It’s only now, in retrospect, that some of my experiences in travelling take on a different perspective and interpretation. My first holiday abroad as an independent solo traveller was in the winter of 1980, to Malta. I’d booked the holiday to take advantage of the winter weather there, warm and sunny apparently; but barely had chance to settle in at the hotel and get my bearings than a winter storm struck, lashing the island with driving sleet and snow showers with huge waves that pounded the beach bar below the sea wall, buckling its steel roller shutters and destroying or sweeping away all in its path. This meant any planned sightseeing was shelved and we tourists were confined to quarters to entertain ourselves for the day. As a result of the squalls I met a few other solo travellers in the lounge and, in addition to playing chess together to pass the time, we arranged to meet up as a group (of four) and explore the island together – one of the others, a Liverpudlian, had hired a car (I didn’t drive at the time and had planned on using the local buses). The rest of the holiday was warm and sunny, with plenty of inspiration for photography, and we explored the island and its 'little sister', Gozo, to our hearts content. At some point during the holiday one of my companions said something which struck me at the time as being a bit, well, odd. He said he saw me as “going back to the Godhead”. It’s only relatively recently, over forty years on, that his words have taken on some deeper meaning for me.