Category: Travel

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Trains of Thought

This morning I have quite a vivid memory of dreaming, which is awkward because I already had an idea of what I wanted to write about, which I’ll have to try and retain for another time.

I was at Bedford station, waiting for a train to London, only it wasn’t exactly the Bedford station I know, because it was much bigger, and a lot of renovation and construction was going on, in particular there was a large restaurant/lounge, as opposed to the ATM kiosk where I used to grab a Café Maya or chai latte in passing, or the Starbucks which is now in the place of the old newsagent. I had a special ticket which entitled me to a free drink and cake in the restaurant, but I realised I hadn’t got my rail card, and wondered if I should go ‘home’ (my old flat was only 15 minutes walk away) to get it. I got talking to an old friend, then I realised it was getting late, and I didn’t know what I was going to do in London, or whether I’d have time to do whatever it was, and if there was even any point in going anyway.

Running out of time requires no deep explanation, and train journeys are also very familiar. I always associate them with running away, and when the Eurostar terminal moved to St Pancras, I was very excited about the fact that I could go from Bedford to Brussels or Paris with only one change of train – and from there, of course, all the way to Istanbul or anywhere in Europe or Asia. At the station in Sofia, waiting on a very wet day (kind of like today) I saw on the timetable, and heard on the announcements, that there was a direct train to St Petersburg, and checking the ferry timetables in Istanbul, I discovered I could get one to Odessa (but not to Constanta in Romania, which is what I was hoping for).

But the thoughts I had yesterday, after I’d finished writing, were about fate, and destiny, and Taoism, and can I remember what that was, am I fated never to get to the end of that thought, or even to the point? I believed in fate when I was young, I remember a conversation in which I said this, and someone said: ‘I don’t because I could never have predicted that I’d end up doing this’. But that was the exact point that made me believe, because of the small chances that can have such a strong impact on life. However, I didn’t know how to explain myself, and since then I have come to believe the opposite, that fate and destiny are illusions, things aren’t set in stone, because we can never know what the alternative choices would have led to. Even if we can untangle all the chances, choices, causes and effects that led to a specific event, we still can’t say ‘this had to happen’.

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Fail Better

Dropping the bucket down in to the well and seeing what comes up, as I do most days, a bit of this, some of that, maybe the odd scrap of inspiration, quite a lot of repetition. My online avatar, theoretically accessible to thousands, in practice viewed by very few – is it, as online personas supposedly are, pure fabrication, or is it truer to who I am than the perceptions of those who think they know me in Real Life? I show and tell so much on here that I would struggle to explain face to face, but realised many years ago that this is a safe space where few venture to look.

In trying to look at myself and my life with attention but without judgement, in trying to discover and welcome my Wild Thing, I look back over all the times I have run away, and the people, situations and commitments I have run away from. According to Clarissa Pinkola Estés, there is not one single descent into the underworld, the wild forests of the psyche, one lesson to be uncovered, learnt and brought to light, but layers beneath layers.

From all my runnings away, I have never returned voluntarily. Although once or twice it might seem that I chose to turn back (thinking specifically of returning from the USA to the house my husband and I had left four years earlier), the situation I returned to was always different from the one I left (or at least, I was different – in that case, I was now a mother with two small children, and no longer a professional career woman) and in each case it was only a matter of time before I ran away again (except arguably the most recent, but of course it could still happen – only time will tell).

What am I trying to say? That reading Pinkola Estés’ book is leading me to reflect on all those times I have leapt into the unknown, the choices I made (which were largely my own, though some also involved my husband), and see them as… well, maybe answering the call of the Wild Woman?

Last week, I read a piece where she suggested drawing up a time-line of life-events and at the time I dismissed the idea, but then I wrote about my first running-away – in fact the first two – going away to university and then accepting the first (actually, the only) man who asked me to marry him.

I have a tendency to look back on my life as a string of failures: failed marriages, failed (or abandoned) careers, dreams that were fulfilled but then turned to dust and ashes. But perhaps there were lessons learnt, things gained which weren’t recognised because they weren’t what I thought I was looking for? Most of those runnings-away were thrilling, at least in the early days, even though I eventually came to the conclusion that wherever I went, I could never ‘run away from myself’.

Fail again. Fail better.

