Er, no. The thing is, I hardly knew her. I think I’d only met her three or four times, and only one of those was other than a family gathering. Until The Aged moved to The Midlands (where she lived), my sisters and I had never heard of her. I remember driving with The Aged to a family gathering and as we passed a couple walking along the road he asked “Is that J & S”? Big Sis and I looked at each other and said “how on earth would we know”.

I don’t even know where she lived – not only the address, but I could only hazard a guess at the town. So, all in all, not a particularly close relation.

While it’s sad that she’s died, I feel that extending this sadness to a sympathy card is, well, a bit insincere. How much sympathy is enclosed in card on which the sender has to write an explanation of who he is?

Flying time was 30 minutes, which is hardly worth getting on the plane for. 30 minutes? Really? My commute to work takes longer. By the time the plane gets to cruising altitude it’s time to come down again. I was just about to nod off for a short nap when the pilot announced we were starting our descent.

During the “in the unlikely event that the plane comes down on water” bit of the safety briefing, I thought “hang on; we’re flying from the edge of one island to the edge of another. I’d have thought that in the event of an emergency, the chances of coming down on water are quite high”. No worries, I’ve seen the film Sully; I know what to do. You climb out of the door and stand on the wing. But this was a small plane, and the wings came out from the top of the fuselage, about 10 feet above the doorway, so that wouldn’t have worked.

We had a lovely hotel – didn’t look too much from the outside, but the room was massive, and had a large bathroom. Not bad for £60 per night including breakfast. The bar and restaurant had a Mediterranean theme, with stone tiled walls and floors and wicker furniture. All very light and airy – though this may have been helped by the fact that we were almost the only people staying.

Saturday was wet and cold, but I didn’t notice much as I was inside delivering the training course. A couple of minor hiccups: the training manuals the students had were a different version to the ones we had; and the laptop wouldn’t show the video clips. Luckily, as there were two trainers, my colleague was able to carry on teaching while I other sorted it out.

While I was teaching, The Future Mrs Barefoot did a parkrun – her first overseas one. She really liked the course and ran her fastest time ever. Then she explored St. Helier, and found interesting places such as the fish market, the general market, and the museum. Had the weather been better she would have walked along the seafront.

In the evening we went back into the town centre for dinner. Finding somewhere to eat had not been easy. Many places are closed for the winter season, and what’s left were fully booked. However, The Future Mrs Barefoot had found a great little café/restaurant in the fish market (she’d had a brunch there, and every time she walked past during the day it was full, which we took to be a good sign). She booked us there and we had a great meal – I had limpets, which I’ve never eaten before (and I like to choose something I’ve never eaten before from a menu). Similar to mussels, but a bit chewier, and tasting of the seaside.

Sunday morning, we had a few hours to kill before the flight, so we took a bus to the village at the far end of the bay and had a short walk round there. I subsequently learned that it was the village that the Aged and Mrs The Aged stayed for their honeymoon.

The Future Mrs Barefoot and I then took walking track along an old railway line (of course) planning to walk for about 40 minutes, then come back to the village to catch the bus to the airport. Well, distances on Jersey are deceptive. It’s a very small island, so what looks like a long way isn’t very far at all. After 40 minutes we realised that we were nearer the airport than the village, so we carried on walking.

Jersey is a self-governing independent territory of the UK. It lies about 15 miles off the coast of France, but belongs to Britain by virtue of history – William The Conqueror, mainly. In fact, seeing as the Channel Islands were part of the Dukedom of Normandy before 1066, you could stay that they have been British for longer than Britain has.

Apparently, the island was more French-orientated until about the middle of the last century. I guess that may have been because before the advent of universal air travel, it was easier to get from there to France than to the UK. There are still some French influences around, such as street names. There are also a few bilingual signs – but not as many as in, say, Wales. Bank notes are printed in both languages – and they still have one-pound notes.

The general economy and infrastructure of small islands such as Jersey (9 miles by 5) fascinate me. It’s about the size of a rural borough. For example, If I want to build a house, I need bricks. They don’t make bricks in my county, so I have to go to the next one to by some. Well, it’s the same in Jersey – but their next county is 150 miles away. Similarly, I go shopping to Southampton once or twice a year, to buy things I can’t get in my home town. So, do they – but Southampton is a 30-minute flight away.