Monday 12 May 2008

Where does a journey start?

I guess that ultimately any life is itself a journey from birth to grave. The old proverb about "every journey starts with a single step" is just as true in this sense but I can't help thinking that wherever I travel, no matter how far I go or for how long I have always found myself back at the "start", at my family home in Lincoln. This place feels to me to have been the start and finish place for all my life's travels. As I have stayed here the past two weeks sorting things out for this trip I can't help feeling that it is the real start point for this great journey and that hopefully, having cycled around the planet, it will also be the finishing point.

So, just as I have cycled down that driveway on a childs bike with stabalisers being carefully followed by my parents, as I have set off on my first journey to school, my first solo drive of a car, to go to university and to all the other experiences and journeys of my life - once again I set out from home both nervous and excited - but just as in the past, knowing that no matter what happens there will always be the two most fantastic people in the world to welcome me back.