A New Year's Eve to remember

I was just moseying around in the corners of my mind as I rattled some floss between my teeth and encountered a rather strange thought: despite rarely having Singledom Status over Valentine's Day for the past however many years, the one I look back on most fondly was a freezing day in Copenhagen when I was 17. Thinking about it now I've no idea why Copenhagen seemed like a good idea at the time, but I went there anyway with a friend from school. We spent most of the first night desperately trying to find the youth hostel, bumbling back and forth between the city and the back of beyond on a series of buses; much of the next few days was passed mildly horrified at the cost of anything there so we resorted to chocolate from the vending machine for the majority of our meals.

On Valentine's Day itself, she jokingly bought me a blue plastic rose – epitomising some kind of tacky hideousness – and we went to the cinema to watch the Southpark movie. I remember it as a day when I laughed a good deal.

Since then, the 14th February has been a series of ghastly disasters. Every guy starts throwing out the excuses weeks in advance about how it is commercialised nonsense and romance can be applied to any day (why yes it can, and a demonstration of that would be nice occasionally).

Birthdays have been similarly brutal as far as guys are concerned. I'm sure I've ranted about that on here before, but suffice to say that my best birthdays have been spent with my mother – the most excellent by far being a week on Capri in the midst of me supposedly writing my Masters thesis. Let's face it, it's impossible to go wrong with sunshine, a glittering sea, and an endless supply of gelato.

I went to Australia when I was 18 and have had a damn fine series of New Years' Eves ever since with destinations including the likes of New York, Sydney, Buenos Aires and Cape Town. Because I've invariably been away from the UK and my family at Christmas that holiday has come to mean less and less to me over the years, and instead New Year's Eve has taken on a significance. I like the feeling of marking a year that has passed, looking back over the highs and lows and wondering what the heck the next 12 months have in store for me.

Yesterday, I very nearly booked a flight to Los Angeles to spend New Year's Eve over there. I reluctantly allowed the twin bores of Reality and Sanity to reach over and stop me handing over my credit card details to British Airways, and I realised I'd need to rapidly form an alternative plan.

After staring blankly at the wall for a while, with not a little rocking back and forth, I hit upon the only viable option. Armed with a bottle of Champagne and every item of warm clothing and bedding that can be rammed into my car, I'm taking myself off with my tent to somewhere or another – maybe Land's End, perhaps Lizard Point (the UK's most southerly point, if you're wondering). I don't care that a storm is brewing and for the sixty seconds it takes to erect my canvas home for the night that I'll probably be lashed by stinging rain. At least I'll feel alive for those brief moments.

And then I'll curl up inside, break out some music on the iPad, pop the cork, and quietly consolidate a year's worth of events and emotions. If you're at a loose end then feel free to come and join me. It might be cosier in your own home surrounded by familiar comforts but unless something drastic happens – a bulldozer invading your living room, for example, or the chimney catching fire – you're unlikely to remember it. I'm going to pack one more mini experience into 2013 and start 2014 on what will doubtless be a tired but satisfied high.

'Experience is not what happens to you; it's what you do with what happens to you.' (Aldous Huxley)

A New Chapter

I said to a friend a few months ago that I find it perfectly possible to fall head over heels in love ten times a day. The guy who sits down at a table nearby and runs his fingers through his hair just so; the man who looks across from a train carriage that is temporarily adjacent in a station before you are both whisked to opposing places; the one who brushes past you in a packed bar and, for the briefest moment, there is a shared understanding of what might have been.

When you travel, life becomes an endless series of departures and separations. However brief the encounter it always lingers somewhere in the back of your mind – and occasionally, as I did just a few days ago, you'll stumble across something tangible to remind you of that moment (in this instance, a photograph of a sunset and 'without words' scrawled across the back). The thing with these moments is that you can be everything you ever thought you wanted to be: it is a meeting defined by its transience, by the sure knowledge of its imminent ending. It's an addictive feeling, everything being charged with passion and promise and the certainty of the exquisite agony of heartbreak.

Which of you readers hasn't forged your own conclusions as to why I've travelled? The Armchair Critic: everyone's favourite role to play, with lines of the likes of 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' playing a starring role in the analysis. I've concluded there's little point trying to explain, since most of you won't believe it over your own versions anyway.

But I can tell you why I pulled the plug on yet another supposed 'trip of a lifetime' a few days ago. (And for the record, I don't define anything I've done in that way and I never have. It's been my whole life, not an add-on that has appeared temporarily.) Honestly, I'm just tired. I have exhausted an entire gamut of emotions by forcing upon myself a 'series of little deaths'. When you find yourself in a beautiful place and you are actively looking for a flaw, you realise it is time to stop for a while. And hey, I ended on a high: thanks to years of air miles I came back from New York into London on a business class flight, complete with a massage and a champagne cocktail to wind down and celebrate the last thirteen years of my life.

I bumped into a box of old photographs a few evenings ago and I re-lived moments from Australia to Zambia. Nobody can ever take away those memories that have defined and refined me, and no one other person will ever know everything I've seen and felt and loved.

It's time to find work that I care about and believe in, and to find peace in familiarity. The 'what ifs' I've created over the years need acknowledging. Most folks, said Abraham Lincoln, are about as happy as they have made up their minds to be – and I've a hell of a lot to be happy about over the coming weeks. There are Christmas trees and heartfelt hugs and laughter and wine and windswept cliffs, all providing the perfect backdrop to my new determination to forge a niche that takes the impact of over a decade of truly global experiences and transforms it into something extraordinary.

“I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”  ['The Painted Veil', Somerset Maugham.]

Fifty literary feasts

Inspired by the somewhat uninspiring suggestions given on this website, http://flavorwire.com/403319/50-places-every-literary-fan-should-visit/view-all here is my own list of fifty places every fan of literature should want to visit. The original focuses rather heavily on America and merely staring at a house where somebody happened to be born. Mine is, to my mind at least, infinitely more interesting – although I am ready for the accusations that my list is, in turn, overly English in flavour... These are in no particular order, but it would be wrong to start without mentioning Shakespeare: I'm not quite sure how the author of the original list managed to justify eliminating him.

