Throughout my life I have been fortunate enough to travel, be it for work or leisure. As a kid it was mainly to my family in Switzerland and the nostalgia never leaves whenever I think of this beautiful country.
My dad used to save his holiday in bulk. We would go for up to 3 weeks a year where he would work while away to pay for the travel. I remember back we had a bright orange Vauxhall Chevette where my sister and I would sleep, eat, bicker and argue on the journey down. We would visit my British grandparents first, the day before the travel down whereby we would be loaded with treats and comics to numb the monotony of the French motorway.
We would travel across by ferry to Cherbourg or Le Harve, sleeping in a cabin overnight. I always knew the holiday had started when the ferry terminal lights came into view and the unforgettable smell of diesel and grease from the ferry car deck when embarking. Its something which just triggers me each time I travel across the sea even basic shorter journeys such as the Isle of Wight crossing.
The excitement of seeing my family made the long journey worth it. We were lucky enough to have friends in Paris which we would visit to break the marathon drive. This made the trip even more exciting as we would sightsee Paris by day and night before leaving early the following morning, the subject for another time.
The journey from Paris typically took 7 hours depending on traffic. The French are well known for their union strikes and on many an occasion we were subject to getting caught in lorry strikes tailing back the toll roads down.
From Besancon down through was generally plain sailing, over the picturesque Jura mountains we would finally reach my mother’s home town which was an atypical farming village, aroma of cows and dairy farms while unattractive gave a weird feeling of welcome and homecoming.
The first stop would be the local bar where almost all of the family and villagers went for the evening after a hard days graft and while my parents caught up with their friends over a beer or glass of wine, my sister and I would play fussball with my cousins drinking Orangina or Ovaltine depending on what time of year it was.
This nostalgia and love I have for travel and this beautiful country has this last week made me grab life to the fullest. Life is too short to limit experiences to the mundane of working and routine and while this is necessary to support loved ones and hold off the bills, one needs to get away from it all if only to reset the brain from the daily grind. Spontaneity is what makes life exciting and is the reason why I have decided to get away from everything if only for a short time in December. While it wont be the nostalgic car drive down, a well known orange airline (not car) have surprisingly cheap tickets and for less than it takes to take a car on the ferry, I can fly to my (considered) home country and be in the place I love to have another adventure which will surely be the subject of a future post.
So make an adventure for yourself, find something that you can look forward to in life. It doesn’t have to be extravagant. Think back to what made you happy as a child perhaps, think what excites you and triggers those feelings of not needing to have a care in the world. Take a walk along an old pathway you used to with your grandparents, take your child somewhere you used to play and stir up those feelings of happiness which in turn you can relive and know that perhaps those memories will be remade in time by them.