Life, the Universe and what ever crosses my mind: A Holiday Home

A Holiday Home from Abroad

When I left England and set off for new pastures, I had no particular plan to return to the green, green grass of home for many a year. I did, however, contemplate several people who I would consider returning for if they got married or had some particularly special life event, if time and circumstance allowed. Unfortunately for me, one of these inconsiderate souls decided to get married. My friend who I set off travelling with many a moon ago and helped me catch this travel bug decided the knot must be tied. He is partly to blame for my affliction and being in Taiwan, how could I say no.

If you have read my blog before you will know it’s been nearly a month since I returned from my trip, but a holiday home is tiring endeavour and I needed another break to catch up. The jet lag lasted a week, but my body clock only caught properly after a couple of weeks.

Congleton Town Hall; my home town!

A trip home is a very particularly peculiar experience. It starts on the plane when you start considering you’re going to be heading back soon, but you’re not going to be somewhere tropical or exotic, you’ll be at home; mundane, regular, ordinary home. You also have to consider your time constraints; there are people who want to see you and people you want to see. You cannot see everyone in your short time frame. Who will get more time family or friends? You may also have to face the fact that with all your friends working it is very much up to you to get up and down the country to see everyone, unless you can offer them a weekend. This is where it gets tough, who gets the few valuable weekends you have left? You will feel inexorable guilt to whoever you don’t get see or don’t have the quality time you would have hoped to. Another question, are you allowed a day off to relax? There are going to so many things you want to do (it’s your home after all, you know too much!). You may feel more guilt for being lazy or maybe do stupid things you wouldn’t normally do. Personally, transport was a key issue, I had no car at home, so it was terribly tricky to get around during a weekday (and expensive).

The oatcake shop; a Congleton must!

When I arrived from an incredibly long flight, I was picked up by my dad. As I have mentioned it felt very strange. It had the feeling of returning from holiday, but very much in the knowledge I was going back soon. I should mention, despite living abroad for 18 months, I very much feel as though I am on holiday right now. I am on stage one of my mega journey, so it was like a holiday from my holiday. It was also odd going on holiday to normality. No matter how long you have been away nowhere is more normal to you than home; it is called home for a reason. It took me all of twenty minutes to get back into the swing of things of being back home, although I may have reverted back to younger age than I should have.

Elland Road; part of the to-do list.

The key difference between my prior days of England and current visit to the homeland was my lack of my own transportation. This made the time constraints of the holiday even harder. I considered renting a car for the period, but I decided the cost-benefit factor was not right for me. England may not be the largest of countries, but large enough to inconvenient to get around. I relied on getting lifts with friends and family to many places and sent far too much on trains. When you are in a place as familiar as your country, there are many places you know, too many. You want to do so many things as you don’t know the next time you will get the opportunity. I did pretty well, but still missed the odd thing. I was into my list almost immediately off the plane; I had a pub dinner the night I arrived back. It was delicious, but it was too soon off the plane, my stomach was not ready for heavy English pub grub right off the plane. (To anyone in England or heading there soon, I would highly recommend ‘The Bear’s Paw near Sandbach, Cheshire). Then the next morning I was hitching a lift to the train station on my mums drive to work to do things on the other side of the country. After this I had to do more cross-country traveling, as unfortunately I had a funeral to attend. A sad time, but it did bring the family together for me, which I am thankful for and will always be grateful to my aunt.