1) Shakespeare. You could visit Stratford-upon-Avon and wander around the grounds of Anne Hathaway's cottage, or head across to London and see a performance at the Globe Theatre. Alternatively, hop on up to Scotland and see Cawdor Castle – yes, Macbeth's Castle is open to visitors – http://www.cawdorcastle.com/. Or sidle over to Denmark and check out Hamlet's old haunt - http://www.kronborg.dk/english/
2) Austen. Since her home is really rather lovely and houses an excellent library (it is where I first stumbled across the works of Elizabeth Thomas, subject of my thesis) I will include this 'come and stare at a house' option - http://www.jane-austens-house-museum.org.uk/
3) Pemberly. Go and find your Mr Darcy emerging from the lake at Lyme Park: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/lyme-park/ Incidentally, 'Pride and Prejudice' is 200 years old this year.
4) The Brontes. Here you get a bargainous 'four in one' offer if you visit the Old Parsonage in Haworth. It's a gorgeous old house in a great little village. The more morbid among you can even go and visit the grave of Bramwell Bronte, where Emily caught a cold attending his funeral; her cold rapidly developed into consumption and she died shortly after. http://www.bronte.org.uk/
5) Wilde. You can visit various homes of his in Dublin, but I'm more of a fan of Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Lather on the lipstick and add a kiss to Wilde's grave: http://www.bestourism.com/img/items/big/6784/Pere-Lachaise-Cemetery-in-Paris-France_Oscar-Wilde-messages_7697.jpg
6) Rimbaud. Yes, he really did wander off to Ethiopia, change his identity and try to eke out his life anonymously. Some pesky tourists recognised him though and blew his cover. Still, it's as good an excuse as any to visit a stunning country: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytripsmypics/164716940/
7) Hemingway. He went everywhere... My recommendation here, though, is a trip to Kilimanjaro – inspiration for 'The Snows of Kilimanjaro'. Get there before the snow disappears completely. http://www.tanzaniaparks.com/kili.html
8) Hemingway and Orson Wells and Truman Capote – and a few others. Wander over to Venice and hang out in Harry's Bar. Drink a few gallons of mojito and maybe you'll come up with something akin to 'Farewell to Arms': http://www.harrysbarvenezia.com/
9) Umberto Eco. While we're in Italy, we'll make a quick mention of Eco. His most famous work, 'The Name of the Rose', is set in a monastery – arguably inspired by the Moissac Abbey in southern France, http://tourisme.moissac.fr/abbaye-moissac/
10) Browning and Browning. Another double whammy, get to see Robert and Elizabeth's home in Florence, the Casa Guidi. Not only can you see it, if you fork out a small fortune you can even stay there: http://www.landmarktrust.org.uk/search-and-book/properties/casa-guidi-5521
11) Joyce. It's impossible not to mention the annual Bloomsday Festival in Dublin, honouring Leopold Bloom from 'Ulysses'. Dress up in Edwardian costume and follow Bloom's route around Dublin: http://www.visitdublin.com/event/Bloomsday_Festival
12) Woolf. Stay in a cosy little chalet with perfect views reaching across to the lighthouse that inspired Woolf's famous book, 'To the Lighthouse'. http://www.chycor.co.uk/gwithian-towans-chalets-stives-seareach/
13) E M Forster. There are too many places to choose from, so I'm sending you back to Florence – this time, to follow in the footsteps of Lucy Honeychurch, heroine of 'Room with a View'. If Mr Darcy didn't show up on your 'Pemberly' visit, perhaps you'll find your own George in a field near Florence. Just don't forget your macintosh square: http://mmimageslarge.moviemail-online.co.uk/21879_Room-With-1.jpg
14) D H Lawrence. I could send you to the somewhat 'grim north' where Lawrence lived most of his life, but I prefer to despatch you to New Mexico. See if you can also convince the curator to let you in to the now closed DH Lawrence Ranch: http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/article-7311-ghost-ranch.html
15) Dante. I really should have organised this list more effectively... You're now going back to Florence, and when you are done with the Brownings and Forster you can take a wonderful guided tour of Dante's world. His home is now an excellent little museum – you can buy 'The Inferno' on a single poster should you wish to ruin your eyes with the tiny print: http://www.walkaboutflorence.com/articles/dante-florence
16) P L Travers. Who the devil, I hear you ask, is P L Travers? Why, the author of 'Mary Poppins', of course! And you can visit her unbelievably cute home over in Australia (yes, she was Australian, not British – how many myths have I just busted for you?). There's a lovely article on the TravelBelles website: http://www.travelbelles.com/2013/05/mary-poppins-house-queensland/
17) Paul Scott. Again, I anticipate your eyebrows being raised. Paul Scott is author of the engrossing 'Raj Quartet', filmed by the BBC as 'The Jewel in the Crown'. If you haven't read it or seen it, move it to the top of the 'must experience' pile. Afterwards, you'll be hankering after a trip to India – I suggest heading up to Srinagar, where the British used to retreat to houseboats in the height of the summer. You can even stay on a boat called 'The Jewel in the Crown': http://www.thejewelincrown.com/
18) Confucius. Well, not an author of fiction but he did write some cracking lines, didn't he? And besides, I wanted an excuse to send you to China. His former home is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site - http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/704
19) Baudelaire. After you've left your mark on Wilde's grave, wander across to the cemetery in Montparnasse and see Baudelaire's grave. Yes, I'm a fan of cemeteries. That isn't morbid - they are just peaceful places where I like to sit and think: http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/baudelaire.htm
20) Dostoyevsky. Visit St Petersburg, arguably the most stunning of Russia's fine and dramatic cities; it's an easy train ride from many parts of Europe. And while you are there, head to the Dostoyevsky museum. You might not have waded through any of his tomes, but honestly, who the heck has? It's still worthy of a visit: http://www.saint-petersburg.com/museums/dostoyevsky-memorial-museum/
21) Achebe. In 'Things Fall Apart', Achebe writes about the 'evil forest' where Christian missionaries have been given land to build their church; this was inspired by his time in Oba-Igbomina, where the school he taught at was built on 'bad bush', an area of land said to be haunted by unfriendly spirits. Head off to Oba-Igbomina and experience something of Achebe's fascinating life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oba,_Nigeria
22) Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Colombian writer, known for his use of magical realism (a technique that, in all honesty, I'm not a huge fan of – and indeed a literary term that I have issues with in itself, but that is for another day). Visit Aracataca, the hometown of Marquez and supposedly the inspiration for Macondo, setting for 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'. http://www.colombia.travel/en/international-tourist/sightseeing-what-to-do/colombia-thematic-routes/garcia-marquez/aracataca
23) Coelho. Some of Paulo Coelho's books are worth reading, but I have found that his interesting ideas are generally just repeated throughout all the books. Read two, and you've read 'em all. Nevertheless, he's a fascinating author and has dominated the international literary scene for over a decade. My personal favourite is 'Veronika Decides to Die', and although you might take Coelho as an excuse to make a pilgrimage to Brazil, I'm sending you instead to Slovenia. To Ljubljana, in fact, where the book is set: http://www.visitljubljana.com/
24) Neruda. (See? There is some sense of order here – three South American authors in a row.) Visit the home in Santiago he built for his secret love, and while there be sure to learn enough Spanish to read 'Tonight I can write the saddest lines' - http://allpoetry.com/poem/8497013-Tonight_I_Can_Write__The_Saddest_Lines_-by-Pablo_Neruda - in the original language: http://www.fundacionneruda.org/en/la-chascona/history.html
25) Antal Szerb. One of my favourite authors by far, the few books he managed to write before his murder (let's just say he was Jewish at a bad time in history to be Jewish in Europe) are little segments of perfection. You'll have to go to Budapest in Hungary if you want to see where he grew up. One excellent spot for a pilgrimage would be to visit the beautiful University of Szeged where he worked for a few years, http://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/~chollo/Kepek/rektori.jpg
26) Goethe. While wandering around Europe, you may as well hop up to Frankfurt and visit the birthplace of Goethe. I'm not a great one for staring at a house where somebody was born, but architecturally this is really rather stunning: http://www.altfrankfurt.com/Goethe/
