I wish I’d gone on adventures and trips abroad while I still could. Time is short though. Should I write a bucket list? Everyone seems to have them. My husband was given ‘1000 places to See Before You Die’ for his 50th birthday, but there are hardly any places he hasn’t been to. On the bookshelf behind me; ‘100 Films to Watch Before you Die’ and ‘100 Books to Read Before you Die.’ I can’t really read or work our DVD player without my children’s help.
My anxiety (and parochialism) has stopped me from expanding my horizons. I was too worried about getting food poisoning to go on a family holiday to Egypt where they camped in the desert. I didn’t go to Ireland because of the rain, or Dorset because the chairs in their holiday cottage are too uncomfortable.
I’m glad that my children are well travelled. A and J have been to Africa, Egypt, Ireland, Italy, Iceland. France, Lanzarote, America and Croatia. My husband is planning to take A trekking through the Burmese jungle next year. They have prepared for this by wild camping in Wales a couple of weeks ago.
Reflecting on it now, I think the rewards of travelling would have been worth the risk. Beached in front of the TV, my life flashes before me. There are many interior shots of me smoking in different front rooms, but very few in in the wild. In mid life, I am surprised by a sudden wander-lust. I long to head to the hills with a day-pack and some energy bars. Or, less ambitiously, book a European mini break in a mid-range hotel.
Now that I want to go away, no-one wants to come with me. I was a difficult person to travel with. A few years ago, before we had children, me and my husband went to Gran Canaria. On arrival, I was dismayed to find a barren, volcanic landscape with no trees. This may have been disappointing, but was it my husband’s fault? Whenever I went to places, I often fell out with them on the first day. Unfamiliar vistas used to make me anxious, I’m not sure why.
Ravens are sedentary creatures… my brother lives in a beautiful Regency flat by the sea in Brighton but he never walks along the prom, which seems mad to everyone apart from people who knew my mother, Susan. We moved to Brighton from London when I was 11. When I was growing up, there was no culture of family walks, not even on Christmas Day. Susan hardly ever left the house apart from occasional trips to the Peking or The Ashoka restaurants, where we’d argue noisily. My father used to take us rollerblading along the Front but I can’t remember Susan ever going there. In the Eighties, when I was a teenager, there were only a couple of cafes on the prom selling weak tea in polystyrene cups, and seedy amusement arcades. This was perfect setting for my sub cultural teenage exploits. Brighton has changed since then, but ’jimmy’s alley’, where Jimmy had sex with Steph in Quadrophenia, is still there.
Brighton prom; gaudy distraction
My husband’s favourite beach is Ringstead in Dorset, where his family rented a house. It’s pebbly and blustery. He learnt to swim, then to sail in the bay in the seventies (wetsuits are for wimps). Ringstead is owned by the National Trust so there are no ‘Kiss Me Quick’ hats or gaudy distractions from its natural beauty. It makes Brighton look cloyingly artificial, but there’s nothing much for me do there. I used to love swimming in cold water but my lack of co-ordination has made breast-stroke very difficult. So I just sit there waiting for my wet-suited children to be washed up on the beach.
Ringstead in Dorset
I like posh hotels but can’t afford to pay for them myself.
I think I need a travel companion with no emotional baggage. I can’t help feeling I have clipped my husband’s wings. Rather than feel guilty about the past, I’d like to set off on a journey with a clear horizon. I wouldn’t mind being a tourist; I’m not snobby about that. If I focused on the places rather than my preconceptions about them or my levels of discomfort, I think I’d enjoy myself.
Any suggestions for destinations would be welcome. I’m too young for a cruise though.
Forgetting myself 