The end

Simon writes:

The heroism of this, my final post on our blog (necessarily long to reflect the importance of the occasion), is not to be underestimated: I'm having to type it on a French keyboard - nothing is in the right place, even if you're writing in French! Now don't misunderstand me, I'm no Francophobe. I love their language, I love their cuisine and I'll even admit to a grudging admiration of their pig-headed approach to international and industrial relations. But making me use the shift key just to type a bloody full stop is really pushing it!!!! Also, this internet cafe costs about £60,000 per hour (€3) so this sparkling copy does not come cheap...

Ahem. Sorry about that.

So we're in Lille, an underrated city if ever there was one (see pic)



There's good food and booze, a cinema that shows films in their original language and literally dozens of lingerie shops. What more could you possibly ask for?

We made our way here at great expense from Switzerland (you could fly to New York and back twice for the amount we spent on train tickets - some things in this world are just plain wrong). There we did little other than overdose on cheese. One glorious day of skiing (and cheese) with our friend Juhani will stick in the memory:




I'm sure you'll agree that those braces are really quite fetching.

We also spent time in the company of the Swiss side of my family, some of whom have already made encouraging noises about visiting us in Canada. Here's a picture of us with my aunt and cousin:



So that's you all about up to date really. I'm struggling to find a suitably elegiac tone on which to end it all so I'll take refuge in statistics. What with me being totally rubbish at statistics, I only have three:
1. We left London nearly 8 months ago;
2. Without flying, we have visited 23 countries (some more than once);
3. We stayed the night in 89 cities/towns/villages (this figure does not include night buses or trains).

Thanks for reading and commenting. We're back in London on Thursday night. I'll buy a beer for anybody who can tell me which country we didn't photograph the penguins in (is there anybody THAT bored?!!).