this terrible drought will have had on the wildlife of these British islands – though I know it’s a pretty established truth that life always finds a way.

Like this little vole, snacking on some birdseed. I never did find its larger Chilean cousins, the vizcacha and the chinchilla, though I’m fairly certain I did see one of the rare rice rats during my trip to the Galápagos last week. I’ll have to try again someday – if I can ever take my eyes off those endless South American skies.

No condors here, sadly, but the local population of buzzards and red kites are a perfectly adequate substitute. I only saw the kites a couple of times today, but the buzzard was around a fair bit. Maybe he was looking for the vole? I can’t imagine it would be anything more than a snack for something as big as a buzzard, although at this time of year the hunter may have chicks to feed somewhere in the forest.

Tomorrow – Athens! The last mad adventure of the summer. My wedding suit is packed and I’m traveling ever so light, since I’ve decided to leave the camera behind this time and go all in on the personal side of the city. After all, I’m going out there to see an old friend tie the knot, not as a tourist. From what I’ve heard of Greek weddings, I’d be mightily surprised if I have the energy to do anything the day after, let alone during the early hours of the morning.

See you on the other side! BB x

Question Time

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Las Condes, Santiago de Chile. 18.45.

My time in Santiago is drawing to a close. Five days remain before I pack my rucksack with a few warmer weather supplies and set out for one more grand adventure – before responsibilities call me back to drought-afflicted Europe. It’s been so long since we had a day of truly clear skies – not since the day I arrived, to be honest – that it’s hard to imagine what most of Europe is going through right now. I’ve almost forgotten what’s it’s like to be hot outside.

I took it easy today. The weather was supposed to be miserable, but while the forecast rain did eventually come down, it was only for about five minutes. I thought about exploring the rocky mountainside reserves around Santiago’s east side in search of a few Chilean specialities that I have missed thus far, like turcas, tapaculos and the one and only tucúquere or horned owl… but in the end, it looked far too complicated to get there and back again under unpredictable weather conditions in time for a social outing at 2pm, so I gave it a pass. That’s where I draw the line between birder and twitcher – I’m not going to miss out on a chance to meet people and practise my Spanish just because I’m leaving the country in a week and haven’t seen all the Chilean endemics. There are limits even to my obsessions.

It was a lovely gathering at one of Tomás’ cousins’ apartment, in true South American style – that is, thirteen people and two dogs squeezed into a living room, with a lovely array of snacks and conversation.

Most of their attention was demanded by the new puppy Tomás’ sister has acquired over the weekend and his cousin’s dog, who went absolutely ballistic at the presence of so many strange-smelling new faces and a puppy to boot. I hadn’t really given it much thought, to be honest, but I think it’s safe to say I am not a dog person. They really are far too much.

Growing up with cats has had more of an impact on me than I realised. Tolkien once that “sheep get like shepherds and shepherds get like sheep”, and I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happened to me. Cats are loving and affectionate in their own way, but they’re also highly independent and will only tolerate so much attention before they need to slink off somewhere on their own. Maybe that’s why I’ve also ways been drawn to the quieter, more noble dog breeds that don’t bound about so much, begging for your attention, like mastiffs.

I feel very welcome here. Sure, there have been times when it has not been lost on me that my assigned department aren’t entirely sure what to do with me, since I did seemingly fall from the sky, but most introductions lead to some sort of inquisition, born from a natural curiosity as to what I, an Englishman, am doing out here in Santiago.

I wonder how my colleagues will treat Tomás during his stay. I know they will be welcoming, but I doubt he’ll be the centre of attention as often as I have been out here. I don’t think it’s even a generalisation to say that the British simply aren’t as curious. It’s not in our nature. An Englishman’s life is his own affair, and to ask too many questions is to intrude. I had that much beaten into me by a previous girlfriend who found my inquisitiveness and love of deep questions nothing short of invasive. She might have been an isolated case, but I will always remember a dinner with her colleagues where not a single one of them asked me a question or even acknowledged my existence for the entire three hour sitting. She is the only Briton I have ever dated, and it was enough to convince me that it is a mindset I must avoid at all costs.

The sunset from the cousins’ eleventh floor flat was quite spectacular. I’ve been away for quite a while now, so I am starting to look forward to the familiar trappings of home, but I will miss the mountains. You’d have to go as far as the Himalayas to get mountains as impressive as these… and don’t think I haven’t considered that – once I’ve saved up some more, of course, after what really has been a very splurge-y summer!

Tomorrow should – I hope – bring me the structure I have been craving. Two hours of Othello followed by another couple of hours of French. It will make a nice change from working on my novel in the Middle School Lenguaje department! BB x

Halfway

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Las Condes, Santiago de Chile. 21.24.

