Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Packing up the house seems like an endless task - I seem to move through phases of feeling stressed, excited, impatient, terrified, worried, liberated and sad. These phases can last from anything between a few seconds and a few days.Feelings of sadness and loss - moving away from my friends - seem to overwhelm me sometimes. I think the word friends doesn't really cover the relationships I have with people like Sarah, Kate and Carrie (not wanting to list others but also not wanting to miss them out! You know who you all are!). They are people who have known me and John and the girls through the hardest transition I have ever made (and the most rewarding) - being a parent. Somehow these friendships feel strong, well bonded, well founded, and hopefully flexible enough to stretch through land and sea. I will miss these friends hugely. Knowing that the friends who stay with you when you move are few, but that they will probably turn out to be lifelong friends, I console myself by thinking of their support for our big step, grasping our dream.Giving most of our furniture, toys and books away feels like we will be leaving some part of us here - Kirsty will occasionally remember us as she fills files in our filing cabinet, Carrie will throw a BBQ one day and think "s***, she really didn't clean it!", Sarah will sit on the comfiest swing seat in the world feeding the jellybean while Ben steams round on our old plastic tractor and as Kates new baby throws up on our old sofa she will not mind as it has already had Ellen and Annaspoo, pee and the rest all over it.Meanwhile where will we be and what will we be doing? Who knows! We'll be on Double Helix come bed time I know that much. We'll be together, Me, John Ellen and Anna, hopefully we will be warm(er) and dry(er) than on the west coast of Scotland, we will be meeting new people, even making new friends, and seeing new places, countries, ports and anchorages. We'll be living closer to the open air than is possible in a Scottish winter - which seemed to force us into our house earlier each day, and let us out only when the wind and rainstopped for a rest. (Personally I agree with Billy Connelly; that there is no such thing as bad weather - only wrong clothes. But Ellen and Anna don't like being dressed up and taken out in every weather, which makes it no fun.)We'll just have to see what the reality of living on a boat will be - I think probably it will be great. We'll find out soon as there is not long to wait now, in 23 days we will be gone, Johns uni work will be done, the house emptied and us slapping on the sun cream and setting the sails. Bring it on!
- comments