Harley cried, and looked up at me with eyes like saucers. He wanted to sit on my lap. He had moved between beds and blankets all summer long. They were behind my office chair, on the floor by the wall with the fairy lights. He is a loyal research companion.
“You wanna come up mate?”
I scooped him up and sat him on my legs as if he was a toddler about to be bounced up and down. I could edit with one hand, and rest the other on the desk in front of him. He placed his paw on top of my hand and left it there for encouragement.
After another thirty minutes, the email was sent. The next draft chapter was making its way to the necessary people, and I was grinning. I had improved my writing beyond recognition and even though it meant my time walking in the sunshine had been limited this summer, I was full of pride.
I closed the laptop lid and kissed Harley on top of his head. It was time to prepare for a trip.
Excitement prevented me from sleeping any longer than five hours. That would do.
Jasmine and I would use ‘list making’ as an excuse to get lunch somewhere nice, before wandering around the shops to see what we needed for our next trip. Could we call the trip a holiday? I wasn’t sure. They were always ‘work’, but the kind of work you could frequently do without any thought of complaining. We had big plans.
Facebook housed a group of people who had already been to the resort. This was a genius way of making friends, finding information and making new relationships before we went there. We have so many plans already and I can’t wait to begin writing a new chapter for the book, and filming videos for YouTube. There are more trips planned, all fitting nicely around work, and my PhD research.
My mind is already over there, getting up early, hunting down a frothy coffee and sitting somewhere peaceful to journal. The resort's sun comes up over the sea, and the rooms overlook the sea. Isn’t that just the ideal picture in the mind? I am excited about life in a renewed way I haven’t felt before. Even though I can’t explain it, I absolutely don’t mind. Whatever this feeling is, it can stay. Wanderlust being fulfilled once again in my inflamed body, I fully intend to make the most of walking barefoot on the sand. The feeling of the warm sea lapping against the ankles is just the most smile-inducing thought right now as I sit at my breakfast table pre-suncream shopping. My cells will come alive today, and in two weeks as we head to the airport, and maybe the inflammation will lower.
New stories will be born, which I haven’t even got an outline for right now. I love that about travel writing; it just takes you on a wave and guides you with every turn. Seeing new things to describe, meeting new people to become ‘characters’, and having new experiences to create the backbone of the tale, all add to the beauty of ‘adventure’.
People see me tapping away at the laptop and ask why I’m working.
“Oh, no, this isn’t working. This is my passion.”