Today marks the halfway stage, both of my three-week exchange post and of my five-week extended summer break in South America. Life goes on for the students at Craighouse, and I have to remind myself that while it’s cold and coat weather here, and everyone is hard at work, my summer holidays are ticking by. Not that I haven’t made the most of them, of course – I can scarcely remember a more action-packed summer than this one – but it is something I have to tell myself when it feels like I might spend another day observing lessons.

Today I finished my myths and legends compilation for the Middle Lenguaje department and popped over to the Senior English department to get to know the team. Turns out that’s where French is based too, so I guess I’ll be up there a fair bit for the rest of my placement. They seem like a really friendly bunch. Hell, everyone here is really friendly. It’s been a really neat choice, coming out here for the summer. I’ve also had a lot of time to speak Spanish and work on my novels, so that’s been pretty useful, too.

Bit by bit, my last week is steadily falling into place. It’s going to be something to look forward to, to really set a seal on what has been a phenomenal second outing to Latin America. I hope it’s the first of many. BB x

A Surfeit of Films

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Las Condes, Santiago de Chile. 10.50.

After a flight that seemed to go on forever, I have made landfall in Chile. Tomás, my host for the next four weeks or so, very generously offered to come and pick me up from the airport – an offer I found it impossible to decline, operating on about an hour’s proper sleep and six hours of sleepless shut-eye.

Being right at the back of the plane meant that I was the very last customer served dinner, by which point they had run out of everything but chicken. I hadn’t eaten much, so that was fine by me – I thought it was really top-notch, by plane standards (or any standards, for that matter). The film choices were fab too, once I’d worked out where to plug in the complimentary headset (hint: it’s in the armrest to your right). I watched The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (largely on fast forward, as I’d had it on my mind a few days prior), considered Avatar III: Fire and Ash and then changed my mind and opted for Michael, the biopic about my all-time favourite artist that I had somehow managed to miss in cinemas this summer. I’m not normally a fan of biopics, lumping them somewhat unfairly under the same “cash-grab” category as Disney’s recent slew of remakes, but I thought this one was genuinely moving. Then again, I adore MJ and his music, so that’s probably my own bias talking.

I still managed to watch a silent version of Avatar on one of the telescreens in the row in front. It looked almost identical to the previous two films, boiling down to a sequence of who-took-who-prisoner and Eywa saves the day again, but maybe I was missing something without the dialogue.

I also managed to watch The Batman before landing in Santiago ahead of schedule at 7am this morning. That’s around six or seven hours of films, plus another six trying to get some sleep – and that’s still not the entirety of the flight time. That’s an indication of just how long the journey to Santiago is. Thank goodness it was all in the dark!

It took about an hour to get through customs, largely because the immigration control was very busy for seven o’clock in the morning. I had a gut feeling I’d be assigned to Gate 13 – unlucky for some – which I was, some thirty minutes later, only to find that Señorita Allende at the control desk was writing her next novella for each customer, so the queue for Gate 13 moved at a snail’s pace. I was two clients from the desk when she put on her coat, packed her things and signalled to the rest of us that her shift was over and to find another gate. The man at Gate 12 was much more efficient: a quick glance at my passport, a stamp (yay!) and through.

I was stopped at customs, which was an interesting change, because of the marmalade I’d brought over as a gift for Tomás and his family. I’d forgotten how much of a fuss is made of preserves! They let me through without a fuss – and with the marmalade, amazingly – but maybe next time I’ll stick to chocolate.

First impressions of Santiago? I’ve barely got to know the place, but from a single drive across the city to my host’s home in residential Las Condes, it’s a very different city to Lima or Arequipa. It feels instantly more like Madrid or Barcelona in its architecture, with its tower blocks and its vast network of underground highways. A dense wintry cover of cloud is currently hanging over the city, shrouding most of the snow-capped peaks beyond a grey veil, while the thick layer of smog that hovers above the city was immediately obvious upon leaving the airport.

It feels decidedly weird leaving England with a tan and a t-shirt, getting on a plane to somewhere abroad and immediately having to throw on a jumper and some warmer socks. It’s also a positively balmy 17°C here, a point emphasised by the faraway screeching of monk parakeets, an invasive species in most European cities but just as native to this strip of South America as the puma and the condor. It’ll be even colder down south in Patagonia. I hope my winter gear is warm enough!

I’m giving up on trying to catch up on lost sleep. It’s not working, and probably dangerous to try, or I really will throw my sleeping patterns right off. I’ll get a proper night’s sleep at the hostel I’ve booked in downtown Santiago tonight, after getting my bearings and catching the Spain v Belgium game, of course. Until then, let’s take it slow. Don’t want to burn out before I’ve even started my placement now! BB x

Retreat from the Heat

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London Heathrow Terminal 5, London. 20.00.

