Generally, I consider myself a lucky person. At least in the past, before the horrible war in my country. This trip, however, was a fail from its very beginning. First, we had to change the itinerary because our flight was cancelled. Which is not that bad as this way we could visit Bristol, where we hadn’t been before. Then our concert was cancelled. And that was much, much worse.

So, we had a trip to the UK just for fun and for releasing some more CO2 in the air for nothing. Not to diminish the touristic interest of Bristol and Bournemouth, but without the concert the pleasure was not the same.
Then the weather. We are not the people who can be easily scared by rain, but what we lived in Bristol was much more intense than just a light drizzle. I’m sure that we would have had a totally different impression from Bristol, had it not been flooded as well as our shoes.

In Bournemouth things got a bit better. The early winter sky and sun were glorious and we could enjoy the light typical for the northern maritime countries with “unstable” climate. The joy didn’t last long though as we discovered that precisely the day before of visit, the ferry to Old Harry Rocks was damaged and there was no connection with the national park we were hoping to get. After a meager attempt to convince ourselves that photographing the shadows of the cliffs on the horizon would be enough but they fooled no one.

On the bright side, we got the best of the British cuisine – the food in a traditional pub smelling with dozens kinds of beer and, naturally, the Fish and Chips. The way it should be – on the seaside in a takeaway box. Delicious, but my stomach asked not to abuse (which is another unpleasant misfortune of that trip).
It’s been a while since our last surfing escapade, so we stayed transfixed watching the brave hearts, who don’t fear freezing water of the English Channel. All our respect!

The next stop was London. For a mix of reasons, that was the first time when our love for London was questioned. After the pandemics, it became even more expensive than usual, or probably it’s just our income that is lower than it used to be, but London felt very hostile both financially and mentally. I didn’t like that feeling. I didn’t like putting it in words. My love for London was something firm and certain, losing it or feeling it shade feels like losing a part of myself, and in these horrible times it’s a thing I’d like to avoid.

At this point the film on our camera ended, so if you want more London pictures, we have a whole page for London only. Why didn’t we buy more? Because it cost like two kidneys of mine.

The misfortunes around this trip kept coming even it was over. We didn’t get a full refund for the concert, and sending the parcel with some stuff from the car also cost like my two kidneys. God knows it’s not the way I wanted to be back to the UK, but yet again – what does it matter when my country is bombed every day? What am I complaining about?