I am sitting in the Emirates business class lounge at Heathrow and contemplating the ice at the bottom of my glass of Chivas Regal. Thank goodness I’m back on the grog! And I feel tired now. Five weeks abroad is a long time to live out of a suitcase. Home is calling, gently.

The Missus and I have had a wonderful time. We have revisited the scenes of our youth, renewed old friendships, reflected on the brevity of life. The highlight of the trip, indeed the very reason, was a reunion of the Bristol University Psychology Department Animal Behaviour Group circa 1975. It was a very emotional occasion. We have all taken diverse and different paths, from Oxford don to racecourse layabout.

And we have seen a lot of old stuff – cathedrals, castles, ruined abbeys, stately homes, galleries, museums, manor houses, dreaming spires, stone circles, roman walls and neolithic engravings. I even said hello to my great-grandfather at Selkirk in the Scottish borders. And I stood in the room where Charles Darwin was born, at The Mount in Shrewsbury. It should have sent shivers down my spine, until I realized the building was now used as a tax office.

Time for home. The tug is insistent.

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