fading away

I felt sad today as on two occasions I greeted friends with only one kiss. This is the custom in the UK. For our three years in France, however, we learned to kiss people on both cheeks. (In the south of France, people receive four kisses.) During our first year back in Scotland, everyone received two kisses - whether they wanted them or not. I wasn't trying to be different, it had become routine, de rigeur as the French say.

Another thing that saddens me, is that soon we will register our French van in this country, which will mean losing the French number plate. We need to do this in order to take out vehicle insurance here. And the other night I lay in bed trying to remember the name of the second river in Grenoble, amazed that I could forget something like that within fifteen months of returning.












No longer do I look round the Edinburgh landscape and feel sad about the absence of mountains. I'm resigned to the fact that I'm not surrounded by them anymore, though I find myself imagining what it would be like to have them close by.







This is all about feeling that our time away is fading, being wiped out. These years were significant, ones when I learned a lot about myself - my strengths, the things that would grind me down. They were years of strong emotions, rich years, in some ways, difficult years. Perhaps that's why I need to keep them alive. Or perhaps it's a fear of expanded horizons shrinking again. Who knows?




Dejectedly yours

Jane