On Friday I drove to Claire & Nigel's wedding in the Wear Valley. What a lovely part of the country that is! So hilly and green and quintessentially English, and yet I hadn't even heard of it really before going there. Pity the trip up was so abominable. There were queues on the M25, the M1, the A1 and even the little road off the A1 just before Newcastle. All in all it took me over seven hours to drive up from Guildford. Still, this is a lot less than the eleven hours up to Siobhan's wedding in May, so I mustn't grumble really. Anyway, it was well worth it! I saw people that night and the next morning for coffee in the hotel where the reception was held.

The next day I made my way back down south. It occurred to me that I hadn't seen Liza & Tony while I was in the UK, so I rang and suggested I pop over. And what a stroke of luck! They were having a barbie that night with Phil & Jackie and Lee & Helen! So I joined them and it was all good fun. Goodness, how their girls have grown! Amelia is a proper little girl now, and Lydia is already running around like a mad thing (takes after her mum then!). That night I drove back down to Guildford so I would have the whole day to prepare for the next leg of my journeys.

It took all of Sunday to get packed, sorted, maps printed off, and generally to get my head round leaving the UK for three weeks (God, what I am going to be like soon when I leave for 15 months?) but in the end I got there. Then, on Monday morning, I dropped Chris & Kate's car off at Kate's parents' house and then took the train in to Waterloo (with a 30 minute delay, of course, owing to "awaiting a member of the train crew").

The Eurostar train was great. It's a good deal faster now than it was the last time I travelled - at last they've finished most of the track improvements on the English side - so before I knew it we had arrived in Brussels Midi station. I had a couple of hours of sunning myself in a small park near the station and then Serge came and picked me up. We drove out to his new house in Chastres, to the south-east of the capital and Vero greeted us there with big smiles and cold beers.

The weather in Belgium was fabulous! We spent the evening in the garden, playing with their new cat and catching up on their news. It was lovely to see them again. They're such gorgeous people. That evening we went into Louvain La Neuve, the newest town in Belgium which was born out of the '60s student riots at Leuven University, when the Flemish students evicted the Walloons. The Walloons founded a new university, and indeed a new town, just to the south in the French-speaking region. And the best part of it is that the whole town is built on top of a huge car park. There are no cars on the streets of LLN because you're standing over them! The architecture of the town itself is a little boxy and sixties, but hey there's no traffic noise or smell and that's pretty good.

The next day we spent the whole day at the reservoir called Lac de l'Eau d'Heure. It was hot hot hot. There were many wasps; every time you opened a can of drink they appeared as if by magic. They've got some noses on them, that's for sure! There were surprisingly few people, considering how good the weather was. But then again it was a Tuesday so perhaps people were at work. We had a great time, skimming stones, going for little swims in the very cool water, sitting about getting brown and generally having a summer holiday time of it. The evening was dedicated to a barbie in the garden which was delicious, and more sitting chatting. I got to see the wedding photos and I wish I'd been there in the flesh because it looked like a cracking wedding.

Then, almost as soon as I'd said hello, it was time to say goodbye. Serge & Vero took me to the airport and we had a farewell drink in a bar there before I jumped on a plane to Nice.

My time in Ireland was fabulous. It was great to catch up with Mireia & David, and lovely to meet Mireia's mum Dolos and her friend Elvira. The five of us and Lisa & Clare spent a lovely few days together, exploring Ireland's countryside and heritage up the east coast to Carlingford (from where we could see Northern Ireland and have lots of lively debates about nationhood and nationality, which kept the Catalans amused).

We visited the remains of Mellifont Abbey, which was the first Continental abbey in Ireland and eventually brought about the demise of the older Celtic houses. To be honest, there isn't a lot left but what there was was delightful in its setting of lush green grasses and wild flowers.

Then we went on to the megalithic passage tomb of Newgrange. This tomb is over 5000 years old and lay unopened for thousands of years until some local farmhands sent to clear the land dug up a beautifully engraved stone tablet and then fled for fear of disturbing a faery castle. Unluckily for us, not everyone was so worried about the faeries and there was some serious graffiti and damage done before the monument was protected as a heritage site.

It is amazing though, especially when you're standing in the tiny centre of the tomb, huddled with twenty other tourists, and the lights go out as the guide demonstrates the winter solstice sunbeam's path into the heart of the tomb. The utter darkness reminds you that there are 7000 tonnes of rock over your head (cleverly piled so as to form a spherical chamber with no mortar to hold them in place) and then a further three metres of rock & earth between you and the open sky. Wow.

We then made our way back to the visitor centre, where we had left our cars, only once nearly killing ourselves by tumbling out of the coach's fire escape back door - it was a bit snug there on the back seats for five of us!

That evening we reached Carlingford, checked into our hotel and had some absolutely astoundingly yummy food. It is difficult to pick a best dish because they were all amazing, but the prize for starter has to go jointly to the baked crabmeat and the scampi and for main to the cod in batter & chips. Needless to say, the Guinness slipped down in a most welcome manner too.

On the Thursday we headed up into the hills above Carlingford in search of the Long Lady's Grave, a mythical resting place of a Spanish princess (well, we thought the Spaniards might like it). We never actually found it though: the weather had changed from unusually warm and sunny to very usually damp and misty. Up on the hills it was truly desolate. The only signs of life were the occasional groups of cows who turned in unison to watch us creep by on the single lane trackway. Lisa was getting more and more nervous at the wheel as the road wound higher and higher.

Eventually we stopped and took the air. Or rather, the air took us: we were nearly blown off the hillock we climbed to see if we could see a view. All in all it was spectacular. Not the view; there wasn't one beyond two metres unless you count the tussock grass and some bizarre cottony flowers. But the atmosphere was marvellous. It made me think of the poor Roman legions who on arriving in the British Isles must have thought they'd reached the end of the world. After all the hot sunny places I've been in the last year it was a refreshing change to be standing in a cloud, with the utter silence broken only by the howl of the wind in my ears.

Next stop was Monasterboice, a Celtic monastery and round tower most famous for its 10th century high crosses decorated with biblical scenes (including a most dubiously moustachioed Mary). It was weird to see a Kiwi Experience-style bus pull up and deposit a load of travellers "doing" Ireland in much the same way I was passing through New Zealand only three months earlier.

Then, after a brief stop in an out-of-town shopping complex, I got out of our little cavalcade at the airport and said goodbye to everyone. The flight back to London was thankfully uneventful. I got back, got in Chris' car, and drove back to Guildford on a mercifully quiet M25.