First Post

Well, I suppose one has to start somewhere – so here it is.

I am a 48 year old English heterosexual hailing from Essex.

If that hasn’t put you off, well done and thank you for granting me some acceptability as a human. This is effectively my travel log for a journey into the unknown and comes about as fallout to the proverbial “mid-life crisis” – which is real (so I laugh back at you 30-somethings who think it’s all a load of bollocks and “won’t happen to me” [1]) and changes one’s life.
The main changes come in the sense of realising that you can do what you really want to. I have always had the notion of putting on a rucksack and travelling the world. When I had the chance before – to go to Australia by motorcycle (yes – for the purists – not all the way due to a small intervention of sea) with my mate Trogg (more of him later I’m sure) – I bottled it [Essex term for; wimped out, chickened out, kaked it] and didn’t go. MLC also dictates that you think of the various things which would be different in one’s life if a different course had been taken – that should keep one occupied in Fantasy Calamity Central with enough material to write six seasons of Friends! (If it doesn’t – you have no imagination!)

Getting back to the point. Circumstances conspired to leave me middle-aged, free and single. Added to this the icing on the cake was to be made redundant from my previous post of Chief of Brain Paralysis and Head of Pointless Practices, and I was ready to go! I had found my first answer: “What do I want to do with my life?” Enjoy it. Fulfil a dream. Travel the world.
And the fun doesn’t stop there! More questions arise... “What does the future hold?”
Well, for you, dear reader – if you are daft enough to check back here – more of these entries. I have to say in my own defence that future entries may be a bit more exciting and will cover my travels and experiences – with full colour photographs (isn’t technology wonderful?) – as I set off into my own answer to the question above... unknown!

[1] The great mythical MLC (Mid-Life Crisis) is a bit of a misnomer and is only a crisis if your circumstances cause it to be. If one holds with the studies of natural cycles turning every seven years and you happen to be aged between 35 and 49 – watch out! If one is a scholar of the late and genius Douglas Adams then you realise the significance of 42 – the answer to the ultimate question. But what is the question? I can only speak from personal experience, of course, and in no way hold this up as a definitive “Theory of MLC” but: one does not go instantly mad – i.e. wake up one morning and have an irresistible urge to buy an open top sports car, have a haircut (useless in my case), apply fake tan and the latest fad smell and cruise the local girls schools at chucking out time. It is far more insidious than that. Questions start arising in one’s mind – seemingly innocuous ones - which start off small and then their import mushrooms (very much like the nuclear cloud variety), coalesces, solidifies and then smacks you firmly in the face! Little questions like: “What am I doing with my life?”, What have I done with my life?”, What do I want to do with my life?”, What am I doing with my life?”, ... you get the cycle I’m sure.