Sunday 18 March 2012

one month

I've handed in my notice at work, and booked my ferry; Harwich to Esbjerg, on April 22nd. Once the remaining shifts and goodbye necessaries in Bristol are complete I'll see mum and dad for a couple of days in Norwich, then dad and I will cycle down to the ferry port. From Denmark I guess it'll all start taking shape and I might expect a little clarity of sentiment. Until then it's all strange; the last few weeks at work, the frantic kit-list rigmarole, the impenetrable bureaucracies of the Pakistani High Commission, goodbye visiting, leaving rituals, tenancy handovers, packing up the clutter and dissolving domestic routines. It will be good to leave, and begin getting started. Following the coast, finding food, keeping warm and making camp. I've an idea to head for Hamburg, then Berlin, Prague, Vienna; South along the Croatian coastline. I suppose it is inevitable that at this stage my vague waymarkers become increasingly farther apart. Istanbul, Tehran, Baluchistan, Islamabad, Kashgar. I'm not at all sure from there. Perhaps a Northern trajectory over China. Or back West into beautiful Kyrgyzstan.... Or The Bering Straits? At least I don't have to be back at work anytime soon!