I’m back home again.
And as usual, lots of Things To Do in life, which right now is exciting, but can also be overwhelming. The linear life of a bike trip has a lot of appeal to me, but unlike some other trips I did not desire to continue forever.
The weather was a major factor, looking at the forecast and seeing every day with a rain drop picture is tiring. If it were a multi-month trip, I would know it’s not going to be like that forever, and hunker down a bit. It was going to be on and off rain until the end of the trip, so I thought I’d end it early. Except I didn’t have a pre-planned end date (only a no-later-than date, which I ended a bit less than a week earlier than that).
The other reason is there are a lot of things I want to be doing! This is the exciting bit. A new chapter of life feeling (more about that in a non-trip blog post…).
I just imported all my photos to my computer, just over 700 of ’em … which would be around 20 rolls of film if it were analogue. I sometimes wonder if I take too many photos. Although I take them for many reasons, sometimes to just remember things for myself. I often look back through photos and get really immersed in another place/time.
A few themes came out from looking back at them that I’d like to reflect on a bit. I’ll write some separate posts about different aspects.
One of the connecting themes is: What happens in the countryside?
I spend a lot of time noticing my surroundings. I stop a lot when I cycle to go and investigate. Maybe a field with something growing that I want to look at. Or a sign with some words, that gives me a hint of the place. Sometimes just a bit of woodland with a nice feel that I want to savour. Often to take a photo.
I kind of want to know what makes the countryside in the UK in 2023 tick. We import a lot of food, we import a lot of everything. What happens here? I only cycled through a narrow strip of the countryside really, so it’s not a balanced survey, more a hint.
I’ll add links to the posts here as I write/publish them.
