Musings on the ferry and *ahem* train...

Well I'm on the ferry, and I don't think I know how I'm feeling. The only word I could honestly use is 'surreal,' but I use it too often and anyway, it doesn't really sum it up.



If this was a work of fiction, I'd be winding this story  to a close with a dramatic climax of strings coming together, a few spicy morsels left till I'm all the way home just to keep you hanging on the edge of your seats as you racedown the page to find out, will i mend my ... ur... (derailleur/ brake cable/puncture) in time to get away from the (wolves/ drunk frenchman/ forest fire)? What are the frenchfolk trying to say? am i going to make the ferry? Will I be able to hold off from the (coffee/meat/trains) for long enough to keep pedalling even though I've run out of (cacao beans/ porridge/ steam)?



As thunder tears the Saint Malo sky apart and rain lashes down, I brace myself against the low, menacing theme tune and race towards my destination,even as my friends and family despair that I will never make it before winter closes its icy hold.



But this isn't fiction, and there's no way I could exhaggerate the feeling I got first catching sight of those white cliffs, gleaming in their own patch of sunlight beneath a heavy, glowering sky.



I don't think I knew I had it in me to get that warm bubbling up of pride, to be so happy about returning to the UK; these last few lonely days in France have got me counting the aspects I love about this place. My country. Hmmm.



Then, darting through Portsmouth, the drizzle tickling my face and blurring the headlights, sparkling sprawls across my vision, squinting, my cheeks squashing my eyes my grin didn't leave them enough room on my face.



I just thought I'd check, see how much the train is... I was kinda planning on hitching tomorrow, as a semi-cheating compromise, but I've got faces whirling round in my head of all the people I'm desperate to see, and for a fiver (a FIVER!) I was on the train like a flash.



Now I'm sitting here tapping my fingers jiggling my toes. Swopping from notebook to sudoku to book (I got a goodun this time, cheery :) , checking on my Graham, going to the loo and remembering I still don't need it, checking the time... again...



Should have hitched.



Apparently my apparition was seen at the Dyfi Bridge in the early hours, yesterday.

Maybe a slightly off-kilter version of me, that gave up on this whole mad thing ages ago, and flew back as soon as the festival was over and has been chilling out in Wales ever since, just slipped through the dimensional boundaries for a min and showed up where she weren't supposed to.

But that wouldn't really be Nutmeg would it.