Day blah blah of our Covid 19 lockdown and I've mostly been resting as physically I've not been too well over the last few months; whilst this is excellent for the body - the resting of course not the being unwell part!; not so however for the mind...it becomes a toddler, gets bored and wreaks havoc with my anxiety, metabolism and generally throws it's dummy out the pram! Today not only has the washing and various chores been done but the sun is shining inside and out this happy home. Whilst doing the housework I thought to myself what could I possible do to to turn my frown upside down which doesn't include going out and/or spending and will make this a day well spent - when getting at the core of life what do I love the most; family, friends and pets aside of course...TRAVEL!
Every aspect of travel is an adventure from day one of deciding where to go and subsequently booking our trip, to the experience itself; and then on coming home come the forever memories of being able to look at old tickets and photos and thinking myself lucky to have been given the opportunity to see such amazing places & generally reminiscing about certain nights, foods, smells, places, people...If you were to ask me which is my favourite holiday of all time and it has been asked of me on many occasions, my simple answer is always "all of them". To me there is no such thing as a bad holiday only bad experiences but that alone does not or at least should not make the holiday a bad one! To visit another country or continent is a privilege, meeting with other cultures and delving into their history and colourful heritage is something I cherish and whilst the law of averages dictates we too could share some pretty hairy experiences of our trips over the
years - they are and will always be to me an adventure.
Makes me think of The the time we stayed in a two star along the Boulevard Richard Lenoir in Paris when we were too skint to enjoy the nightlife of gay paree and so spent the night in bed with a bag of crisps listening to our neighbours making passionate love through paper thin walls a bit like the scene in Rain Man when Dustin Hoffman sits at the end of the bed in Tom Cruises' bedroom (if you know you know), or when we holidayed as a young family and our villa was broken into as we slept, they took my engagement ring and some valuables before my husband chased them out; or when my father worked out in Sri Lanka and we went out to stay one summer, my brother and I were 13 & 16 respectively and it was 1983 - the year the civil war broke out on that beautiful island and we were confined to camp watching nearby towns burn in the night and had Tamil soldiers point machine guns at us before dad decided the safest course of action was to send his little family home early. In Kandy before our return home we went into a shack which sold pirate cassettes of the day and I asked if they had any Duran Duran, which they incredulously didn't. Went back into Kandy days later and the shack was burnt to the ground - my family dined out on that one for years! (No,I didn't!) Kusadasi, Turkey we had to walk a remote lane up from a beach to our complex and luckily realised in time we were being followed by a gang and so grabbed a taxi for us and our 4 small children! Hate to think what they had in mind for us. Not forgetting our day out to the Pyramids of Giza, Cairo from our Med Cruise when we docked at Port Said then spent eight hours in a convoy of coaches rushing through Egypt with armed guards, lights, sirens and villages being shut down as we flew through at high speed on our round trip. So many stories, some funny at the time some terrifying but whatever way you look at it, all such exciting adventures. Rest assured for every horror story there is a happy one, a ying for every yang as it were; quite a bit like life when you think about it all combining to make one big adventure. For every one bad experience in those countries I can guarantee there will be at least five awe-inspiring experiences to counterbalance.
I digress; So, knowing all of the above It will come as no surprise to hear I collect souvenirs, mostly photos, tickets, postcards, coins and where possible snow globes. Which brings me back to today, when I found myself collating, sorting and finding my postcards of many years and many more happy memories. My husband and I have this feature wall in the kitchen diner which we originally started with a tiny little painting we bought in Lanzarote on honeymoon. Next we visited Tenerife and Fuerteventura and found some of a similar style which demanded to be bought - it naturally became the done thing on all our travels. This is now known as mums Travel Wall, my dearest hubby who bless him is "happy if you're happy" has resigned himself to the fact that most of MY paintings, pictures & postcards are now finding frames and proudly being displayed on said wall. I say mine as I tend to be more the gypsy than him and therefore do a lot more travelling. In November of last year with his blessing I went to New Zealand and Australia for the holiday of a lifetime visiting my daughter. A few years before my best friend and I had always dreamed of seeing New York and found ourselves with an opportunity to do it together but I was torn in wanting to bring this dream to life but also wanting to share such an unique experience with my husband- he simply said New York was my dream and I should go with the bestie, so that's what we did and oh my we had a blast, I am forever grateful - so you see what was to be our travel wall snowballed into a shrine to what are mostly my travels, this is my happy place.
So whether you are wealthy and have travelled the globe more than once or like myself work hard and manage a few amazing holidays here and there or even if life is a struggle and you cannot afford to travel - dream, dream big, read up about the world its seven continents and all it's wonderful inhabitants, it's various cultures, enjoy the pictures and visualise the deep colours, or close your eyes and hear the chatter of the markets and imagine the odour of local cuisine, dream and hope that one day...because nothing is impossible!
In the words of J R R Tolkien "Not all those who wander are lost", indeed never a truer word spoken for it is when I am most alive and only then am I truly found - Janj X
