With Mr Thomas Cook and his representatives, Ursula Bridgewater toured Italy, Spain, Greece, Belgium, Bavaria. She visited the battlefields of Waterloo and the high-walled towns of the Netherlands. She was happiest when she was abroad, happy in a way she was not when she was at home, and yet this feeling was impermanent. It was a period of quarantine, a restorative, but it was not a cure. Yes, she had seen things, had felt the exhilarating effects of Alpine air, had spoken French in mountain-top cremeries, but she still had not really done anything with her life.