Emerging From COVID and Ready to Travel

I am an optimistic traveler; I assume that everything will go well until it doesn’t. When it doesn’t go as planned, I choose to remain buoyant and optimistic. But, when COVID shut down the summer of 2020, I had a hard time coping. I had plans!  

I eventually found a way to find my optimism. I just contacted all the places I was going to be in 2020 and asked them to push off my reservations to 2021. And, I’m happy to report that, because I am vaccinated, I have been able to keep my summer plans (with a 10 day self-isolation period in England along the way).  

The world is continuing to open and will so long as we are all committed to keeping each other safe by getting vaccinated and keeping our masks in place for a little bit longer. 2022 looks to be a return to normalcy. So, now is the time to think about next summer and make plans to get back on a plane and see the world.  

I’m in Bath right now! I’m re-connecting with the city and with Jane. The tours will benefit from this trip as I’ve learned so much more already and I thought I was doing pretty well with my Jane Austen knowledge. That is the difference between reading and experiencing; and, this is from a reader! Experience is about more than knowledge; it’s about the terroir (to steal a wine term) of literature and history. It’s “walking in the footsteps,” as t’were.  

What I learned today is that Jane had a love/hate relationship with Bath. That makes sense. When she first came, she was part of the social class; when she left, she was the poor daughter of a deceased rector whose family could no longer afford Bath rents. She didn’t complete any work while she was here, but her observations of Bath are all over her writing.  

Tomorrow, I’m off to Chawton and Steventon to take photos for the website and to soak up more of the Austen energy. Feel free to ask me questions below. What would you like to know?