I’m sure I’m not the only person looking forward to resuming European riding this year (in my case mostly the Portuguese/Spanish border mountains, and other Peninsular War locations).
Hopefully you are all aware from press reports and other news media that when setting off to the EU you need a passport that will still be valid for at least 6 months after your intended return date. A potential problem is that the EU now only considers a UK passport to be valid for 10 YEARS FROM THE DATE OF ISSUE = any previously-extended expiry date is no longer accepted, and this type of expiry date extension has previously been quite common.
There has been quite a lot of publicity about very long pandemic-generated delays at the Passport Office and their courier (TNT), so I’m sharing my own recent experience: it has taken just 2 weeks from my online application to delivery of my new passport today!
To minimise problems, I had the necessary new photo taken at a local shop for about a tenner, including their instant online verification that it would be acceptable, and I used Roysl Mail’s Track & Trace to post them my old passport in a sellotape-reinforced envelope.