Who doesn't like a good holiday?
Your holiday of choice might be a people-filled sunshine extravaganza, or a chance to put your walking boots on and head into the misty hills. Whatever your choice, holidays are a time for us to put aside our normal daily routine and work some magic into our lives.
My holiday time is a chance for me to think about how much bigger the world is outside of me and my immediate life. I love big, majestic landscapes and scenery where you feel tiny and insignificant. This gives me some perspective of life - not 'I'm unimportant' but 'how petty some of my worries and concerns are'.
How often do we stop and think about how lucky we are, and how rich our lives are?
Isle of Skye
It's natural human instinct to concentrate on your immediate life - you loved ones, friends, colleagues, neighbours, the people in your town/village - your work, your daily routines of cooking, exercising and so on an so forth. On my return from holiday I find, like everyone else, my newly-remembered sense of gratitide and place in the world slowly shrinks back.
Which means it's time for another holiday!
I prefer the term 'travel' to holiday, on the most part. I travel to see and experience new things - new people, new scenery, new culture. In contrast to majestic landscapes, I find that I also think about what's important in life by considering the small things in other cultures. All over the world people are essentially the same and want the same things - family, love, safety and comfort. It doesn't matter if that culture is one you can recognise in yourself, or one that seems completely alien, people are still people.
Jordan - 2012 - we had a fabulous conversation even though we spoke no Arabic, and they spoke no English!
Considering this enables me to have better empathy with world events. A volcano has errupted? Although volcano erruptions are not common in the UK (!), I try and think of the little things - how does someone who has lost their home feel? They are likely to feel the same things that I would - grief and anger and desperation. Human emotions are universal.
I feel this especially at the moment as we live through the COVID-19 crisis. It is a global crisis, and wherever you are in the world, we are all suffering through the same thing. It gives us a sense of how small the world is, and how we are humanity together.
Christmas Eve 2014 - the blurry photo tells me how much fun I was having on a boat in Halong Bay, Vietnam
As we sit tight through the lockdown, protecting others and not going anywhere, my love of travelling has burst through into my other passion of crafting - in particular embroidery. In this piece, I sewed the word 'Adventure' with small landscapes that reminded me of a trip to Alaska. I experimented with colouring the fabric with crayons (although the effect isn't very sophisticated). However, as with any craft subject matter, I think about the subject as I embroider - and this time it was all the holidays and travelling experiences I have been lucky enough to go on. I am travelling in my imagination.
The only problem now is that, with all my imaginings, the list of where I want to go keeps getting longer!
Oman 2019 - my husband and I and Davey - who comes with us to each new country.
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