Wasp And Map

So, where are we?

There’s a wasp in the bathroom again, wandering on foot, has an air of lost yet determined.
Can relate. I photographed it.

Where was it we wanted to be?
Can’t recall. Mostly we have dropped the habit of expectation. There does need to be space for spontaneity. 

A map point check, that’s what we need.

We had started out on this journey, let’s presume a mountainous route, not on the mountain at all, but way below sea level. Mountains were myths. 

Nevertheless, we trudged upwards.
Trudge is an apt word. Eyes almost shut, one foot at a time, weary, that word holds the feeling well.

Don’t be sorry for us though, we also had good coffee and places to go wild swimming, and car park picnics, and belly laughs.

And a sort of destination.

A bit of land to call our own. A house we built. A sanctuary. I want a lake, and woods, and probably a pirate ship, and a hillbilly hot tub, a sauna made of old tyres - it’s all so real in my head, but we’re not there yet, we shouldn’t over-design it.

The route is mysterious. Mist shrouded.
Planned and unplanned, events help, hinder, help, hinder.
Trudge.
Make a guess.
Brave the step.
You get the picture.

As less and less of this year is left, it’s a natural reaction to look around, check co-ordinates.
SO: after a slew of working 70-100 (plus!) hours, and still growing vegetables, and still writing books, and being (a bit) tearfully delirious, I find myself here…
Business school course: done. We’re on to the mentoring phase now. Intending to start to a charcoal business, diversified into foraged syrups. All to fund the land, these enterprises, without ruining the earth.
Work: slowed down to an average 48 hours per week. All 15 modules of a shiny new care work certificate completed too. Smug: but I rushed it, might need more effort yet.
Garden: red sprouts in season. We love them. Limes aplenty on the polytunnel’s most iconic tree.
Books: one got published, I remember. I did that. Next couple in process. Written, need re-writing, as many times as it takes.
Teaching: been an Assistant Instructor (with the Tae Kwon-Do Association of Great Britain) for years, have recently, somehow, survived the requirements to gain my full Instructor certificate. Not sunk in yet, this news.
Family: lots. Bonkers. Grandchild 1 is weeks away from being 8 years old. 2 just earned her 9th Kup belt. 3 wants a works van. 4 is in love with her book advent calendar. 5 is coming out of her clingy phase. 6 can’t wait to pile in.

Idyllic, on the whole, lingering exhaustion and the state of the kitchen aside (#many have eaten here, few have died) the trudge makes us appreciate it all the more. 

Not boastful, not bragging: grateful, and surprised at what we’ve got.

Last night, after class, I sat in our car, our smelly, dirty car, listening to the irregular percussion of rain, watching a line of beech leaves, how they snaked in the strong fingers of the wind - and it was, surely, exactly where I needed to be.

I don’t know where the wasp went. I wish it well.