I just went for a walk, it's what I usually do when that restless feeling creeps in from the edges. Dusk is usually the best time to take a stroll around a town as it's the time when people put their lights on but haven't closed their curtains yet.
Yes, it's time to confess; I like to look through other peoples windows.
Not in a weird way, unless ambling past and regarding other peoples interior furnishings and choice of wall art is weird. OK, maybe it is.
Then there's the empty streets, the cool air and the awe inspiring skies...
Except this is South London. The streets are not empty instead other uncommunicative and fearful souls make their way through the shadows between the pools of yellow sodium light dodging neglected hedges and the omnipresent dog poop and most definitely NOT making eye contact with anyone. The cool air is not that cool and carries a heavy scent of drains, distant burning tyres and jerk chicken. I'm missing Wales a lot at the moment.
Plans are hung up on one detail, I still haven't managed to find someone to buy my car, it looks as though I'm here until it sells. Today I gave it a hand wash and wax before taking some photos in the somewhat salubrious setting of Sainsburys car park.
Last Thursday morning I went for a jog around the local park and during the second lap my attention was distracted from the path ahead by a PE class from my former high school and I twisted my foot and ankle in a hole. A local alcoholic saw the whole thing happen from his bench and told me that the foot bent around quite unnaturally. I thought of posting a picture of my bruised and swollen foot, but instead here's the offending hole.
No, the fried chicken box was not there when I had the accident, the scene is just how i found it.
My ankle is on the mend and hopefully the car will sell soon, then I'm on my way. Though I can't help feeling that in some ways the journey has already started.
Hello!
Well, I'm not entirely sure what form this blog will take eventually, or if I should leap in to the details of the philosophy of my trip at first or for that matter at all. What is certain is that this will be a travel blog and that I'm going on some kind of journey, physically, metaphysically, psychologically, temporally, (gulp) spiritually, culinarily and immunologically.
Where I will go exactly, what I'll do there, what I'm going to do with myself along the way and especially what I'm going to do with the rest of my life are all to be determined along the way. I hope that by reading this public account of the journey you can join me for at least part of the way.
It has been a difficult few weeks; the transition between a comfortable life in my little house in Abergavenny to a more nomadic existence has been hard on me and is still not complete.
Does anyone really know how much 'stuff' they have? I thought I did, in fact I took a bizarre sort of pride in how little I had (Any of you who who have visited my house have witnessed the spartan nature of the kitchen, three knives, three forks, two dessert spoons, one doubling up for a cooking spoon, two sharp knives, two bowls, one side plate...).
The problem is that most of our belongings are kept out of sight in cupboards and the like and when emptied huge piles of miscellaneous things appear demanding to be dealt with. Then there's the furniture.... The original plan was to put most of my things into self-storage, that was ruled out on grounds of cost (think 20 something pounds a week and you'll get the idea) plan B was to sell most of the furniture to the next tenant, that fell through when no-one took over the house. Plan C was to sell as much as possible directly friends and acquaintances and to put the rest in a friend's garage and under the stairs with my parents.
Plan D involved a big fire. I'm glad it didn't get that far.
So after a weekend of cardboard boxes, forgotten possessions that re-awaken old memories, several ruthless trips to the dump and two trips to Hereford in the transit van the sum total of my physical possessions were crammed into two cars and the back corner of a garage. Instead of feeling light, free and liberated it felt terrible and very final.
After nearly two weeks in London I'm almost ready to go, I have my kit together, my stuff stored, an Indian visa and a good idea where I'd like to go. Really all I'm waiting for is to sell my car. So far interest has been slow, surprisingly more so than in Wales.
Life here has settled into a slow cycle of the same activities, shuffled into a different order each week. I'm becoming increasingly worried about selling the car, at the moment patience has to be the way to go and I don't want to slash the price to attract more interest as the money I get for it constitutes most of my travelling fund. They'll be more on this later I'm sure.
