North Downs Way (epilogue)

I haven’t written anything here for ages have I!

I guess I have been so busy enjoying the world.

In fact I cannot write a great deal now but only to say that I am hoping to get started on scanning in my North Downs Way slides this weekend. It will take me some weeks yet as there are about 500 or so to get through although I have already marked off the winners from looking at them projected.

I just cannot believe it is already four months since I took the first step on that 160 mile hike across the South East of England.

I’m already looking back on it with melancholic whimsy of , “what I did then. That was the day!” And I realise, that we all do this, looking back on a time when we did some when we were free and the memory paints it with warmer tones and it was just fantastic. Almost an American Beauty moment of looking back on the job flipping Burgers in the summer or being asked how you feel, and when you look back on it all. We all have those moments and they seem to stop at some point. Trapped in the wildfire of bills and general working life, and families and so forth. It seems apparent to me to never stop having little adventures; after all, why stop if you’re still free? It makes looking back not so painful when you are absolute in the knowledge that you can still strike out and do your own thing to this very day.

I don’t know what I’m going to do next year. Maybe Southern France, maybe/probably the Cotswolds Way, maybe the USA again – I’m just not sure. Just so much to do in such a short amount of time it seems. There’s so much to see and do, breathe and live! I’m glad I made it through the shit-storm I found myself in 2006 and moved on from all the crap that got towed out of that year; life is a much better sweeter thing. I’m not rich, I scrabble to pay bills, my socks now have holes and the hoovering needs to be done; but I couldn’t be happier with my lot and it’s not much but it keeps me content