27) Lorca. The Spanish playwright gives us an excellent reason to wander through Andalucia (avoid those lemons Stewart warns us of while you're driving around). 'The House of Bernada Alba' could be set in any of the white-washed hilltop villages, so you can head off to a number of them and choose which you think is the most probable location. http://www.andalucia.com/
28) Lessing. Doris Lessing's 'The Grass is Singing' is an incredible read. And for this, I'm posting you off to a little known game park in southern Zimbabwe. Us literary geeks want an excuse to go on safari, too: http://www.expertafrica.com/zimbabwe/gonarezhou-national-park
29) Westminster Abbey. I am of course referring to Poets' Corner, the ultimate site to visit when searching for the tombs of famous authors. Tennyson, Dickens, Shakespeare, Kipling and Hardy jostle for elbow room here, and there are memorials to Blake, Milton, Gray, Keats – oh, everyone. They charge a fortune to get in, but I guess it's worth it for the sheer number of literary greats you'll be in close quarters with: http://www.westminster-abbey.org/visit-us/highlights/poets-corner
30) Waugh. I can't get enough of Evelyn Waugh (and particularly love the fact he was married to somebody called Evelyn, too). There are so many places you could visit in honour of 'Brideshead Revisited' – the botanical gardens at Oxford to 'see the ivy', or Morocco to find where Sebastian ended up, or Venice to follow their footsteps through the galleries – but I love the film as much as the book so am sending you up to the gorgeous Castle Howard in Yorkshire: http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/
31) Derek Tangye. Yet more querying looks shot my way, but I love Cornwall and I loved Tangye's books telling the tales of his life running a daffodil farm on the Cornish coast. I visited him for my 13th birthday and we exchanged letters for a while, with him sending me photos of his donkeys Merlin and Suzy from time to time. Head down to Lamorna Cove in Cornwall and, for a truly perfect day out, finish round the corner watching a play at the Minack Theatre – a stone amphitheatre cut into the rocks with the sea serving as a dramatic backdrop. http://minack.info/ and http://www.minack.com/ will help you plan.
32) Du Maurier. While in Cornwall, take a chance to visit some of the sites du Maurier wrote about. You can hop in a small motorboat and head up the Helston River, inspiration for 'Frenchman's Creek': http://www.falriver.co.uk/things-to-do/walking/frenchmans-creek
33) Hans Christian Andersen. He penned the fairytale 'The Little Mermaid', and whether you're a fan of the book or the Disney film it's worth heading over to Denmark to see the statue in Copenhagen harbour: http://www.mermaidsculpture.dk/
34) Anne Frank. If you are in Europe and longing to see anything of importance to writers from the past, it would be wrong to miss out on Anne Frank's home in Amsterdam. It is a haunting, sobering experience: http://www.annefrank.org/
35) Agatha Christie. Stroll around the grounds and sit at her desk at Christie's beloved summer home down on the Devonshire coast. It is a beautiful home and well worth a visit for anyone who has ever been caught up in one of her twisting plots: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/greenway/
36) The Eagle and Child. I like to give value for money, and by visiting The Eagle and Child in Oxford you get to spend time in the pub where The Inklings used to meet – that would be CS Lewis, JR Tolkien and their other literary friends. http://www.nicholsonspubs.co.uk/theeagleandchildoxford/
37) Scott Fitzgerald. He spent plenty of time being horrifically drunk in Paris, and he offers yet another good reason to go to the ultimate romantic city. On one occasion, he hijacked a baker's bike and went on a joyride down the Champs-Elysees, wielding a baguette at the doormen as he sped by. Take a literary tour if you can't be bothered to find all the places by yourself: http://www.blouinartinfo.com/travel/slideshow/city-walks-f-scott-fitzgeralds-paris/?image=0
38) Klein Constantia. Including a vineyard could come as a surprise – but I have good reason to. Klein Constantia in Cape Town was mentioned in books by both the Bronte sisters and Charles Dickens, and that seems like a viable excuse to head down to sample some of their finest wines: http://www.kleinconstantia.com/
39) J G Ballard. Typically known for his gripping dystopias, 'Empire of the Sun' tells the story of his childhood growing up in war torn Shanghai. It's a city worth visiting anyway, not least because it features a railway that 'floats' thanks to scary magnet technology that I don't even want to think about, but this book gives you another reason to head off to China: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56674.Empire_of_the_Sun
40) McEwan. He went from writing saucy short stories to some of the most beautifully crafted novels of the present day. I'm not generally a fan of the authors who are currently churning work out, but Ian McEwan is formidable. 'Chesil Beach' is a perfect novelette, and you can wander along the beach too. Stay here for some stunning views of the beach: http://chesilbeachlodge.co.uk/
41) Orwell. Born in India, raised in Henley, and spending his life travelling to some wonderful far flung corners, I've decided to whisk you away to Myanmar where he spent the war years. He was initially stationed in Pyin Oo Lwin, now known as the 'city of flowers': http://www.pyinoolwin.info/
42) Larsson. Head over to Stockholm to take a tour of the places featured in 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. The Telegraph have summed up the options pretty well, so I'll just link to their article: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/9111563/Stockholm-on-the-trail-of-the-Girl-with-the-Dragon-Tattoo.html
43) Kundera. He was born in the Czech Republic but now insists he is French. Still, his love letter to Prague, 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being', means you have an excuse to visit the Czech Republic after all. Go to the Globe Bookstore for top tips on where to go and what to see on a literary tour of Prague: http://www.globebookstore.cz/
44) Kafka. While you are in Prague, you'll doubtless want to take the time to see the endless sites devoted to Kafka. Go everywhere from his place of birth to his tombstone, and use this site to help you find the bits that matter in the middle: http://globaltravelauthors.com/145-2/
45) Camus. Visit sprawling Algiers and follow Meursault's footsteps to the beach. Perhaps try to avoid any particularly bright patches of sunshine if you're in a tetchy sort of mood... http://0.tqn.com/d/goafrica/1/0/o/E/dv676195.jpg
46) Tolstoy. Go to Moscow and visit the train station, where Anna Karenina first met Vronsky, and where she threw herself under a train. Alternatively, if you actually liked the recently released film, you'll have to go to the slightly less glamorous Didcot Railway Station that was used: http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/filmandfunction/filmtv_credits.html
47) Borges. I love Buenos Aires – it is a city that is alive with an unashamed and intense passion – and a pilgrimage to see something of where Borges lived much of his life means you'll get to experience it, too. The NY Times has done this better than I can in a few short sentences: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/travel/14foot.html?pagewanted=all
48) Somerset Maugham. 'The Painted Veil' will send you over to Hong Kong, where the expat lifestyle today is dubiously unchanged from that described in the novel set in the 1920s. (In fact, it was so close to the truth that with the threat of being sued hanging over him, Maugham changed the name of the city to Tching-Yen.) John Le Carre's 'The Honourable Schoolboy', sequel to, 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', is also set in Hong Kong. Wander through the streets and see where they drew their inspiration from: http://www.discoverhongkong.com/login.html
49) Tennessee Williams. Finally, I'll put in something truly American. New Orleans has an annual literary festival dedicated to this formidable writer, and while you are there you can wander round and try to find where you think Stella and Stanley may have been living – and, although it doesn't follow the original route, you really can ride on the streetcar named Desire (albeit in San Francisco): http://www.tennesseewilliams.net/ and http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/952/
50) St Vincent Millay. Her poetry often brings me to tears... And you can wander around her former home in upstate New York. https://www.gardenconservancy.org/garden-preservation/gardenpreservationservices/preservation-projects/steepletop?view=standardlayout&title=68

