This 450 has seen better days

[smartzuuk]

 

Hopefully the guy is okay! This appears to be the norm in the UK right now, not a country I ever plan on visiting based on what I'm seeing but then that goes for most of Europe right now...

 

https://x.com/NotFarLeftAtAll/status/1822656376964886920

[Willys]

I'm an Ex-Pat and once thought about going back in my retirement....that stopped decades ago!  I have family in the midlands who own a farm. I could have retired there but even the countryside is not safe any longer. As you say, the entire issue has ruined almost the entire planet! 
Have you seen the Toronto News lately, every night there is a shooting, someone getting killed, vehicles disappearing, car-jackings, stabbings......

I'll stop here as I will get told off I'm sure....lol. and no, it's not funny!!!!

[MikeT]

I enjoy visiting there but I could not live there. I'm half Irish and half English two generations back. Eire is much more appealing a prospect.

[smartzuuk]

I did fly to Glasgow in 2012 I think it was, and made my way up to Iona, and then on the way out I caught a flight out of Manchester. Interesting experience. I really got a sense of the hooliganism that has been a feature of the UK probably you know forever; drinking on the train, and Glasgow was not particularly pretty. Iona was an interesting experience because I actually stayed in the monastery - a community runs it. I did my own afternoon trip out to Staffa, but I should have gone with the group a couple days later because they in fact got to see all of the puffins! I don't recall too much about the vehicles on the trip that I spotted. I wouldn't say there were an abundance of smart cars. There's definitely an abundance of stone and brick everywhere! None of which I got to see being thrown at the time, thankfully.

[smartzuuk]

I'm not sure if it's my fascination with the bleak that just seems to live on year after year, but I imagine that if I could decide on a a 3 or 4-month tour, I would begin in Northern Scotland, taking in Shetland and Ireland, and then all of the islands between there and Scandinavia so that would include the Faroes.... Norway, I have been to once, but there is so much more to see there. I would take the Hurtigruten right up to the top, then Svalbard, probably Northern Finland... And then let's throw in Iceland, and a stop in Greenland while we're at it.

 

As much as I would like to do a Baltic trip, I think I would do what I just proposed first and a Baltic trip would have to be an entirely separate event, with stops in Estonia and Lithuania for sure, Cynthia lived in Lithuania for a couple of years teaching at LCC. Although I am part Swedish in addition to being part Norwegian and part Polish, I don't seem to get too excited about Sweden, and there are parts of it right now that I would not dare visit.

 

On my trip across the country in 2005, which included driving in Labrador as far as Red Bay, I would have to say that the most interesting day scenery wise was actually in Labrador and then the following day and a bit along the North Shore of St Lawrence, before Relais Nordic unloaded my first smart in Natashaquan Quebec. Getting an extended stop in Harrington Harbour was definitely a highlight of the trip. I don't think I could have planned it as well as it happily worked out. Except the CBC was on strike at the time and so the daily call in on a radio show did not happen! (This was actually arranged in advance, but unfortunately, no extra programming was to be taken on.)