So far so good! I hit the exact hurdle I expected at check-in – namely, Iberia failing to allow for middle names and slapping them on the end of my surname, making for one heck of a name – but the lady at the desk waved me on in without a fuss. My suitcase is off on its merry way, and in another half hour or so I’ll leave this charging station and set out after it.

It hadn’t really dawned on me quite how far a fourteen-and-a-half hour flight truly is until I saw it printed on my boarding pass. That’s an odyssey of a journey right there, and all of it in the dark, being one of those nightchaser flights that seemingly travels backwards in time.

My contact in Santiago has got in touch, so I no longer need concern myself with my suitcase once I reach the other side of the world – and that really is a load off my mind! I have an aisle seat at the very back of the plane, so I can’t guarantee I’ll have slept all that well by the time we arrive. I hope they have a decent film or two on tap! I’m conscious that I’m missing the France/Morocco quarterfinal as I write, but maybe it’ll be showing in one of the bars en route to the C Gates.

The news here is all about the heat – that, and Nigel Farage’s impending by-election against Count Binface. There are so many reasons I would move abroad – not least of all the number of colleagues who tell me (in the nicest possible way!) that they don’t think I belong here – but when it comes to political satire, we really are the best in the world. Where else would a would-be prime minister be forced to spend the summer debating against a man with a bin on his head?

Enough of this madness. Onwards! To a country of wonderful wine and breathtaking mountains where they speak my grandfather’s language. The forecast is eternally in flux, but it now looks like it’s set to snow throughout my stay in Puerto Natales. Strangely enough, it will be the first snow I’ve seen in nearly two years. I hope I have packed enough for the cold! BB x

Overencumbered

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Carriage B, Delayed 16.05 to London Paddington. 18.07.

No adventure ever worth setting out on ever started easily. That’s what I’m telling myself as I lug all of this junk across country. I have to face the facts. It was my decision to maximise my time in Chile, leaving a single day’s pit stop in the UK before setting out again for Greece. Both occasions require formal wear, but Chile is in the grip of deepest winter and Greece will be just past the zenith of its summer fury. It felt decidedly odd packing my quilted coat, gloves and rain gear when the temperature was ticking past 31°C outside, but I have to be prepared for any eventuality. I really dislike traveling with anything more than a few changes of clothes and a backpack, but on this occasion I have no choice. Thankfully, I don’t have to lug my Greek summer wear around Chile. It’s just getting all of this junk out of Somerset that’s the kicker.

It’s pretty hot out there. The corridor is full of suitcases and a pram, most of them belonging to a retiree in a summer dress. I wondered at first whether she was a candidate for the most inattentive grandmother on the planet, since she only popped out into the corridor to check on the inhabitant of the pram twice over the space of an hour – until at last she scooped up the little thing, which turned out to be a little brown puppy. She proceeded to try to encourage it to drink from a metal bowl of water – most of which went onto her dress and the floor – and then took it into the toilet cubicle, picking up super absorbent puppy training wipes from her pram en route. The Japanese family trapped in the corridor with me seemed more than a little bemused.

We were delayed again outside Castle Cary by a fire at the side of the track, which appeared to have started some five or ten minutes ago, judging by the speed of its advance and the trail of charred grass it had left in its wake.

Fires starting at the side of railway lines? Two heatwaves back to back? I’ve never known a summer like it. The sooner I am up in the air and down in the southern hemisphere, the better. I may have Spanish blood, but on this occasion the Englishman in me wins out. I’m really not a fan of this kind of heat.

23.03.

Check-in is officially open, but the website is telling me it’s “too early” to check in, despite the fact that this time tomorrow I’ll be one hour into my fourteen-and-a-half hour flight to Santiago. It’ll be something to do with the fact that it’s British Airways operating the flight out, not Iberia, and Iberia’s website usually forces me to input my middle names as part of my surname, since middle names don’t exist in Spanish society (but two surnames are expected). One of those two usual stumbling blocks.

I’m too tired to deal with it now. I’ve packed a proper headrest cushion for the journey, as it will be the longest flight I have ever been on in my life, so if I have to check in at the airport and get a rum deal as seats go, I guess them’s the breaks. At least I have Friday and Saturday to readjust! BB x

Waiting

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The Flat, Taunton. 23.30.

Still no word from Chile. A voice in my head is trying to tell me that something is amiss, but I’m tempted to chalk that up to institutionalisation. I have to remind myself that I knew next to nothing about Villafranca de los Barros when I set out to live and work there for the best part of a year. I didn’t even have my accommodation thought through until a few days after I had arrived. There is simply a lot less stress in the way the Hispanics go about these things, and I should be on board with that – it’s the system I started out with. I wonder whether it’s just a psychosis of the English (or, perhaps, the Americans) that we need everything planned and sorted right down to the last detail.

