Travel

Kilmanagh Felted Tweed Handbag by Carol Feller

in Donegal Aran Tweed 

for PJD

I associate early summer with travel plans or general shifting of circumstance, whether on the back of a bike, the front of a plane or... god forbid... a poignant long line. 

There's something vulnerable about personal paraphernalia in transit …about having our vital little stashes of vanities out on view. And sometimes I see my own life as a gradual honing of the definitive travel list filled with great aspirations such as respect, responsibility and the kind of wisdom gleaned from experience that will hopefully pull me up reprovingly by the subconscious at appropriate moments and intone:  "the longest way round is the shortest way home" and so forth... Whereas my actual life has often encompassed much less lofty ideals of skewering, dropping stitches and generally ripping to shreds... But needs must, onward and upward and "non, rien de rien"... and at least now I know broadly what I ought to have learned.  I think.

One thing I do know for sure about literal travel is that getting a good guidebook never goes amiss, and likewise for remembering your passport, money, pen, antihistamines, lip balm, something for sore feet and a very sharp nail scissors…  these items cover most eventualities.  Oh - and always have the name and address of the place where you're staying with you when you go out.