Olde Englande for ye summer...

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Well I have been back in Blighty for just over two months and it has been surprisingly brilliant. So many wonderful things have happened. My sister's book came out two weeks ago - a masterpiece of raunch and filth set in the make-believe village of Churchminster in the Cotswolds - plus I finally got to own a sweet little Mk II VW Golf Driver. It has been many years coming and only two months of ownership but for still so wonderful that I am swooning as I look out of the window at it now. I also did a great roadtrip up to the inner Hebrides to camp on the Isle of Mull, and hit Bloom festival in Cheltenham on the way back. Despite the cockups at Bloom it was a fantastic few days, probably because I was spending time with great friends who I realise I miss like mad, and making new buddies too. My tent blowing away was admittedly not great though.

Originally I had to come back to the UK this summer and get a massage job otherwise I was going to forget everything I learnt in Crestone earlier this year. I managed to do that by getting a job at the Babington House Cowshed Spa. I still can't believe they let me in, but they did, and I have been their resident pair of summer massage hands since June. It was a beautiful idyllic place to be, I worked out of a log cabin in the woods and got to swank around in the infinity pool after my shift and generally soak up the perfect rural bliss.

Because of this job I have been living with my great friend Blair in Radstock, a mere 4 miles down the road from Babington House, in his amazing country pile/batchelor pad. Therefore I have been cycling to work on the old Bath - Frome railway, making the journey off road and breathtakingly beautiful through the rolling hills of the edge of the Mendips, and generally living a life so stressfree that I can't remember life as it once was (in London, stressed, miserable, homicidal, bitter, and generally hating all humanity). It has also meant that I have been a mere 30 minute drive away from my beloved BRistol so could pop in after work for a cuppa or just go out and get leathered at The Apple whenever the need took over. Despite working weekends I have had such a wonderful summer that I have had a strange mental shift, in that I have actually got complacent and partly forgotten that I am only here temporarily. I am getting all misty-eyed about leaving - a first for me, as packing my bags and fecking off has always been the easiest and most pleasurable actvity in the world that I can do.

I have so enjoyed having my friends and family around me, and met some amazing new people (you know who you are)... I really didn't plan for this to happen and shock, horror, it is giving me mixed feelings about leaving. This was not part of the plan. Part of me thinks I need to get back on the road and beat it out of myself, but the other part knows this is probably something that is not going to change and will in actual fact only increase so I'm going to with the flow, not ignore/beat down these feelings as I usually do, and see where my head is next May!

Anyway, having put together the next trip (just about - just one more visa to get...ergh), getting through the logistical nightmare that is my bonkers brain and its illogical ideas, I am looking forward to getting on the road, reading loads of books on the trans siberian (including my sister's bonkbuster Country Pursuits! - out now - and doing a whistlestop tour from ye olde England to Mother India, overland, in about 7 weeks.

The itinerary is as follows:

5 Sept: Bus London to Amsterdam. 11 hrs
A perfect start to the trip and a chance to reflect on time up until now. Amsterdam in Autumn is possibly the best place to be ever.

8-12 Sept: Earthship building project in Zwolle, Northern Holland
I first saw them in Taos, New Mexico, in April and haven't been able to stop thinking about them since. So I have enrolled on this course to learn a bit about building houses out of rubbish and pound some tyres

12 Sept: Amsterdam to Moscow sleeper train
14 Sept: Arrive Moscow
16 Sept: Board trans mongolian train
21 Sept: Arrive Ulaan Baatar, Mongolia - woohoo!!!
26 Sept: Board trans siberian train
27 Sept: Arrive Beijing
I then have an undecided itinerary but will be making my way across China towards Tibet, over to Nepal, and then a hideous 3 day bus journey to the Indian border
21 October: Arrive Delhi
22 October: Meet the Carnegie crew at the Connaught Hotel to start our 2 week family trip retracing the steps of Grandfather Carnegie and search out the line of the illicit Carnegie-Raj side of the family! I am determined to find some cousins even if Dad is in denial about the whole thing

Due to visa issues, I will then be boarding a flight back to the UK on 2 November, to reapply for a business visa, then flying back out to Delhi a few days later to start my six month work placement at Ananda in the foothills of the Himalayas!!!

I am getting woozy just writing this. This may be the mother of all trips. Who knows, by next May maybe I will have had enough of it all and just be gagging to go on a package tour to Shagaluf. Hopefully not.