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Here We Go Round Again

So far this week: last yoga class before lockdown; last tai chi class before lockdown; last trip out in the van before lockdown. I mentioned last week about my yoga teacher being homeless and having to cancel classes – the next day she sent a text to say that someone had offered her a lift, then came the lockdown announcement, so there was a class on Monday evening, and ditto the tai chi yesterday morning, after which I picked up my camper van from the garage and drove to Queen Elizabeth Country Park on the A3 near Petersfield, and had a walk among the trees and a picnic. I love taking the van there, because there are car parks spread among the trees, often empty (on weekdays when I usually go), so although you can’t actually camp, you can get some of the feeling for a few hours.

The weather has turned dry and sunny but noticeably colder than it was, and today looks to be about the same, with a clear blue sky. I really should get out and do some tidying up in the garden, I tried cutting the hedge on Monday but the trimmer kept cutting out. Because it stopped and later started again, it had to be a loose wire. I took apart the connector that joins it where I cut through the cable in the spring, unscrewed the little screwy things inside, couldn’t see anything obviously loose, then got into a horrible dyspraxic muddle trying to put it back together and gave up for the day.

I read some more of ‘Women Who Run With the Wolves’, this time about creative blocks. The author suggests the usual things: keep trying, don’t self-edit, do a little every day, expect to fail, but keep going anyway. This is what I’ve been doing forever. Back to the old question of whether it matters that it never gets me anywhere? Apparently, it doesn’t. Either one day a miracle will happen and I’ll suddenly start writing something worthwhile, or I’ll be gone and someone will come along and wipe my hard drive and that will be that.

Last week I read the poem about the ‘Wild Thing’ to my therapist, and she said I should try to get it published. I haven’t done anything about it. Strictly speaking, I think posting it on here counts as publication, which disqualifies it from most competitions anyway.

I’ve been thinking about Daniel Defoe’s ‘Journal of the Plague Year’. I think this definitely counts as a ‘plague year’, but I don’t think this journal of mine is in the same class.

My current yoga teacher once said that destiny is what has to happen, but fate is what you make happen (or words to that effect). She is not having a great year, even worse than most of us. But she has faith in the fundamental goodness of the world, and I envy her for that. Today, I fear for the fate of us all.

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Tuesday plans

Reached the third of the month, and I haven’t yet mentioned NaNoWriMo. That’s because I haven’t got any plans to do anything about it. Two years ago I wrote 50k words, last year I read them and couldn’t see that there was anything I could do with them. Maybe this year I will think about The Long Way Back again – I think the last time I looked at it was in spring 2018. But one big ongoing project has been finished and gone this year. Maybe I could start thinking about it again. We’ll see.

I spent some time yesterday on the weather blanket, as I said I would. Every month (in the middle, not the beginning) I add a colour to the border – in two weeks time it will be the tenth and last. Quite a lot of my time yesterday was spent in untangling the previous nine. The only way I can see of avoiding that in the future would be to leave the border and do it all at the end, which would be massively tedious and probably mean that it wouldn’t be finished till about March. I have some plastic bobbins which are supposed to help, but only a few large ones. I will try to be more systematic about it next year.

The camper van went in for its MOT yesterday, and miraculously it passed on the first go (for the second year running). It was due in June, but was covered by the six months extension, which would have got it to January, but I wanted to avoid that because the tax is due then, and car insurance and MOT in March/April, so I decided to spread it out. The garage called me at about 5, and I didn’t really want to go and collect it then because that would have meant trying to reverse it into the garage in the dark (a nightmare) so I asked them to keep it for me till today. As the sun is shining – and the sky clear for the first time in ages – I am going to attempt to take it out for a picnic. I wasn’t sure if my season ticket for parking at the country park had been renewed or not, it was due in September but the direct debit didn’t go out. However I just had a rummage among my emails and found that they’ve extended it to the end of the year because of the closure for the first lockdown.

I will make sure I take a cup this time, and my coat. But I can’t stay too long, because I need to make sure I’m back before dark. I need to make sure I take it out at least once a month over winter, so it doesn’t end up in the same state as this spring and last. All this seems as good a reason as any to take it out today, before the next lockdown starts. A good sort of day.

