Why so nervous?

You get more nervous as you get older, unless you’re surrounded by money or minders. Even then, there must be moments of anxiety in the night – fear of illness, loss, betrayal, loneliness… and of course, of the end.

So, although you can’t quite regain the recklessness of youth, (and that’s probably a good thing without the youthful body) you can try to seize the moment. And live in it. That’s the great thing about travel: in unfamiliar surroundings, you’re living in the now. Travel broadens the mind, and it opens the eyes – wide.

Do it now, before you can’t do it. So, though anxious about booking car hire in Tasmania and the correct level of insurance (oh really), the missing of the flight, the failings of the flesh, the bite of the tiny lethal redback spider, I shall, well, boldly go. Up to a point.