Back To Life
After a couple of weeks at home over Christmas, going back out on the road just wasn't the same. Trying to find routes from the Canary Islands and on through Africa was hard and it all felt like more trouble than it was worth. We started to realise that we're just not cut out for the "working things out as we go along" style of travel. WWOOFing and trying to keep to a budget meant that we weren't able to see a lot of the sights we wanted to see. Our taste of home gave us a taste of the things we missed. We simply weren't enjoying it any more. And if we weren't enjoying it any more what was the point of doing it?
We rounded our "gap year" (okay, it was only 8 months) with our big trip around Morocco and came home. We didn't do as much as we planned or wanted to do. Indeed, if we had planned to only go away for 8 months I know we'd have gone further. But we saw a lot of places we wouldn't have otherwise seen and that we'd have never thought of going to. And we met some wonderful people along the way.Instead of being a small part of a long trip our WWOOF hosts became huge parts of a short trip. So before I go any further I must thank Ben and Penny in Cornholme, Francoise and Bernard in the Alps, Brendan and Mandy in Haut-Vienne, Ursula and Victor in Elne, Lluisa in l'Ametlla del Valles, Christina in Monda, Peter and Anna on La Gomera and also to Nabil at Riad Jomana in Marrakech - not a WWOOF host but someone who we'll never forget for the way he put himself out for us. You've all given us memories that we will treasure for the rest of our lives.
My personal favourite excursion was probably at Villefranche du Conflent. The tiny little walled village really found a place in my heart, the scenery was breath-taking and it was the first time I felt I was starting to get somewhere with my French - although I think all my hard work has since been undone! Similarly, Ronda is a small place with a huge amount of endearing character. These are places that I would never have picked out to visit no matter how many times I journeyed to France and Spain. Darren's favourite trip was to see Mont Blanc close up. Re-reading that blog I can see that I didn't do the day justice - I'm sure for those with proper mountains in their countries it isn't that amazing for for a girl from flat ol' Essex it was special!
We certainly haven't lost the travel-bug, but we realised that the planning should be half the fun. When you've got a week to try to find a way off an island and some cheap accommodation it just isn't so much fun. So we hope to tick off all those other places on our list of "things to see" on holidays and short breaks. In the mean time it's back to some semblance of normality. More than anything I'm hoping that a year out of "real life" will give me a bit more focus. I'm the worst person for having ideas of things I'd like to do but ending up watching rubbish on the TV instead. I still feel I have many things I want to do in this life, maybe the last year can give me an extra push into doing them.
Seeing the world is a wonderful thing, but not really having a proper home to come back to can make things quite lonely. I've enjoyed keeping the blog to inform my friends and family of my whereabouts and shenanigans, but I think I'd rather see them in person to talk about it. Whether I keep this blog for my future trips I haven't decided. I'll certainly keep a diary for myself as, no matter how wonderful the experience, I WILL forget things!
Finally, apologies for turning this into an Oscar style speech, but I have to thank my parents for always being there for me no matter what, and my sister and her family for providing a much needed home while I look for a new one. And to Darren, without whom I would never even think of doing such ridiculous things in the first place!!!