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Wednesday

Where do the words come from? Same old question. I’m not sure any will come at all today, I will just burble on about the daily battle with my cat for space on the desk to put the keyboard – I’ve made a lovely empty space to the right of the monitor, from where she can watch the street, or leap at the odd bluebottle battering itself against the glass. I found a silhouette of a bluebottle on the living room carpet the other day, spread out with its wings either side, like a cartoon character which has just been hit by a falling 50 ton weight. How did it get that way? I don’t remember smashing any recently, and I don’t think it would have come from the bottom of my shoe, so I suspect she has had a rare hunting success, though how such soft paws can apply such force is a mystery.

There’s a camper van parked directly across the street, a big beast, about three times the size of mine, parked across the fronts of two houses, and with a door halfway down the side. Thinking about it, maybe it’s only twice the size of mine, twice the length, anyway, though it might be wider… no, not even that, because it fits behind the dotted parking lines. I guess if you take off the cab, the living space is more than twice as big anyway. It seems to have been there a while – can’t remember when I first saw it. Maybe the owner is leaving it there for the winter. They’d have to be a resident of this parking zone to get a resident’s parking permit for it – you have to send a copy of the log book with the address on to get one (or possibly not now it’s all online). When I moved into this house there were no parking restrictions on this street, but since then the zoning system has been extended. I don’t have a permit for my van because I rent a garage for it from a friend who lives in a neighbouring road. The first winter I had it, when I was living in the flat, I kept it out on the street and it was broken into and my folding bike was stolen. It was very upsetting at the time. Bad things happen.

Speaking of which, I just moved my hand and accidentally whacked my cat in the face, so she has now slunk off to ‘her’ chair, a spare office chair which I keep next to the desk for her.

The website’s done (fingers crossed) and is waiting to be signed off and invoiced. And I have finally decided that the jumper is big enough to separate the sleeves. I hate wearing anything that’s too tight under the armpits (not that I’ll be wearing this one). It’s now on three circular needles (body and sleeves) with four balls of wool – looking forward to spending more time untangling than knitting.

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Van Outing

After breakfast yesterday I decided that, despite what I’d said about self-isolation, I would take my van out for a run (one of those semi-commitments I’d made that I was talking about not wanting to face up to). The only brief encounters I had with other people was when I went into Sainsbury’s en route to the garage where I keep the van and bought picnic ingredients (wearing a scarf over my nose and mouth, naturally).

The guys at the garage (not the one where I keep it but the one where they fix it) had made me promise solemnly that I would take it out regularly and keep it running, now that they’ve not only replaced the battery (yet again) but fixed up a butterfly nut to make it easy to disconnect the battery every time I leave it. The problem last winter was that the previous new battery they’d installed was too tight for me to disconnect (even using a spanner) so I’d left it standing from November to January, and then, after they’d charged it, only took it out for a 10 mile drive up and down the seafront (I thought that would be enough but apparently it wasn’t), and it was dead again by the time I tried again in March. After that, we all know what happened, and I don’t think I should really be held responsible for that, but six months without being touched at all left the battery completely useless, so they had to replace it again.

Going out in the van is one of those things that you’d think should be a real pleasure, but I still have to psych myself up to do it. It’s not that I’m nervous about driving it as I used to be (except when it comes to reversing and parking), it’s just like everything else, it always feels like it’s going to be a hassle and I’d rather just stay at home.

But it’s been on my mind that I need to take it out more regularly, so, as yesterday was bright and sunny – after a couple of rainy days – I thought I’d take it over to my favourite park on the South Downs, about twenty miles away. The pleasure of it is to park up, go for a walk, brew up a cup of tea or coffee, get out the camping chair and have a picnic. It’s not as if I couldn’t just do that in the car with hot water in a flask, but it feels like camping even if I then turn round and come home.

So that’s what I did – except that although I had tea bags, water, milk and camping stove, I’d taken all the cups out last time to put through the dishwasher and forgot to take one with me. It was windier and colder than I thought, and I hadn’t taken a coat, so didn’t feel like a walk. So I sat in the van and ate my sandwiches.

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Voluntary Self-Isolation

I’m not required to self-isolate, because Cyprus, having an extremely low infection rate, is one of the countries exempt from travel precautions as far as the UK government is concerned. (The attitude of the Cypriot government to people from the UK entering their country is somewhat different, hence the need for negative tests on the way in). But I’ve decided to do so voluntarily, because – well, basically because it’s a good excuse not to have to go out and interact with other people. And I have been mixing with a lot of people –not just on the plane, in the hotel and at the wedding, but also at Heathrow and on the trains and buses to and from it, so it’s a relief to spend a few days – even a couple of weeks – home alone with Miko again.

