Post 196: Back to Reality, UK

Over the past six months my character has changed beyond all recognition, …. and probably my body too. It feels as if I’ve become entirely suited to travelling and the thought of being boxed in by four walls and a mortgage fills me with absolute terror. I thought that these feelings would change as soon as I‘d returned to the familiarity of the UK, but they haven’t, …… if anything they’ve become even stronger. It’s true to say that my ordinarily sunny disposition is being seriously challenged by the weather, …. ‘British Weather‘, …. that gift that just keeps on giving, ….. but the urge to keep on moving grows ever stronger.

For four chaotic days I’ve been residing around the Braintree area in Essex. I’ve arranged temporary accommodation and reacquainting myself with my daughter Hannah, ..... a teenager who in the six months that I’ve been absent has seemingly aged ten years. Fortunately for me, she has a wise head on young shoulders, she views the world with a maturity than I didn’t posses at that age, …. a maturity that has clearly continued to evade me. I’ve missed her, I’ve missed a large and important chunk of her life. Hannah’s a teenager and being a teenager is a lot more difficult than being a traveller, … but she restores my ‘Sunny Disposition’ and encourages me to keep on moving. We have a million things to talk about, a million things that we want to do together. We laugh and cry at the same things, .. Hannah laughs at my music and I cry listening to hers, but we probably know more about each others lives than most other Fathers and Daughters, ….. and that I’m now discovering is absolutely priceless. I’ve said for many months that I’m the luckiest guy in the world, ……. but only now am I really starting to understand exactly why that is true.

I’m travelling slowly towards Darlington, on Tuesday 11th November I’ll camp overnight at Squires Milk Bar and then return to St Teresa’s Hospice on Wednesday 12th at around 2:30pm. I’m putting ‘Xs’ on a map, …. writing times and dates beside them and it feels much more comfortable than applying to rejoin the electoral register. After Darlington, I’ll turn around and head south, I'm returning to The Ace Café, …. back to the beginning of Poor Circulation, Sunday 16th of November, …… late breakfast, 10:30am, ..... everyone is more than welcome to come along. I hope that returning to The Ace doesn’t feel like an ‘Ending’, …. I’m hoping it’s more of a ‘Beginning’. Once that last remaining ‘X’ marked at London NW10 has been changed to a ‘Tick’, …. things should become clearer. I’ve got more plans in my head than I have pounds in the bank but that didn’t stop me before. If there is a way to keep on moving, …. then I’ll find it.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas