So, blogging – the modern phemomenom. Like keeping a diary and instead of having it securely hidden away you share with people that you hope will hear you without judging – warmly chuckling and shaking their heads (perhaps) at your silliness and idiosyncracies, but with you and not wishing you harm, while thinking ‘what an idiot!’.

I had a very quick Skype chat with my parents this morning before leaving the house. They just wanted to let me know that they’ve been following my blog (such as it is so far) and that they found it interesting and are learning new things about me. Dad, I hope you don’t mind me sharing this 🙂 I loved hearing you say that! x

Mum and dad live in Tasmania and we are in Esperance, Western Australia. Travel-wise that’s about three flights and a car drive OR an eight hour drive, two flights and a drive OR one flight or eight hour drive, another flight, a 14 hour ferry trip and another drive to visit them OR (as Mum and Dad did) a train trip across Australia, then a ferry trip and then another drive. Many hours and some days later – depending on mode of transport and need, occasion, mojo and time available – you find each other!

This does mean that there’s not a lot of meaningful contact and catch ups tend to be about the mundane, the every day – kids, weather, TV or movies (you get it). Opportunities to say ‘Oh, so that’s how you think or feel; that’s how you are like or unlike me’ are rare; life is busy, demanding and complicated. “Life is full of interruptions and complications”, Karl in Love Actually. (I was so disappointed that this relationship was unresolved!”.

Whatever ‘work/job’ I happen to be doing, I tend to work at it until I’m a zombie – only good for the sofa and vaguely coherent mumblings (luckily with no gratuitous people eating or moaning!). So, developing deep relations outside of the marital relationship does not happen!

So, blogging! If I’d ever thought about it before I might have thought that ‘bloggers’ were seriously in love with themselves; self-absorbed, self-involved – all the ‘self adjectives’ that we (society) typically frown upon.

In fact, when I asked my son Mathew had he accepted my invite he said something like “Oh no, Mum – as soon as I saw the word ‘blog’ I was over it. I’m pretty sure I’ve deleted the invite”. My immediate feelings were embarrassment (because the word ‘blog’ incites similar feelings in me) and some hurt, because he wasn’t supporting me.

So (I know, I use ‘so’ a lot 🙂 ) first instinct at hearing ‘blog’ (for some) might be negative on the whole – but these days people blog for all sorts of positive reasons. To tell stories of strength in adversity, to support causes or people in need and to highlight concerns that need attention.

So, I’ll refer to my travel blog as ‘the Story’ – and the story so far has lead to me sitting in a coffee shop for an hour writing this – on my day off – with the pink Parker pen that Becky gave me to ‘note all my great writing ideas’. THAT is a positive outcome.

Lots of love xx

P.S. For those of you who have only very recently become friends and may be thinking ‘What? I thought this was a travel blog’ please don’t feel pressured to stay with me! The idea did start off as writing specifically about our trip to Spain; in the meantime it has morphed somewhat to a story of life and a long introduction to our ‘hopefully amazing’ holiday adventure! xx

So, you want to have 14 weeks away from the daily grind – and the close proximity to technology that is so normal now. Eric and I both spend all day tied to a computer – and then in the evenings and weekends we seem to gravitate to the computer again – either to work, socially network ( 😛 ) or play a game (I admit it!!).

We feel the ‘urge to purge’ our need to be close to technology – yet we also want to stay in close touch with family and friends, because these days travel doesn’t mean you’re out of touch like in the olden days!

Eric has some programming he wants to work on, I have my blog and surfing the net for information about sights, eateries, flights etc is invaluable. Skype and emails to keep up with the kids – how could we live without them?

We’ll bring Eric’s mobile and will probably bring a lightweight laptop – and because if we are in computer down time (not out and about) and one of us is on the laptop, then the other will probably want to be on the iPad. Because if one of us is engaged with the technology, then what is the other one doing? I’d say reading a book? But Eric says, yeah that might work for you, but what would I be doing? If we are both either on the laptop or iPad, then we will still be talking to each other, comparing things, showing each other things – if one is on the computer and the other reading – then we might be in our own worlds.

We feel that we are going to spend so much time out and about sightseeing and engaging with people, cooking classes, language classes (maybe) eating out and seeing live music, walking and exploring that the time spent with the technology will be severely curtailed, compared to our normal life.

It seems amazing to me that we can’t imagine (really) not having a computer close by or ready access to the net. Even as we yearn to do things differently and experience life closer to natural – we can’t let go!

When I was a small child I SAW a real live dragon and for a very long time that was my earliest memory.

That memory was as real as the sky and trees around me. We were on a bridge, driving over a creek and I looked down and saw him – and he saw me. It was amazing and magical – and fantasy? – who knows!

That sense of magic and innocence is quickly lost as we move out of childhood – well before we become even young adults.
Life becomes hard work – for some more than others. Some of us find it hard to connect to the joy and magic in life – even before we reach adulthood.

I’ve always been a girl to embrace fantasy – it is my great escape from life. An avid fiction reader and movie buff – what better way to retreat from the world and live and breathe adventure through other people’s stories and escapades.

As a woman turning 50 this year, with children from 18 to 29 who are beginning to move on with their own lives and not depending so much on their parents – this upcoming travel could be a way to connect with that lost sense of wonder in the world.

You can’t get back the innocence – but I can nurture that inner child, connect in new ways with my beautiful husband and consider what more I would like to do with my life.

Hopefully, I’ll reconnect with my own creativity – something missing for a long time in my life, lose some shyness and engage more with people – shouldn’t be hard to do when living in a country where I don’t speak the language!

I’ll really have to make some effort to get to know people in their comfort zone – not in mine.