I was pretty much exhausted for the first three days – not sure why, because my sleep was no worse than it normally is, although there is a two hour time difference. On Wednesday I wrote something, but it was such a moany mess that I gave up and decided not to share it, while yesterday I didn’t even try. So here’s my effort for today.

On Sunday evening Laura was trying to persuade me to go up and stay with them for a few days, but it was really the last thing I felt like doing. I know that she wants me to see their new house -I want to see it too. And she kept saying: ‘we don’t know how long it will be before it’s possible again.’ I thought she meant because she’ll be back at work full-time from next week, but I’ve been thinking about it since. It’s true, we really don’t even know if Christmas together will be an option.

It feels as though the wedding and holiday has been a kind of watershed- for most of the year it seemed so uncertain that it wasn’t even worth thinking about, then when they came to visit at the end of July and I realised that she was still making plans (buying bridesmaids’ dresses etc) it felt more real, and then began the period of will it/won’t it? It’s caused so much uncertainty and stress that now it’s over, it’s both a relief, but also highlights how uncertain everything still is – and it’s brought back into focus the ways I spend (or waste) my time, the commitments I’ve made (or perhaps should be making) to myself and others, and my lack of motivation to do anything at all, the lack of purpose and satisfaction in my life.

Well, I’ve made a start – on the least threatening and stressful thing – bringing my finances up to date, checking my statements, filling in my spreadsheets. That’s the thing I always resort to when I want to feel as though I’m doing something useful. There’s always a ‘right’ answer, which I can find by checking and double checking, and it exercises my brain.

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Back Home, Reading and (Not) Writing

I was wrong about the equinox being yesterday, it’s today. I didn’t check. Maybe that’s why I don’t feel any more equable.

Yesterday I was tired all day – not surprising as I always feel that way the day after a long journey. So I didn’t push myself to do much, not even unpacking. Today I still feel tired, and I have a headache. That may be down to dehydration – on holiday I was careful to keep drinking plenty of water, but yesterday I didn’t bother. I feel slightly queasy as well, which may be because I didn’t eat much on Sunday. Yesterday I ate more like my normal amount of food – not as much as on holiday, more than when travelling. Actually, come to think of it, feeling queasy first thing is not that unusual.

Guess I’ll be tired again today though – largely due to reading from about half past three, when I first woke, to nearly six, finishing off the last book I’d been reading on holiday. Because that’s what I do on holiday: in the airport; on the plane; on the hotel balcony; on the sunbed; drying out in the sun after swimming; in the shade; flat on my belly with the sun on my back; in bed at night. There’s nothing really to stop me reading all the time when I’m at home – but for some reason I don’t.

Now I’ve finished my holiday reading, I’ve gone back to ‘Out of Sheer Rage’ which I mentioned a while back. It’s a very dippable book; quotable too. I picked it up again on the flight out. It’s as much fun as a novel, but not quite so obsessive in the sense of having to get to the end to find out what happens. Because nothing much does happen, there’s no plot as such, it’s just about trying and failing to write a serious book and in the process writing this rambly, chaotic, engrossing book – which may be why I like it so much. This morning, on the loo (forgot to mention that in my list of holiday reading places, though it’s my main one when at home), I read two things which really struck home, one about coming home after living abroad (which I highlighted and must try and share), and another about not being able to write when you have seven days a week to do nothing but, and thinking that maybe having a part time job would make one value one’s free time more and hence improve productivity.

Anyway, I was going to write more about reading and writing, and reading and not writing, but I’m running out of words. That sense you get when on holiday that you could really sit down and do it and write something worthwhile when you get home, and that that’s what you’re going to do, really put your back into it at last. Which is great, until you actually get home and realise there’s not a hope in hell.

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Equinox – Back Home

Equinox. Equanimity, equability, equilibrium? Time to restore all those things? (though I’m not sure if the second is a real word, and if so, how it differs from the first. To be ‘equable’ is to have ‘equanimity’. But the rule of three prevails.)

