Post 268: 48 Hours to Departure

Back in early January, I was starting to get my ducks arranged into neat little rows when the wind suddenly changed direction and scattered them all to hell. I wont bore you with the matrimonials, but my plans went out of the window and all existing bets were cancelled. The full-fat tour of SE Asia wasn’t going to happen and I had no alternative but to make the best of a bad job. A bad job? What the f**k am I saying? I’m about to bugger-off on another adventure and even in my book of elementary reasoning, that’s about as far removed from ‘Bad‘ as it‘s ever possible to get. My brother Alan pointed out that since the start of this new millennium, some fairly inclement fortune has blown my way, and he’s not entirely wrong. But, on the many occasions that I’ve had the misfortune to grab the shitty end of life’s stick, I’ve then compounded the problem by forgetting to wash my hands after letting it go. Glass half full or glass half empty? I wasn’t really sure, so last week I sat down and typed out an ’S & S’ list. It wasn’t the longest list ever written, but there was certainly an awful lot more ‘Sugar’ than ‘Shit‘ on it. Time to stop complaining and get on with it Geoffrey.

It’s also time to change the stuff that I don’t like in my life and start concentrating on the things that I do enjoy. The first thing that’s got to go is the place that for the past 14 months, I’ve jokingly called ‘Home’. It all began pleasantly enough, but the occupants have recently changed and it’s gone from being ‘Eclectically Strange’ to ‘Uncomfortably Strangeways‘. I’ll spare you all the gory details, but as of Tuesday 9th of February, it‘s history. My bags are packed, what I’m not taking with me will be stored and on Monday evening, the remainder will be ceremonially torched. It’ll be just like ’Burning Man’, but in Essex and without the gratuitous nudity. Hell, I’ve even started running and stopped smoking again. I’m not quite ready to start living on soya milk and tofu, but give it a little more time and all things are possible.

Moving into February and I’m actually beginning to embrace this newly unplanned existence. In the past, I always fooled myself into thinking that I was just always going against the flow, but in reality, I probably wasn’t. I did some crazy things, but they were all done within the fairly broad parameters of some loose but unwritten plan. This time however, it’s different. I’ve got a ticket to Bangkok, a loose plan to find a rental bike somewhere in Chonburi and an intention to then start heading South. South only because South is a direction that I’ve never really travelled and South form Chonburi are places that I’ve yet to visit. I’ve absolutely no idea how far I’ll go or even when I’ll be back, but I’ll try not to get arrested and will update the Blog as often as I can.

Oh, the reason for the photograph? That's exactly where I found my milk this morning. Not in the wonderfully cold fridge, but in a cupboard next to the cornflakes where the previous user had clearly thought it most convenient to leave it.

www.justgiving.com/geoffgthomas