What next?

Monday 11th July 2022

I cant believe that it is two weeks since we walked into Santiago and finished our 800km walk. The first thing that I would say is that it was an amazing experience. The beautiful countryside, the wonderful people that we met, the sore feet, the dormitories, the food (good and bad) all made it memorable. There wasnt as much time as you would think by the time we had walked, showered, washed clothes, had a siesta(!) and eaten and if we did it again there are things we would do differently. 1. Better shoes. 2. Plan less, I would allow more time for the walk so that we didnt feel that we had an end date to hit. By working back from the end date we ended up with a plan that we had to hit rather than taking it day by day.

Did it change anything? In reality no - apart from be more Sam (cant say enough about how much we admired that young man and his attitude to life). What it did was remind me of what is important to me (and why I gave up my job at Teradata in the first place).

Family is the most important thing in our lives. I have had some successes here - I have seen a lot more of mum and Dorothy over the last few years than I did before. But I don't see the children nearly as much as I would like and I am not a part of Libbys life in the way that I would like to be.

Friends. I have a couple of good friends but I would like a wider circle of friends. That takes time and effort and I am still not good at that.

Learning. Well I did pretty well on this one. My foundation degree has been amazing and I want to continue to get a BSc next year. But I would also like to learn to paint better, get out my sewing machine (not been switched on for several years) and do more gardening.

Health. Or probably more accurately being active. Walked 800km so that pretty good. And I have taken up open water swimming in the last few years which is also good. Making sure that I continue is important and I would like to do another pilgrimage. Something for next year.

So what a I going to do?

Hand in my notice. It is not possible to finish my degree and have the part time( actually not very parttime) job that I have, and do anything else. It is a shame as I really love the team that I am working with but in reality its not the job I want as it is not actually about conservation or ecology.

Talk to the children when they come round in a few weeks about what we can do differently.

Sign up for some classes - partly for learning but also to meet some new people. Deciding between dancing and painting at the moment!

Look at where else I can volunteer. Holt Copse and the Cotswolds Water Park are both good but is there anything else?

Walk or swim every day - no excuses. Robin and I plan a dawn walk on Saturday (it will remind us of the Camino!) we will let you know how that goes.

You might ask why do this now, I am only 58, plenty more years to go. But... Robin is 66 and his family don't have a good track record of long lives (cruel to say but true). A lot of what we want to do relies on good health so the time is now, not some time in the future which may never come.