By the Rhine – 25 Years On

There’s certainly been a Nepal theme of late in these posts, recalling heady days from the 90s spent wandering around the Himalayas as a VSO Forester. Although I’ve now used up my best photos (and written far more words than I originally intended), like most stories, there’s no such thing as a neat ending – convenient though it may be to compartmentalise out lives.

Many of my fellow VSO colleagues, have remained a part of the journey through regular meet ups, social media groups and impromptu gatherings – over the years they’ve become very much part of the furniture of my life. Over time, if anything, the numbers have increased, as new partners and offspring, undreamt of in the 1990s (including my own 2 kids), have appeared on the scene and been brought into the fold.

In 2018, some 25 years after I left Nepal, I persuaded a core group of diehards to come over to Germany to spend time in the delightful wine village of Bacharach on the Middle Rhine for a weekend of Riesling, German Beer and Bratwurst. We hiked through the vineyards along the Rhine, visited castles, went on a cruise and generally had a ball, reflecting on days gone by. Here are a few photos from the weekend. I look forward to the next chapter of the story. Perhaps one day soon we’ll be meeting up in Kathmandu again…