Holiday excitement

The past couple of "WIP Wednesdays seem to have drifted past me, never mind, these things happen and I have been feeling worn out and really rather out of it, as though the world were quite a long way off.

But, excitingly, on Saturday I am off on holiday for the first time in six years.  Previously I have always felt so tired and just could not face travel, but I have decided to take a step out and be brave and go away for a week.  So I am going with my parents to spend a week on a farm in Sussex.  Hardly a huge adventure or trekking in the Andes, but for me, who has not been outside London in a number of years and lately not even outside Croydon, it is a huge step.

When you are so tired and ill your world does tend to shrink, to places you have to go (hospital appointments etc.) and places you feel safe going and know you can manage, which tend to be repetitive (I can get anxious about new places) and close by.  So a distance that my parents would not turn a hair at as a day trip, becomes for me a trek and entirely new territory, new places to explore.



Naturally I am anxious about being away, about a different bed, new places, there are lots of unquantifiables, and so I am trying to quell my anxieties.  If I have been on the website of the place we are staying once I have been on a dozen times; I have examined the location and the surrounding areas and even looked on Google Earth!  I am packing things that help me cope with all eventualities such as hot water bottle and a fan and will have the internet while I am there so that I can stay in touch with my ravelry friends too.

But despite all this I am genuinely excited, I am looking forward to peace, quiet and green - being able to see the countryside and see beautiful things instead of grey pavements and tower blocks.  I know there are limits to what I can do while there, my world there will be small just as it is at home, because I am not well enough to travel miles or go for day trips in the car.  But I plan to make the most of what I can do, seeing the animals on the farm, sitting with my knitting looking at a beautiful view, enjoying the fresh air and freedom from the Met Police's helicopters.  And I have a couple of little excursions I want to make, notably to Lewes, a town I have not visited in years, but used to love going to.



If blogger's interfaces and my little Android tablet get on then I hope to blog from Sussex; if not then I shall do a post (or two) about it when I am back from my great adventure.  For now I need to finish packing (itself a tiring, anxious process) and try to keep my fear and excitement under check, now I come to think about it they are rather linked emotions; for me this has all the emotions of a ride at Alton Towers.

The photographs in this post were taken at Coombe Wood, one of Croydon's hidden gems and well worth a visit.