There is a voice...

24 hours ago I left South Africa and now I’m writing this at home in Dublin.

I was more than a little bit tearful when I left – it was very hard to say goodbye to all my friends, old and new, in Cape Town. I even got emotional when the guy in Johannesburg stamped my passport. But then, I was also tearful when I arrived in Dublin – to sunshine of all things. I mean it was freezing, but the sun was shining. So perhaps I’ve brought a little bit of South Africa back with me.

I will be in Dublin for a few weeks, planning the next leg of my trip. My adventures are far from over! As my dear friends Mary and Andy (who came over from London to help me say goodbye to Cape Town) know, I’ve been singing the theme tune for the Littlest Hobo a lot recently:

There's a voice that keeps on calling me

Down the road, that's where I'll always be.

Every stop I make, I make a new friend,

Can't stay for long, just turn around and I'm gone again

Maybe tomorrow, I'll want to settle down,

Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on.

Most poignant tv theme tune EVER.

And I swear, the man checking my bag in Cape Town was humming it.

But unlike the Littlest Hobo, who never seemed to bother with tickets, visas, passports and suchlike, I need time to organise myself and to catch up with my loved ones here. While I do all of that, I will still be posting about Zimbabwe, about South Africa, about France and about Dublin.

I leave you with a picture of my toes: they are encased in two pairs of socks and trying to meld themselves with the radiator. (I’m also wearing two woolie jumpers. And a scarf. And thinking about gloves. And this is all with the central heating ON.)