Miko has made it plain she wants me to come on the computer. So here I am/we are, she on the desk, currently looking out of the window, with her tail caught up between the last two fingers on my left hand

Arrived home at nine-thirty last evening, after a fairly stressful – because not very well planned – journey back from Heathrow (bus to Woking; another bus to Guildford; train to Fratton; then taxi home). By asking for advice from real people, not trying to find it online, I avoided the rail-replacement bus most of the way and the connections worked like a dream.

And as for the holiday and wedding, booked over a year ago, almost cancelled the first time when Thomas Cook went out of business, but reorganised through the efforts of the bride (my daughter) negotiating directly with the wedding planner and the hotel and rebooking the flights (which were changed again as recently as a couple of weeks ago, from Gatwick to Heathrow). Then this strange spring and summer, of not thinking about it – at first because it seemed so far in the future, too far to worry and plan on it ever happening, not knowing what the situation would be by the middle of September, whether there would be relative freedom of travel or we’d be back into the second wave by then (never seriously thinking it would ‘all be over’ in time). Then Cyprus opened to British tourists from 1st August, on condition of getting a negative covid test within 72 hours of flying, and it started to seem like it might happen after all – so then all the stress and panic of having to prepare for maybe going or maybe not going, and that awful last week of having to organise the tests and not knowing until the day before we left that I was actually going.

After all that – it could have been a massive anti-climax. It wasn’t. Wonderful hotel in a fabulous location, lazy days of relaxing and swimming, playing with the grandchildren, watching them play, eating too much, drinking too much, walking on the seafront and reading in the shade. And a beautiful ceremony on Thursday, overlooking the sea; the bridesmaids (all seven of them, in ages from four to not quite ten times that) in blue, the bride in an elegantly simple cream dress, my little girl, so happy, after all her herculean efforts to keep this dream going. Feeling like minor celebrities in the massively under-occupied hotel, as total strangers among the fellow guests smile and say hello afterwards.

And now, back home, with unpacking and washing and Miko reminding me of my morning writing ritual, wondering what happens next, and where life goes from here.

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Camping in the Forest

It’s a year since I camped out in my van – for obvious reasons. Although the campsites have been open in theory since the beginning of July, I haven’t felt like going, or even hassling the garage guys to sort out the battery, till the last few weeks. As with everything, I have to psych myself up – or bully myself – into doing anything about it.

The last time I slept out was in Holland’s Wood campsite, near Brockenhurst, this week last year, the first week after the end of the school holidays, when the New Forest Tour Bus was still running. The first time I went to Holland’s Wood was the same week five years ago, when I took the bus for the first time. I don’t know if they’ve been running it this year, but if so this will be the last week.

What struck me then was not just the beauty of the landscape, but also the way the Forest has the feeling of an island, so that distances become distorted, and place names which are on ‘the far side of the forest’ suddenly appear on signposts as being 8 miles away. It feels like a quaint and mystical land, and yet the M27/A31 and the mainline from Waterloo to the West Country run straight through its most northerly, wildest part.

And it’s on my doorstep. On any given day, I could get in my car, drive down the motorway, and within an hour I could be enjoying a cream tea at the Buttery in Brockenhurst, or buying local produce at Setley vineyard, or drive a little further to watch the boats in Lymington Habour. Taking the train down to Dorset – which I did for a few years even before I moved here – I’ve always felt a buzz of excitement after we leave Southampton, and start looking out for the first ponies grazing near the tracks.

Hollands Wood is my favourite of the (admittedly not very many) campsites that I’ve stayed in – though I’ve never stayed longer than a couple of nights – there’s no electricity, although the reception will charge your phone up for you for a pound. But you can camp under the trees, and wake in the morning to see the ponies appearing out of the mist lifting over the ‘lawn’. Or catch the bus into Lyndhurst, from where the Forest is your oyster.

Having lived most of my life in Bedfordshire, where the Home Counties meets the Midlands and East Anglia between the M1 and the A1, the New Forest is for me a reminder of how surprising England can be. Not that there aren’t interesting places and pretty countryside there too, but you can draw a circle 50 miles in radius around Bedford and not find anything quite so special.

Ah well. Maybe, in the coming autumn and winter, I’ll take the van out regularly and have picnics, as I always plan to – or maybe I’ll just hunker down like I do every year.