If there is anybody left who used to follow Status Viatoris blog, then they will know I have done this before, but recently I have started to feel the need for a little time travel. Perhaps it will help me progress the writing of the second chapter of my travels, who knows… Anyway, I am hereby launching Throwback Thursday: a chapter a week until An English Fandango is told, again.

This goes out to all those British teenagers whose freedom to adventure as I was able to do has been curtailed by the idiocy that is Brexit.

Prologue

I walk around the empty apartment for the last time, footsteps echoing on the cracked terracotta tiles.

Everything feels eerily quiet and inert, but then it is only six o’clock in the morning.

Early as it may be, the time for goodbyes has come and I take one final look at the space that has been my home for four long years, before calling the dog to heel and pulling the door shut firmly behind us.

She is still waiting patiently outside next to my battered car, the usefulness of its windows long since obliterated by chaotic piles of suitcases and bags, canine paraphernalia and my life all packed up in boxes.

There are tears in her eyes, but mine are dry. We embrace. She walks up the road behind the car for quite a way, eventually breaking into a slow jog; I can still see her waving…

Eight years have passed and in 1,400km I will be starting a new life.

But what about this one?

Where did it all begin?