Message from a friend

'You must be careful each time you step out of your front door, because your front walk is really a road, and the road leads ever onward. If you aren't careful, you're apt to find yourself....well...simply swept away, a stranger in a strange land with no clue as to how you got there'

 I don't know if this is a direct quote from Tolkein, but that is what is written on the yellowed and stained scrap of paper that was till recently stuck on my fridge. This message was given to me by my school friend Emiel Wortman when I decided to leave home on very short notice in 1995.

Thanks Emiel! I've made good use of this road so far, dear friend.

I look forward to our next destination. We should be flying out on the 15th of December. Before then we need to finish up quite a bit of admin, a quick bout of fieldwork on the 8th, lots of goodbye visits and packing packing packing. I'm taking the whole lot of our cloth nappies for Mieke, and boxes full of pretty fabric for the quilts and baby dresses I dream of making with all the time I'm going to have there (this is unashamed wishful thinking!). Which toys should go, and which should stay? Decisions decisions......

And so it begins

Tolkein wrote, 'Beware your front walk, for it may lead to you to strange and unexpected places any time you step out the door.' I'll look for the proper quote, it's been stuck on my wall for years.

This time the journey is to the Middle East, to the dry, hot desert. It is an opportunity to grab a hold of some fast flowing time, to wring every drop of life out of it as my daughter grows ino her own adventure. It is also an opportunity to spend some quality time with a study project which I just haven't been able to give enough attention. It is an opportunity to think long thoughts and listen to the shadows in my heart. A break from the me I have invented and become stuck in. A year in the desert...