There’s a peculiar moment when an idea stops being something you’ve been talking about and suddenly becomes something you’re actually doing.

Apparently, that moment is when you press Pay.

The ticket is booked.

I’m going to the UK.

And despite having crossed the world plenty of times before, this one feels different.

Perhaps because this time I’m not simply going from A to B. There are people I want to see, places I want to return to, places I haven’t seen for decades — and a few that I’ve never seen at all.

Some of it is planned.

I know when the plane leaves. I know where I’m sleeping (mostly). I know there are friends waiting at the other end and some dates firmly written in the diary.

The rest has deliberately been left a little fuzzy.

There will be trains. Probably buses. A hire car for a few days. Almost certainly at least one occasion when I end up somewhere other than where I intended to be.

And I’m rather looking forward to that bit.

Because I’ve realised that I don’t want this trip to become an exercise in racing around ticking things off a list.

I want time to wander.

To stop when something looks interesting.

To revisit places I remember and discover whether they bear any resemblance whatsoever to the versions that have been living in my head all these years.

To sit in cafés. Talk to people. Take photographs. Follow roads simply because I wonder where they go.

And perhaps occasionally say yes to something I would normally talk myself out of.

There is, however, one small problem.

I now have several weeks to wait.

Which means I have plenty of time to organise, reorganise, pack, unpack, research things I probably don’t need to research and generally drive myself slightly mad before I even reach the airport.

But the ticket is booked.

So there’s no backing out now.

This is happening.