An Itch You Can't Scratch

I am feeling impatient. Five weeks seems like a long time in a job you have no passion for and a city you're eager to escape from.

I'm pretty anxious too and finding it hard to relax or concentrate, even when cycling. It's as if I'm waiting for test results. I think that's to be expected. Fear of the unknown mainly. I also blame the vaccines, vast quantities (well alright small vials) of which are flowing round my system. These must also have something to do with the mild flu symptoms and moodiness I'm experiencing.

Diphtheria, Tetanus, Polio, Hep A, Typhoid, Hep B (3 doses), Rabies (3 doses), Japanese Encephalitis (3 doses). I haven't even started on the Malaria tablets.

That's a lot of nastiness. Still, better this than getting really ill while I'm away I suppose. Clever chap that Edward Jenner.

Friends tell me not to bother planning the trip too much. 'Wing it' they urge, 'you won't know what you want to do til you get there', 'It'll be amazing what ever you decide to do'. Hmmm....that may be true but right now as I face the prospect of being jobless, of no fixed abode and in countries where communication will be tricky to say the least, all I want to do is 'sort stuff out' and conquer the anxieties I have about even those things which are beyond my control.

Here are a few of those concerns in brief (can you tell I'm enjoying my lists?):

• falling out with/being abandoned by my travel companion


• sourcing vegetarian food


• looking like a banshee ( as a result of not having my regular maintenance tools to hand)


• not being able to exercise (exercise being my chief mood regulator)


• being bored


• finding a job when I get to Oz

• not liking Australia

• not being able to support friends back home

• feeling lost (in a physical and emotional sense) - or is this the point of travelling?

Tush. Trifling worries you'll say. Anxiety's not such a bad thing anyway. Indeed, I have long been aware that, together with fear and frustration, it can often be the "hand maiden of creativity” (T.S. Eliot), or a catalyst at any rate and if I'm honest, I will probably always find something to worry about regardless of how happy or fulfilled I am, such is my habit...

and Winston Churchill's it seems:

“We have a lot of anxieties, and one cancels out another very often.”