And there you have it. If you actually read through all of those, congratulations. I apologise for not having the fancy skills to put photos for every place, but hopefully the weblinks suffice for now. I would love to lead a tour of all these sites... Ah, some day!

On being in quiet control

I seem to remember writing a few months ago that 2013 felt significant in some way; maybe it's because I'd decided – without even really realising – that it was the year I'd set about defining and redefining a few truths about myself.

And without warning, up rocked yesterday's odd combination of conversations and happenstances. The great news first: I was back in a rowing boat for the first time in over two years and, damn, it was a wonderful feeling. It felt right that I was there, sitting in the middle of a river glaring at blades defying my requests. For a brief moment (and only rowers will understand this point) our double sat up beautifully and bubbles rushed under the bow; it's an addictive sound that is always accompanied by a beaming grin. Anybody walking along the riverbank tuning in to my mutterings would have listened to half an hour of quiet cursing followed by a jubilant, 'Oh my God! We've got bubbles!'

I find myself now sitting in a friend's absent landlady's bedroom. It's a lovely house, crammed with quirks and trinkets from travels; there's a would-be office that has essentially been abandoned after a failed attempt to launch a business, and a bathroom that defies the laws of physics by packing so much in to so very small a room. The landlady is pushing fifty, a single vegetarian with odd vestiges of Buddhism draped around her world. It strikes me as the sort of home I might someday create – and that terrifies me. I don't know what life holds for me, but in twenty years' time I don't want to be that caricature.

Two people have surprised me in the last week by essentially having the attitude they work hard at what they do and that is the extent of their involvement with their own future. There's no 'end goal', just a constant determination to complete tasks to the best of their ability, presumably with the belief that things will come their way when they are meant to. It seems horribly fatalistic. On a topical note, I can't imagine Margaret Thatcher did anything other than work her cotton socks off to get from living above a greengrocer's shop to becoming such a significant leader she is being honoured with a funeral just a step below that of one afforded to a member of the monarchy.

It is too easy to say everything will happen as it should in the end, so why bother fighting. I have always maintained that life will only happen to you if you make yourself available to it: park yourself at home in front of the television and the most exciting thing that could occur is a rampant bulldozer appearing in your living room. There may be a great many things I've missed out on by constantly moving around but at least I have developed my own philosophy and my own ideas, not merely borrowed from articles I've read or conversations I've overheard.

