The Butlers Pack Their Bags Again: success!

This wasn't just any old summer trip to Europe you know - this was an Experiment.

This entire year is preparation for our next 10 years and whatever we needed to have in place before launching the 10 Year Plan had to be completed this year (blog to be initiated soon!).  We had already successfully tried working on the road for short trips, say 1 week or 10 days.  But we had yet to attempt working when away for a much longer chunk of time. Say, two months. So when we were lucky enough to have gained 1 ticket to the Olympics in the lottery we decided, right, we're going to Europe summer 2012 so let's make it a proper trip and try a few things out.

For one thing, can we 'live' in one place over there without going crazy (i.e., living with a friend in London for weeks rather than days, living with the parents-in-law in their sweet but tiny (for 4 people and 3 laptops) house). For another thing, our trips to Europe have increased due to the same rels' health issues and we have found that each visit has merged into the others. Even when we ensure there is a 'holiday' element as well as a 'visiting' element. And anyone who has ever gone anywhere to visit anyone knows the difference between visiting and holidaying - and travelling as well for that matter. Now going to Europe often enough to have each trip merge into the other in our brain is hardly a bad thing.  There is no way that I am complaining about something so wonderful that I am lucky enough to do. All I'm saying is I want to remember and value each and every trip. And to do that we realize we need to make each one memorable in some way. For example that was the year I took that French class in France, or that was the year Fil turned 80, or that was the year of our 15th wedding anniversary becuase we went out to celebrate at a restaurant called Louis Quinze (Louis the 15th), etc.

Well, we kind of overdid it a bit this year, don't you think? I mean, the Olympic Games in London is enough to make summer 2012 trip memorable isn't it?   You don't really need to add wine tasting in Bordeaux or dancing on Burgh Island and you certainly don't need to add both of them. And Paris. And hanging out with Hillsborough in Lyon. And touring Somerset. And Vienna. And reconnecting with old friends who mean a lot to us. Etc. Etc. As Martin would say, we have overegged the pudding a bit.

But the real goal was to see if we can work in a vareity of places in a variety of countries in a variety of travel modes in a summer that contained some work but not too much.

The answer is a resounding Yes!, but with 2 qualifications:
1) We need to have access to good, fast internet connections.
2) (And this is more personal to me) We need to be in one location long enough or familiar enough. If we are in a place like St. Emilion for only 2 nights there is no way I am going to be happy to edit a document for 5 hours!

So that's it then - an extremely memorable summer holiday that also checked something big off our to do list. Not too shabby.

Next!