Trip to Leeds: LUBS

Leeds City Market

Leeds Uno Business School

This brings me to what was maybe the hardest part of trip home; how to split my time between family and friends. Weekends become valuable commodities with everybody being grown up and having jobs. You may have enough time and days to see everyone, but not everyone has the time to see you. You find yourself trying to fit into everyone else’s schedule. You come down to earth with a thump after you realise you’re not the minor celebrity you thought you were when coming off the plane. I only had two weekends and I gave one to my friend’s wedding (after all, it was the key reason I came home). So, I had one weekend. My friends happen to be from all of the country, but a large chunk has ended up in London. This offered the choice of an expensive London weekend with my friends, or a relative cheap family weekend. Cheap and expensive didn’t come into to be fair. I was out and about very often and my family were at work, so I would have felt worse to not spend that time with family than with my friends. It was also our ‘first’ Christmas, where we celebrate a month early because we live in the four corners of the country, it is always a most enjoyable weekend; this one was spent in a Hilton, we felt very posh indeed! I felt terrible that I could only offer my friends a weekday and they let me know how annoyed they were that this was all I was able to give them. We had a great night, even if it was not the riotous night I was expecting. To great thing about good friends is, it doesn’t matter how long you’re apart, after about thirty seconds it is like old times; so very little time was wasted with idle chit chat.

Tower of London (glad I could be back to see it)

Double Cheese Oatcake!

Mow Cop: It's all folly!

You have guessed I was brought up in a catholic household by the amount of guilt I felt and am talking about from holiday. My last piece of guilt for this evening is the guilt of wasted time. You’ve had a long flight, you’ve been busy racing around the country, are you allowed a day to relax in your child home? You have a long list of things you want to do, can you afford to take a day from this? In the middle week of my holiday, I had very few plans during the day, so I thought “I can’t waste these valuable time, what can I do in my beautiful home town”. As I have mentioned I had no transport, so I had to make a plan within walking distance. I live in Congleton, the local area is known for one thing; walks, canals and pretty views. I decided to take advantage of this, so I walked into town to get one of my favourite things in Congleton (a double cheese and bacon oatcake from The Oatcake Shop) and went to walk down a canal to a pretty view; “two birds with one stone” I thought. The canal was Macclesfield Canal; the pretty view was Mow Cop Folly. It’s called Mow Cop Castle, but it’s a folly; it never had any practical purpose, it was built to look aesthetically pleasing, to call a castle would be… well… folly. This walk would put me on a near 10 mile round trip, which was not flat or on beautiful pavements. We’re in England in winter, walking along a canal, any of you who have done something similar will attest to slippy slidely journey you are about to embark upon. After a near hour on the canal, mostly trying not to fall over or more importantly fall in, I got to solid ground. After a short walk along the roadside, I arrived at Station Bank. This is a hill known as ‘The Killer Mile’, it starts off as fairly steep hill, but at the end it really ramps up, you’re not sure whether to try and climb it or keep walking. At this point it is a 25% gradient; to put this into context I used to put my 1.2 Vauxhall Corsa into first gear to keep moving, I know it’s far from Land Rover, but that’s still steep. By the end of the hill, I was actually tempted to run up just finish the job, it sounds crazy, but I just wanted it to be over. The views to be fair were stunning and on balance probably worth it, but it was very, very cold and windy up top. I hadn’t really considered the walk back; I was pushing the falling sun. By the time the sun was setting, I was not yet home. I was stuck with the choice between slippery canal walk at night and walking along a country road at night. What scared me more falling and drowning or getting hit by a car. I decided the car was preferable. I was walking along the roadside, periodically jumping into bushes for safety; don’t worry I made it home. I’ve been told it was the wrong choice, but I know too much people falling into canals and getting grabbed by things underneath (plants mostly); I don’t know too much about being hit by a car (not that I was keen to find out). After this experience, I allowed myself the next day off. If you’re going to make use of your time, make sure you think your ideas through. Don’t go on slippery, steep, 10 mile round walk just because you feel guilty for wasting your holiday. Saying that, I don’t regret thing and I learnt something, so you could say it was a productive journey.

Jodrell Bank from Mow Cop

I had a nice trip home, but as all holidays are, it was too short and I needed another holiday to recover. If you are considering a trip home, remember you will have a lot of decisions to make. If I were to give any advice, it would be to do what comes naturally to you. You have been away for a while, so I’m assuming you have not had much family time or what is normal time for you with your friends and/or family. As strange as it may feel, getting back into old routines is kind of like a holiday, and let’s not forget you’re on holiday to relax, so you are allowed day or two taking everything in; it can become overwhelming, having people aspiring to have your acquaintance. As is life, you can’t do everything, so just make best of it!

All the best,

Hot Tea

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