It's cold and wet and miserable outside. I've just come back from a weekend away in the most glorious weather, so coming back to work on a Monday and looking out the window by my desk has become particularly depressing. The rain and mist in the trees is beautiful in it's own right, but it's not enough to pick me up today. I'm feeling a little meloncholy, I think it comes with travel. Getting away for a few days was exactly what I needed, but as always it feels as though it was over much to fast. Friday was all the excitement of getting out of town. Sunday was the gloom of heading home.

I love to travel though, all the same. It's different now I'm older and I've moved out of home. i'm travelling with friends now or by myself. When I was a child the thought of travel wasn't particularly appealing. The destination was exciting, but getting there was long and slow and almost unbearabley boring. Trips with my mother were riddled with fidgeting, whining, cries of 'How much longer?', lost toys and truck stops. My mother and I used to travel alot by bus. We didn't have a car so to go and visit my grandmother around christmas and Easter we had to sit through a 5 or 6 hour bus trip. When we moved to live closer to my grandmother, we stopped taking those trips, but I can still remember the stops and the towns, what they looked like, the pattern on the bus seats and the bus drivers, of which there were many, who'd drive us safetly from point A to B.

Now I'm older I relish the journey. It's peaceful, that point between destinations when you can stop and gather your thoughts. It's that time to think that we don't often get enough of. And it's surrounded by chaos. The rush to get out the door, to get there on time, to leave town before dark, to arrive early for check-in. The instant relief when you get where your going is a feeling not comparable to much else. And it's soon replaced by the panic of forgotten toothbrushes, travel documents or stuffed animals. Not long after that however, we resign ourselves to not having it all and are easily convinced that everything will be ok and we can just pick up another one when we get there.

Yesterday the Boy and I spent time wandering around our weekend holiday spot, doing some shopping and surveying the locals. It was a slow, lazy sort of day, spent mostly in the sun and in the muggy spring air. The heat was amazing. It's very cold here at home, most of the time, so to be able to walk down the street without a jacket was amazing. Simple pleasures :) Eventually though, we had to set off home and it's hard to switch back on at that point. When you spend time away from all your troubles so immersed in something and somewhere else that you can just forget what's been plaguing you back in real life, knowing that your going back can be very, very hard. Yesterday was no different. And today is just as I expected. Slow and a little bit sad.