Time seems to go quickly when you don't do a lot and the 4 days by the beach in Greece did fly by; we have been away 1 month now (1/3 of our trip over but 2/3 to do) and those 4 days have been very different from the rest of our first month.
As it will be for most of us lucky enough to be in permanent work - since starting work 27 years ago I have never taken more than 3 weeks off work in one spell and Susan has never taken more than 2 weeks off in the last 13 years.
When I get back to work after a holiday I often sit and ponder whether I really appreciated the time I had when I actually was away; you look forward so much to getting away beforehand, count the days down, plan what you are going to do and what it will be like....... the holiday happens and before you know it you are back at work. It would be barking mad to set yourself an alarm every hour so that you can stop yourself to positively note just how good it is to be away - but sometimes when I'm back it feels as if I should have.
I think after a month I now understand a little more about why I always feel as I do when I get back home. Possibly something to do with just how much your brain can actually manage. As the month has passed by I think and worry less and less about what is about to happen next.....be it house, work, children, parents, garden, weekends, even holidays. And so maybe there is more capacity to just be, to enjoy and appreciate the moment - my mind can and does wander as it has the time and lack of clutter to let it wander. It has taken some time for this to happen but I think it is aided and accelerated by the lack of 'cues' that could pull you back to filling your head with 'the rest of your life' - no blackberry buzzing in pocket, no twice daily look at the weeds growing in the garden that needs a mow, no glance at the peeling paint on the sash windows and no e-mail backlog when I log on because I don't have to log on.
However above and beyond removal of these 'cues' the removal of living life through watching the clock feels the biggest factor .......Neither of us has a watch on and rarely now do we talk about the time - the need has gone as quite simply, there is nothing that we will miss if we don't look at the time. And so the living almost minute by minute (perpetual clock watching) that drives almost all that we do normally has gone - alarm, 2 snoozes, check blackberry, get up, get ready, drop off Charlie at 07:30 on the dot so I can just get in for 08:00 for my first meeting, leave work at 17:25 and if all goes well I should be at the nursery at 17:59 for the pick up as they lock up and go home. Some days lunch might not happen until 3pm and then it is a chocolate bar on the move or if it does happen then it is in a meeting or at the screen....... we sleep here for 10 hours plus a night every night, at home we are lucky if we manage 7 hours a night
So sat in the idyllic walled garden of an Albanian's house typing this in the hot sun it does start to make some sense as to why a week or even two weeks will never be adequate to empty our heads enough to see life a little differently. The reality is that for most of us we will never really know until perhaps we are retired but by then the worrying and planning what happens next will be very different and the opportunity could well have passed - a week can soon feel hectic with the trip to Tesco's, or should it be Morrisons ?, a doctors appointment on Friday, a dripping tap and a promised visit from the builder (who never shows up) to quote for fixing a slate on the roof.
We know it is something very very special that we are doing and we know we are priveledged to be able to do it. Maybe the reason I often think back after a holiday and wish that I had spent some more time just appreciating it more at the time is now pretty understandable; it takes real time to shift from our norms where our lives are so governed by time and carefully making use of every minute. And so it is now becoming clearer that perhaps a one or two week holiday will never really give us enough time to really allow us to stop and see life with a different perspective.
The Albanian who has set this little campsite up in his garden is an absolute gent...he and his family greeted us with smiles, introduced their children to us, took Charlie off to find the various tortoises, set a table up next to our van with flowers on and brought us chilled water on a tray.......in 1998 he laboured for a year on building the Trafford Centre in Manchester away form his family and then moved on to Northern Island to get more work before returning home to Albania. It makes you really think about your sometimes less than subconscious prejudices you harbour with a little shame.
We are now worried that in the future holidays will feel ridiculously short - they won't I know - we constantly set ourselves up mentally for whatever we are about to do such that we manage our own expectations -be it running a certain distance - 5Km can feel a huge distance if you've been told you are only running 3Km as can a 100 mile drive if you think you are only doing 50 miles.... some of my very best holidays have been long week-ends in camping and I know they will be in the future.
Our 3 months do have 3 very different sections. So whilst I have been harping on about how it feels not to be thinking about the 'what next' here is a bit about the 'What next !!'
This first month was a bit of a leap into the unknown - we had a rough route and a number of things we wanted to see. Getting used to being away all together in a small van, moving from full on work/home mode to a different way of living and of course seeing the 'as was' eastern block' countries was the plan.
Our second month is now slowly heading back up the Dalmatian coast up through Montenegro, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany and to Denmark to catch the Ferry on the 9th July to Norway. With our route and timing more predictable I rang my mum and dad up to see if they wanted a week with us in a Villa in Croatia and so, with the benefit of Wifi at every single campsite we have been to, we quickly got a booking and will now take a week out of the van in a villa with a pool in Trojir in late June
 |
| haze over Corfu from our campsite in Albania - they just love their re-bar !!! |
No comments:
Post a Comment