I wonder if it is coincidence that both of these people who had that attitude are going through a divorce at the moment. Nobody told them to marry: it was a conscious decision on both their parts, wanting to be with a particular person for the rest of their lives. And I do believe that both, albeit under very different circumstances, did marry with that intention in mind. Their choice, their action, is now being spectacularly undermined. And in retaliation to these events, they lead lives that are simultaneously hectic and in part hedonistic while working, working, always working. Work is something you can control, and something that won't let you down.

Here's an analogy that just came to mind. I've visited Kruger many times over the past three years; you will see no more animals if you race along the roads glancing desperately from side to side than if you spend a few hours parked up by a watering hole at the right time of day. The first will leave you stressed and tired and more than moderately fed up, whereas the second will leave you relaxed and satisfied. In other words, put yourself in the right place and, given time and space and a fair dose of calm, the world will provide you with offerings more extraordinary and wonderful than you could ever have imagined. The hard work is getting yourself to the right place at the right time, and having the strength to let go just a little.

“I feel bad for thinking it, but I know it's true. Not thinking about things doesn't make them not true.”

A temporary disillusionment with the countryside

Welcome to the south of France. If you've watched the right movies, you'll know it as a place of endless fields of sunflowers and lavender and row upon row of orderly vines drooping with grapes. Old men play petanque in the dappled sunshine, people hop on their bikes to pop down to the local boulangerie for their morning baguette, and everywhere is lit by a sun that doesn't ever seem to shine over England.

And in pursuit of that sun and those vistas, the Brits have set about invading France. I can't be bothered to do the statistics, maybe somebody else has, but I imagine the destruction that has taken place since Peter Mayle wrote 'A Year in Provence' has been more permanently damaging than anything the Germans achieved during the Second World War.

Thanks to many properties being snapped up as 'holiday homes' by class-climbing Brits, the villages have disintegrated. My local one has a boulangerie, a post office that is open a couple of hours a day a few times a week, and a pharmacy. There is a church where the doors are always locked, and a garage that never seems to be open. Oh, and a petrol station selling fuel at prices nearly 15% higher than at the supermarket 10km down the road. I noticed this morning that there's a B&B with rooms for a meagre 15 euros a night. That shouldn't inspire cries of, 'my, what a bargain!' but rather it reveals how desperate the residents are for some money. Any money.

Some of these houses have stood here for hundreds of years, but are reaching that point where they are no longer decaying gently but vigorously. Overstuffed postboxes from uninhabited homes spill bright flyers onto the cobbles. The depression is almost palpable.

I went to the market in a nearby town last week. It was a warm, bright day and people had emerged from wherever they are hiding to wander round the stalls; everyone was either ancient, or ageing and English. I've been told that the English who did make the effort and move here have since understood the reality of being in an area which offers no laid on entertainment within a two hour radius, and they've taken to alcohol to numb the reality that they've tied up their savings in a property that they will almost certainly never be able to sell.

This business of 'second homes' has destroyed communities. I know that's not a novel idea, but I've never been anywhere the evidence is quite so starkly laid before me. Supermarkets have sucked the life out of towns.

In a country that is known the world over for romance, I don't know of a florist within about an hour's drive (and it could easily be further than that, I just haven't wandered that far yet); the only flowers for sale are in supermarkets. Paris doesn't represent France any more than London does England. And there's something for politicians to take note of: what is relevant and important in London isn't necessarily relevant and important in the rest of England. When does Cameron go to Cornwall except on a summer vacation, when of course all looks lively and well because the place is packed out with tourists? Visit even the most popular tourist spots in the depths of winter and the only cure for the resultant depression is alcohol.

I've always held the belief that life doesn't just happen to you; you have to get out there and make yourself available for life to come and tap you on the shoulder. It seems such a shame that these days 'life' is synonymous with 'cities'. Idyllic rural life has become idle rural life. I might have to reluctantly acknowledge that my next move must be towards a city – it just seems frustratingly ironic that rents are higher in places where there is more for you to spend your money on anyway. Someone should sort that out.

[For the record, this feels like a viewpoint that will almost undoubtedly change in the near future. I'm just currently a little disillusioned with everything.]

“I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave.” (Sydney Smith – English wit, writer, and Anglican cleric)

Promoting Adoptions

Just as there is Godwin's Law stating that every argument will eventually wind up with a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis, so there should also be a law that all idle Internet meanderings will result in watching an Ellen DeGeneres video on YouTube.

The last few days have seen me trawling the Internet even more so than usual, thanks to picking up a whole litany of lurgies simultaneously: an ear infection accompanied by a chest infection and tonsillitis does not a Happy Jane make. Battling just the one is hard enough, but the unHoly Trinity is genuinely exhausting. I'm shattered.

Incidentally – going spectacularly off-topic here, but all in a good cause – I was urgently googling in the middle of Friday night for 'home remedies' to cure an ear ache. For reasons I cannot fathom, one of them actually worked: if you're ever wanting to claw your own ear off thanks to an infernal pain inside, take a small piece of onion, warm it in the microwave, and pop it in your ear. Leave it there for a few minutes and you will soon forget your ear ever had an issue. An equally pungent alternative is to create some garlic oil (chopped garlic and olive oil) and pop a few drops of that into the lug hole. (What the devil did we do pre-Internet?)

And now swerving sharply back towards my topic of the moment...

There was a DeGeneres clip that was something or another to do with adoption, and via a series of twists and turns I ended up on the website of an American couple asking for donations to help them adopt a Russian child. More specifically, a little girl with Down's Syndrome who had been abandoned at birth. My immediate reaction was to proffer up a mental face-palm to a site asking for donations for this cause, before I bothered to read on a little. They've broken down the costings and, in doses of $100 or so dollars at a time, demonstrated why it costs around US$40,000 for an American to adopt a child from Russia. (Bear in mind that thanks to Putin it is now impossible for any American to do so, but this is harking back to the good old pre-2013 days.)

