27th Aug
What is this? an urge to wander, to move about, to be nomadic.
My maternal Grandad had it - never able to settle in a place or a job right up until he was old. When my mum was age 10/11 they emigrated to Australia - 10 pound poms
6 weeks on a boat, through the Suez Canal. Mum described the 'doldrums' - when they were near the equator where there was no wind and the ocean was eerily flat and quiet.
Mum says the hostel conditions were a bit rough but they didn't care as kids. They could run a bit wild so it was fun for them and there were other kids to play with from different countries.
There were, English, Dutch and Italian and they all had their separate areas.
Grandad was an engineer so looked for work but it took a long time to get a job where they could afford to move out of the hostel and he didn't like it there and eventually they decided to return but Nan & Grandad stayed on
My mum and her sister were sent back before on the boat with a friend - Jo and his wife & son David. She was 12, my mum. She said Jo was nice but his wife was a bit strange - she never left her cabin the whole trip back. Mum said her sister, my Auntie Margaret, refused to change her dress one day and the wife threatened to have them 'thrown' off the ship......needless to say this was sorted out but my Grandparents were obviously worried.
Mum & my Auntie lived with their Grandmother in an apartment in a big house in the New Forest. The garden was haunted by a lady who used to walk around at night.
Anyway - Grandad found a good job and they even found a place, and my Nan had a job in a clothes shop with the 'unfortunate' name 'snappy legs' (I believe)...sign of the times. Anyway I suppose the settling - it was kind of too late - and they too came back to England. Grandad gave his engineering box to my husband when he was alive after meeting him - a fellow engineer - which made as all happy that it went to a good home. It was a little broken as it got dropped from the boat but my husband repaired it.
Anyway - I'm kind of digressing but My Grandad could never settle in any home and Nan always had to follow - she was a kind, quiet, peaceful lady. They lived close by - in a flat when we were growing up in Abbots Langley but they moved several times later - to Norfolk, Weymouth and eventually Poole near my Mum & Dad.
My Mum has it too - wanting to always be off somewhere - she is never happy unless there is a holiday booked.
And me - 17 years in Cassington where we brought up our kids - happiest time of my life
but I have felt unsettled since 2020 - is it a fear of death - growing old. I began to question my life, what it was all about. Became obsessed with the thought that one day, I will just be gone. Not here anymore and that will be that, Forever. For all eternity....it unsettles me and I wonder if Grandad thought like that.
I'm not a believer in life after death. I wish I was. ....and I have this relentless urge to explore the globe which I can't get out of my system. I think about my travels after uni - backpacking when I was 22 - and the memories from that still give me joy when I think and talk about them.
I travelled with Carol and Mark who were on my Physics course, to Israel - Tel Aviv - Jerusalem - Sinai - Egypt then me & Carol to India then Greece - (I will write this up too in a blog one day!!) - we really did have some adventures
And I have this urge to be off. I love the feeling of moving. Travelling. I love getting on a bus or a train. Going somewhere. I feel I could make my home wherever i was - I don't have this need for a base. A solid home. - (when I was in the van this summer I loved the fact that we never slept in the same place two nights running - it was exciting not knowing where we would stay the night - I will write this up too - a story that needs to be told but involves another and I don't want to steal it)
And I wonder if now - am I too old.? Has the world changed too much and become too commercial and 'touristy' so that the experience will be empty and meaningless. I hope not.
So I have booked my first flight - to Jakarta, Indonesia. - I just sat down and did it, hardly time to think. I didn't even notice its via Saudi Arabia - Jeddah - but this should be ok. I don't have to leave the airport - I was then fussing in my head that Jakarta is just a big city and that I will hate and that perhaps I should have flew to Yogyakarta in central Java - but I think now - just relax - it will all be fine. It will all be experience. I plan out roughly my journey through Indonesia - I will give myself 3-4 weeks as I hope to not rush about too much and try to get a feel for the real people & society there and try to write about it a bit
But I worry that I will just be seen as a mindless tourist - someone rich to rip off - so I will introduce myself as a writer and I hope I find some interesting stories....