I am not a planner. Sure, traveling twelve thousand kilometres without much of a plan might be reckless even by my standards, but it doesn’t trouble me. Not really. After all, if the worst comes to the worst, I can always store my luggage somewhere and go traveling.

England is back in the grip of another heatwave. This one isn’t as fierce as the last one, but it is noticeably hotter than usual. Perhaps I’m noticing that all the more because A) my barber’s has always been busy when I’ve gone by, so my hair is longer than usual; B) the fan in my air purifier has given up the ghost; and C) I’m packing for an austral winter, so I’ve had the odd experience of going through my winter wardrobe in 30 degree heat. The incoming El Niño may alter the weather in Chile while I’m out there in ways I cannot predict – it could be hotter, wetter or even colder than the average winter – so I have to pack for every eventuality. Thank goodness I paid for a suitcase this time around! I really hate traveling with suitcases, but at least it gives me the peace of mind to pack enough supplies to keep me comfortable, whatever the weather.

Just a short couple of posts for now – I don’t have an awful lot to report on. Just wanted to get back in the zone before the next adventure begins. Writing is an exercise, and like any sport, it needs a good warm-up! BB x

U-Turn

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14.02, The Flat.

In the blink of an eye, my second year at Taunton has come and gone. It’s been another hurricane season, I won’t deny that. A little easier than last year, perhaps – if only because of the repetitive nature of teaching the same course – but every bit as busy. Since September, I’ve taken my student Funk Band out to their first external gig, joined a band of my own, taken a team to the Oxford Schools Finals Day for the second year in a row and led a public speaking workshop in the form of a legal practice (which, of course, I am totally qualified for…). I have returned to Extremadura under iron skies, taken yet another school trip to Barcelona and travelled all the way to Peru in search of the Andean condor on one of the most amazing adventures of my life. I have not found Her – Somerset is proving a very dry place – but I have made some good friends at work, which is a positive. I haven’t exactly had much time to commit to the search, and I have also spent almost every day of my holidays on the road, which is terribly self-indulgent of me, but it is how I survive the manic 24/7 existence that is working in a boarding school.

True to form, my summer holidays are set to follow the same trend. After a few days’ reprieve – just about enough time to tidy the flat and pack – I will be traveling across the Atlantic again, bound this time for Chile, nearly 1,500km further south than where I left off in April. Please don’t get me wrong – this one isn’t a purely self-indulgent adventure. I’m off to work at a school out there in Chile’s capital, Santiago, for three weeks or so. As to what form that work may take, I am still completely in the dark. I imagine any rational human being might balk at the idea of being less than a week away from traveling to the other side of the planet at no small expense without so much as an address or even the vaguest idea of what to expect, but I’m at that stage of my life where I am entirely my own agent and any change is welcome. The alternative is a rather static Somerset summer, alternating between driving lessons and debilitating bouts of hayfever. With my timetable for the next academic year allowing some time for the former, I think I can allow myself to dodge the latter by switching seasons in a Spanish-speaking country.

I won’t be hiding under an austral snowstorm all summer. When my five weeks are up, I’ve a wedding to attend in Athens, which I have been looking forward to for a very long time. Once again, I’ve only planned the beginning. How I get home after four days in the Greek capital remains up in the air. Maybe I’ll find a quiet spot in Thessaloniki and soak up the Mediterranean sun while I work on my novel. Or maybe I’ll travel back home across Europe, seeing Romania like I planned years ago. I haven’t decided yet.

I really don’t know what the next two months will bring. At the very least, I hope they bring change, whatever that looks like. My boss would really like me to stop saying yes to everything. She means well, I know. But if I don’t say yes to things like this, my youth will slip through my fingers and I will find myself in the same job ten years from now, still hoping that She will appear. The apps don’t work – everyone is exhausted – so, like a good scientist, I have to go and do the fieldwork. I don’t expect to find Her in Chile (let’s be honest, at a distance of nearly twelve thousand kilometres, it would probably be better for me if I didn’t), but it can’t hurt to try – and along the way, it would be nice to make some new friends and learn something new. I have work to do, of course – this Spanish Language A: Literature course won’t write itself – but with several long flights on the cards, that shouldn’t be a problem. With one “buffer” week on either side of my placement, I should have plenty of time to explore.

In short, I don’t know how this ends. I don’t know how it middles either. But I do know how it starts. Since I’m going all the way to the far side of the world, I figured I could go a little further. Before my placement begins – the day after the FIFA World Cup Final – I will be indulging my inner Attenborough once again in the desolate wilds of Patagonia. After a little shopping around, I’ve found a respectable guide who will take me in search of one of Chile’s most magical creatures: the puma. I didn’t have any luck with the jaguars in Manu this Easter, so hopefully Patagonia will deliver.

I hadn’t planned on going back to South America so soon – but here we are. Life is full of u-turns, but they aren’t always as exciting as this. So here’s to the summer of ’26! BB x