Out of curiosity, I googled the cost of IVF treatment. In a nutshell, the sum is unlimited: you could be lucky and have success on the first course of treatment, or it could take you many cycles. And don't forget that what the clinic quotes is only a fraction of what you'll really pay: there is the time needed off work, the travelling to and from appointments, the scans, the tests, the checks, the drugs – and the emotional strain it inevitably puts a couple under.

Did you know that, in the UK at least, one in seven couples struggle to conceive? That's a far higher figure than I ever imagined it to be, and rather marginalises the typical argument of, 'it's so unfair that we can't have a child – everybody else can'.

There are two aspects of this wretched situation that are playing on my mind: 1) why don't more couples readily accept their inability to create a child between them and move towards the adoption route? There are literally hundreds of thousands of children already hanging around in desperate need of loving parents. 2) why on earth is it so damn difficult for people to adopt? Never mind the rather complex relations of the Russia/America controversy, it's difficult enough in your own country to adopt a child. Why? Who the devil is creating these rules and regulations?

Regarding the latter, I know of a couple – both solicitors, both respectable, hard-working and high-earning individuals – who struggled to conceive and so decided to adopt. They battled for years, having to prove themselves to squadrons of social workers, and finally, finally, they have a little boy. Even then, they didn't actually know until the day they picked him up whether they would be allowed to walk away with him.

That one in seven statistic is still knocking me sideways. Why don't more of these couples head down the adoption route? However stressful, it is infinitely preferable to the prodding and probing involved in IVF – and at a mere £160 in the UK it is a bargain in comparison. Women also have the benefit of not needing to go through that whole pregnancy and birth business: no stretch marks, no aching back, no impossible decisions between slicing or splitting. Yes, it might seem tough that you are unable to have a child of your own – but those are the cards you've been dealt, and those are the cards you must play with.

People are always so intent on fighting for their human rights that they forget to be human themselves. Maya Angelou – a phenomenal woman who, along with the likes of Ellen DeGeneres, raises the bar for the rest of us – reminds us that, 'People will forget what you said; people will forget what you did – but people will never forget how you made them feel'. It's a simple but profound truth that if people stopped demanding for themselves and rather thought what they could do for others, life would be rather more worth living for all of us.

I am fully aware of my own faults and I know the areas I need to work on. But I am often entertained by those who sigh and say, 'my, you always meet such interesting people! I never manage that!' The trick is to genuinely believe that everyone has a story worth telling and to ease it out of them. They say that art of pleasing is to be pleased, and I would add that the art of seeing someone as interesting is to be interested.

'Trust that little voice in your head that says, 'Wouldn't it be interesting if...' - and then do it.'

Lazy Blogging

[This was written last August as I meandered around Italy; it's still vaguely relevant and I haven't the time just now to create an entry about what has been flitting through my mind of late.]

Yet another return to the abandoned blog – I wonder how long it will be resurrected for this time? As a general rule, I start blogging when I am dealing with something significant in my life. Chances are that I won't directly write about the relevant event, but reaching out the odd feeler into the virtual stratosphere is a way of becoming reconnected once more.

I have often thought that some people appear in your world for a brief period, to serve a particular – not necessarily identifiable – purpose. And writing this makes me remember waiting for a friend in a bar in London a few years back. It was relatively busy, but I managed to get a table to myself and settled down to watch whatever it was on the television. I think it might have been Wimbledon. Anyhow, an elderly gentleman was looking around for somewhere to sit, pint in hand, and I offered him the spare seat at my table. I had been feeling particularly anti-social at that point, wrapped up in whatever was bothering me. But we started talking; I remember he was visiting from Ireland, and had spent the last few days in the archives at the British Library.

Honestly, I don't recall much else. Other than he made some very perceptive remarks to me, comments that for some reason I needed to hear at that point. It was as if a guardian angel had temporarily popped down for a pint. I have met such people on trains and planes, people you have a particular and utterly unexpected conversation with that reveals something about yourself or the world that makes it all become crystal clear for a moment.

On a recent flight, I was parked next to a large ginger guy armed with a McDonald's paper bag – the sort of person you eye up in the departure lounge and quietly hope you aren't seated next to. He turned out to be the most harmless and charming of geeks (a commentator for a card game called Magic The Gathering...), although that image was somewhat shattered when 'Fifty Shades of Grey' somehow came into conversation and it was revealed he is also, and I quote, a 'sex therapist for S&M couples'. The presence of two young children just across the aisle fortunately forestalled any in-depth information about this side-line of his.

There was a point to mentioning him. (Good God, my blogging skills have gone downhill in the past two years. I hope I remember how to write before you all get bored of such postings.) Oh yes. I said to him that I was off to Italy to check out a cottage, somewhere to put down some roots. And store my vast supply of books. He loved this – the fact that I could see nothing unusual or untoward about 'putting down roots' in a country that was not my own. And he understood it.

You see, the way I live my life makes perfect sense to me. My seemingly erratic bouncing from pillar to post. If I take the last year, I have – without so much as a second thought – sidled between four continents. I was pretty taken aback when someone I had thought of as a friend said to me angrily that I never followed anything through, and why should I ever expect to get anywhere that mattered with that sort of attitude?

She proved a few things to me with that remark. First off, that yes, some people do only enter your life for a specific time period. Without her kindness and friendship, I wouldn't have dealt with Hong Kong. And secondly, that I am capable of producing pretty strong reactions in people. I am, ha, Marmite Woman.

The problem with Marmite is that, however much you love it, too much might be a bad thing.

This posting is dedicated to all those fleeting glimpses of guardian angels, and to the people who will stick with me through the years. 'No man is an island, entire of itself', wrote Donne. I think I'm a pretty isolated peninsular of a person, but am always grateful for the narrow causeway linking me to the mainland.

