Travels, Trails & Tribulations – An Octogenarian’s Odyssey

It was only in retirement that David Alston fully succumbed to the desire to write, encouraged by seeing his name in print next to sundry stories that had been submitted to various newspapers and magazines over the years.
Once the bug had bitten however, no power on earth could stop his pen from filling up sheets of paper. While many of them ended up in his ‘out tray’ (a euphemism for his wastepaper basket), an inventory of completed works taken earlier this year revealed that sufficient usable material was ready to be inflicted on an unsuspecting public.
Here is the cream of the crop: the vagaries of travel in various parts of the globe, the trails undertaken by a group of over-seventies who should have known better and some light-hearted pieces which fall under the category of “you can’t make this stuff up”.
So relax, settle into your armchair with a cup of tea or preferably something stronger, and pick a story at random that hopefully will make you rush to read the rest. And may it never be said of Travels, Trails and Tribulations – an Octogenarian’s Odyssey – as American literary critic Dorothy Parker did in a pithy review of a tome that had particularly displeased her: “This is not a book to be put down lightly; it should be thrown aside with great force.”
Enjoy, and a special thank you to David’s cartoonist and long-standing friend, Dennis Havinga, whose delightful drawings greatly enhance the ‘funnies’.