Prologue

So my travels got off to an interesting and unexpected early start a couple of weeks ago when I had to make an emergency trip to Newport in Wales to get a new passport. It's a long and not particularly interesting story but after my passport got lost somewhere in the post between the Kenyan High Commission and my home, I found myself three weeks away from the trip of a lifetime with no passport! With a big backlog at the London passport office my only hope of getting a passport in time was to go to the office in Newport, which meant a five hour round trip on the train for a ten minute appointment...

Fortunately the passport was able to replaced without too much hassle, but I did end up with almost two hours to kill in Newport on a wet Monday afternoon in October before my train back to London. So here are a few photographic highlights from my unplanned sortie to Wales....

The River Usk

Fortunately I'd had lunch on the train

Newport Market - sadly closed on a Monday afternoon it seems

The passport office

Now I know the Welsh for Passport Office

 
Most people who know me well will know I'm not exactly the biggest fan of Wetherspoons pubs, but desperate times call for desperate measures and so after an hour of wandering around the town centre and taking in the cultural highlights of Newport, there was nothing for it but to seek shelter in the John Wallace Linton - somewhere I'm sure my friends from Newport (hi Emilie, Amy and Emily!) will know well.

I promise the blog posts will get more interesting and exotic from here on in, but thought I'd get in to the habit early. Thanks for reading!