On Education, Education, Education

The depressing reality is, I created my best piece of writing at the age of 15. Typical teenage existential angst drove me towards reading anything and everything related to WW2, and I wound up on a school trip to Auschwitz. I never studied history at school – well, the first couple of years we were forced to attend classes but all I can remember is a teacher who was either drunk or hungover, and my friend creating a poster entitled 'Roman Life was Hard' depicting a group of guys lining up miserably alongside what was meant to be a drawing of grain bins but looked suspiciously like a communal ablution facility.

That's it. That's what I remember from three years of History classes in a grammar school. Oh, and a line from a poem that had all these ideas about, 'When you are sick you are green/ When you are angry you are red' – that sort of thing – with the last line, 'And you have the cheek to call me coloured?' I thought at the time it was quite neat, but after three years in Africa you come to realise that people here who are coloured are damn insulted to be called anything other than coloured. I'm pretty sure the most useful thing I learned in school was how to use a band saw.

I read Rimbaud and Sartre the way kids today read 'Twilight' and 'Harry Potter'. Is it any wonder I produced such a perfect piece after my Auschwitz visit – wasted as part of my English Language GCSE Portfolio. It was the year after Diana died and we were all expected to write about how that made us feel; I informed my teacher that, lovely lady though I'm sure the self-titled 'People's Princess' was, I had no opinions whatsoever worth considering and would much rather choose my own topic. The poor guy had long ago concluded it was far easier just to let me have my way...

And now, thanks to the Internet and a hefty dose of good fortune, I earn my living by writing. Some of it is diabolical, it really is. Worse than the drivel I inflict on blog readers. This morning I wrote about China's only female monarch, Wu Zetian. Someone who loved poetry, and cheerfully killed a bunch of concubines in order to be successful. Oh, and her daughter (just incase she grew up to be an even more obnoxious, ambitious little tart). I think Lady Macbeth was modelled on her. Last week, I focussed on smartphones and how they have changed the work place. And Sappho, I wrote about Sappho.

When I wrote about Auschwitz, I didn't really care about the end product. I didn't know what 'alliteration' meant; I hadn't studied speeches and the art of rhetoric. A few years earlier I wrote a couple of poems, one of which was about child abuse and I am proud to say disturbed my psychologist mother to such an extent she charged off to the nearest Abuse Expert and begged their opinion. For none of these pieces did I, in theory, know what I was doing – I just wrote what flowed from the pen.

I'm worried that I've lost that ability, irretrievably. The chance to perfectly capture a moment, to weigh words against each other somewhere inside of me, to know instinctively how something should be. I taught myself to read – I don't remember doing this, and my mother certainly doesn't remember teaching me, but she knows I picked up a book one day and read it aloud. Formal education is something that is supposed to expand our horizons but all it has done is limit mine. It forces us into ever tighter corners, limiting our possibilities and futures and dreams. It stamps out creativity and difference and originality because these are 'difficult' for teachers to deal with. As long as we allow teachers into our classrooms who are scared to encounter a student smarter than themselves, the education system is fundamentally flawed.

I've struggled to end this – education and writing are both subjects close to my heart and I could produce reams on either. But I think I'll close with the words of Ken Robinson; if you haven't yet seen his TED talks then go there immediately. I just wish that governments would acknowledge the importance of what he is saying and make the changes before it is too late – before we have created a system whereby nobody cares any more, and nobody sees anything wrong with the way things are.

“Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. And it's the one thing that I believe we are systematically jeopardising in the way we educate our children and ourselves.”

On the Friend Zone

Ah, the 'Friend Zone'... At some point, the enemy of almost every guy out there – although thinking about it, I've never heard a female who has cursed being parked in the Friend Zone. It doesn't happen. [The picture has no relevance at all to this post. I just rather like it.]

Guys, I'll tell you how you get placed there. Three ways.

1) You know the theory that if you're kind and understanding and always available with a shoulder to cry on, that eventually a woman will realise you are just so darn sweet she needs you in her life? Oh so wrong. Chicks want all that – but preferably in a package that suggests excellent and regular ravishing. We might not be so keen on the genuine 'bad boy', but a hint of subdued 'badness' is always welcome. Why on earth do you think that ridiculous creation, 'Fifty Shades of Gray', has taken the world by storm? All those readers are probably dating or married to Beige Boy, a bland creation who believes a candlelit dinner with a violin scratching away in the background is ideal for 'getting her in the mood'.

2) If the chick has any morals whatsoever, you'll be automatically Friend Zoned if she meets you when you're married or in a serious relationship. You will be mentally designated a 'no go area'. It's well nigh impossible to ever leave the Zone if she is friends with your wife or girlfriend: she'll know every detail about you. Everything. Women are vicious and have no qualms at all about discussing the most intimate details – particularly when a relationship is heading towards the rocks and they're trying to justify the Drop Off point.

3) The final method is the biggie, because it is entirely self-created and self-perpetuating. Girls know it is hard for a guy to make a move: it requires a modicum of courage and more than a touch of self-belief, and that's partly why we leave it up to you. There is also that thing of chicks being automatically branded a Tart if they so much as hint at making the first move. In a nutshell, we expect you to put in the effort. We are more than happy to provide you with ample opportunities and drop hints here and there, but remember: hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. We'll regard it as 'scorning' if, after all our efforts, you still don't make a move – and promptly throw you for all eternity into the Friend Zone.

It seems to me that in the initial stages of a relationship, the girl holds all the cards. She has something the guy is after – something the guy probably doesn't get anywhere near as much he likes to convince his buddies he does – and has total control over where and when that is made available. Unfortunately, after a certain point (could be weeks or months or years), the guy has something she wants: the offer to look after her forever; the chance of a family; security and dependability. And there we have it, the guy now has control. Bham.

Only when guys are ready to play that role will they do so, and there's not a damn thing any woman can do to make them change their minds. All these people who speak of 'the one that got away': if you're a chick, the guy would have run no matter what you did so stop beating yourself up. And if you're a guy, chances are you are entirely responsible for ending that by determinedly staying in your Child Zone and not migrating to Adult Territory.

On another note, and something I'll perhaps delve into with slightly more determination on another occasion than this particular posting, I actually think it is possible for any guy to get any girl – he must just play his cards right. But for any girl to get any guy? No, it doesn't work both ways. Hm. I'll think about that one.

*This blog posting was brought to you by the letters A and M: Appalling grammar, Minimal editing, Morning not-really-awake-yet-ness.

- “It's easier to say you've been friend-zoned than admitting you're too shy to take the initiative.”

Into the living sea of waking dreams -

I don't know about you, but I have the tendency to re-evaluate everything at the start of a new year (or, in this instance, half way through the first month of a new year). And I've had a few conversations recently that have left me wondering who I really am.

Which led me to thinking about writing some kind of blog post about that – which in turn led me to thinking about the line in John Clare's poem, 'I am – yet what I am none cares or knows.' So then I thought it would be beyond self-indulgent for me to figure out what I am through a blog post that I then inflict on you poor readers, before it struck me that you don't have to read the dratted thing if you don't want to so, darn it all, I'll write it anyway.

I don't fit into any conventional pigeonholes. My nomadic lifestyle sees people automatically assume I'm something of a hippy – and perhaps I am in a way, just without the dreads, the dope, and the tie-dyed tshirts. I'm vegetarian (and have been for fifteen years now), have dreams of one day having my very own vegetable patch, I try to buy products that haven't been tested on animals – but you won't often catch me banging a bongo ever-so-slightly out of rhythm on a beach while a few guys dance with fire in the background.

I wouldn't classify myself as a high-achiever – but I'm the sort of person you'd expect to find in that category. My sport of choice is rowing, and any boat club around the world is invariably filled with some seriously successful individuals. Some of my closest friends are unbelievably smart people; I love the conversations I have with them that are a constant test of mental agility. It's unusual to find people who can keep up with me, and I love that I know some people I have issues keeping up with – there's nothing as satisfying as making them laugh. But a rapier wit needs to be constantly used or it becomes dull, and I readily admit I don't make the effort.

I am constantly dissatisfied with what I have, hence always moving on incase the grass is greener elsewhere. I find it difficult to be content in a place for long: what if somewhere else is even better? This means I have mastered the art of turning up in a random location and making something of it within a matter of weeks, but I have no staying power. I'm terrified of finding a comfortable rut and, while sinking gratefully into it, the world moving on without me.

Being readily addicted to anything and everything is handy in that I've focussed my attentions on a huge variety of arbitrary information over the years. But it means I am, what is that expression?, a jack of all trades but a master of none.

I have grand ideas for the world, but too healthy a dose of realism to do anything about them. As a teenager I had notebooks plastered with the words of Gandhi and Martin Luther King – 'Be the change you want to see in the world' I had pinned above my bed, and back then I meant it. Now I just figure if you can get to the end of the life without harming too many people, you've played your bit-part well.

A year ago I held a beautiful baby girl, barely 24 hours in this world. Her perfect little fist clutched onto my finger as I looked down at her, transfixed. I don't think it was until that moment I'd fully realised that we are born with infinite possibilities, with an infinite capacity to love and be loved, with infinite dreams to forge and follow.

I have some idea that 2013 is going to be a significant year for me – just a feeling I have. I'm not quite sure how, but I think it might be the year I'm finally okay with being me. I've always worried about not really fitting into any predefined niche, and always felt that people are disappointed in me in some way because I'm neither one thing nor another. Enough of that, though.

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.” (Shakespeare, of course)

On loving, losing, and learning

I've never mastered the art of a dignified heartbreak. I remember sitting in a cafe in Oxford crying at a table and repeating over and over that I just didn't understand. It's possible to become foetal sitting on a small stool in the corner of a bar – I know, I've done it. You can stare at a gently swaying tree for a day without moving, without realising a day has somehow passed. One moment you're crazy about each other and then they say something which makes it appear as if you've never known them.

You spend your time playing games with your willpower. 'If I can manage to not check my phone for text messages for the whole day, there'll be one from him in the evening', you say to yourself. If you deprive yourself of that last chocolate, if you go to the gym one hour longer, if you leave everything in the room exactly the same – just perhaps, it'll all be okay. Just perhaps, it will never have happened.

And there are times when it seems your body has given up the fight entirely. It's not a conscious decision, but you can't bear the thought of eating – all you want to do is sleep, sleep for an eternity.

All the comments your friends make fall on deaf ears because, at that time, you're still in love with the guy. You know they are right but you refuse to acknowledge it. All that revolves in your mind is a never-ending reel of images: laughing together in a bar; curling up close at night; sitting on a park bench watching the clouds go by. The little things. At some point you know more about the guy than you do about yourself – 'you' have somehow become lost in the 'we' of a relationship, however brief. All your points of reference are to that guy: what you would have bought for him in the supermarket if you were going home to him; what programme you'd have watched if he was beside you on the couch; what clothes he'd have wanted you to wear for an evening out.

And it's all taken away, and you have to set about reconstructing – resurrecting - yourself.

Perhaps it gets tougher as you get older as your expectations change. At eighteen, you look forwards to a weekend together; at thirty, you have started planning a lifetime. It hits harder to have everything taken away. Children become faceless, and a house is taken apart a brick at a time. The morning goes from perfecting tea and toast and scrambled eggs to slugging juice from the bottle and scooping yogurt from the pot.

You know that you'll get through it. At some point you'll realise you have had a whole day without thinking about them and your heart will lift a little. A stranger will flash you a glance on a train and your inward smile will start to feel alive once more.

No, I've never faced heartbreak well. Perhaps because I don't see any shame in having loved and lost. But I will always admire those who can maintain a dignified silence, confining their feelings behind tight smiles until an evening alone comes along.

Perhaps loving someone shows us who we are, and a broken heart shows us who we can be.

I'm still waiting for the fairytale – not because I have been blinded by a Disneyfied world, but because I am human. Being accepted by another person, who isn't obligated by familial bonds, is a blessing by the universe. It shows you've done something right, that you deserve to be who you are. And so, we stumble around looking for that other person who validates us.

"It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning — " ['The Great Gatsby', Scott Fitzgerald]