Another World Cup has passed with England not bringing the top trophy home, but when you’ve been a Villa fan for over thirty years you’re kind of used to that… (until this year anyway.)
I love watching the World Cup, but it’s never really about whether or not England will win, as nice as that’d be. It’s the atmosphere I relish most, and it always has been. Seeing athletes from all over the globe take centre stage, passionate fans, national anthems. The unique way this simple game involving a ball and two nets unites people from every continent, all sat watching the games from hemisphere to hemisphere, mountain to desert. Some in the middle of the night, others first thing in the morning. A universal talking point that isn’t war, climate change or anything else depressing.
France ’98 was always my favourite. My older sister and I had decided to try and complete the official sticker album in the months leading up to the event, and I feel like I can still name most of the players who took part in the competition because of this. Scotland’s David Hopkin is the first that springs to mind, because he appeared in virtually every other pack we bought (the surplus David Hopkinses would end up being stuck all over various household appliances), and Fabio Cannavaro because I thought he was fit and particularly enjoyed looking at that sticker as we tried to complete Italy.
And also probably just because it was 1998 and the world seemed a brighter place back then somehow. Cheesy pop music in the charts. Inflatable furniture. See-through telephones. Pot Noodles that still tasted decent (i.e before they took out all the salt). Saturday night T.V. Gladiators. Cilla Black, before we found out she was mean in real life. Fun House. Everybody having an opinion on what was happening in Eastenders. Sonia’s trumpet.
…I’m digressing away from the football… but after some deliberation, I’m not going to delete any of that. ’90’s pop culture should never be erased.
No World Cup has felt the same for me since 1998; maybe it’s because I no longer attempt to complete the sticker album. I’m sure I’d still get some entertainment from doing so, even though I’m now a 40-year old woman, but the reality is that it’s very expensive to do and somehow I feel like I have even less money now than I did when I was 12.
But I still watch, any game, if I can. Remove England VS Ghana which sent everybody I know to sleep, and most of the games were pretty entertaining this year. As World Cups go, this has been one of the better ones in my view.
And no, England weren’t victorious on this occasion and that will disappoint many, but it doesn’t really disappoint me. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt from being a Villa fan this year, it’s that the longer the wait, the better when it actually happens.
And it will happen. One day.
In May, I watched my Villa win a trophy for the first time in all the three decades since I’ve been a fan. It was incredibly special, and although I may not be as big a football fan as I was when I was younger, I was still pleased enough to shed a tear and celebrate the sight of a team that has been so troubled in not so distant years finally get to hold some new silverware. Somehow, it was the thirty year wait that made that so special.
Conversely, I’ve seen fans of other, more decorated teams bemoan the fact they finished the season empty-handed. It’s not an outcome they’re used to; winning is the expectation, trophies are the norm. A rite of passage, not a bonus. And so I’m just not sure that when they do experience their usual success, that they do so with the same levels of excitement or appreciation as those who rarely manage to experience the same things.
One day, England will win the World Cup, and when they do the celebrations will be massive, probably beyond current comprehension. The highs will be higher because of the lows endured in the years to get there.
The less you have of something special, the more you appreciate the bits you do have.
Pretty much like a lot of things in life I guess.
We’ll all enjoy it when it happens. And it will mean even more to us than it would have done this year.
Up the Villa! Or whatever team you support.
A sight that was even sweeter because I never thought I’d see it 😉
What I appreciate about the 79km coastline that forms the Swale Estuary is that it doesn’t try and be something it’s not.
Know it? Love it? Visit it?
Whether you do or don’t, it doesn’t really give a shit. It just carries on doing its own thing regardless of who acknowledges it, and we could all be a bit more like that. If it were a person, I’d probably want to be pals.
A body of water which at first glance may seem unremarkable, the Swale Estuary is actually a gem that dazzles brightly… but only if you choose to open the trinket.
On most days it might look a bit bleak. A bit ‘meh‘. Nearby factories in a Sittingbourne suburb I share a name with pump clouds of chemicals into the skies (great). An energy-from-waste site provides aromatic wafts that don’t exactly enamour the nostrils. There’s hardly ever anybody else about, and numerous grey pylons stand proudly, piercing the clouds above.
If the music of Boards of Canada was to be represented as an image, it would probably look something like the Swale Estuary, and if you’re not sure what that means, Spotify-up the track ‘Roygbiv‘ and close your eyes. Then you’ll see it, even if you’ve never been.
The reality is though, that it’s in this very same bleakness that the real beauty lies.
Because without the interference of excessive, modern recreational facilities that come with being a hotspot, and the swathes of seasoned tourists that appear along the rest of the coast, you’re left with something that feels very real, very natural, and very secret.
Much of the grassy pathways that line the waterways are overgrown shin-scratchers. Field mice frolic about beneath your feet requiring a careful step. Cows and sheep are the main form of living being you’ll encounter as you walk, and they’ll stare at you with disdain for encroaching on their space as you pass.
Oystercatchers, identifiable from their long, slender orange beaks – like baby carrots – wade along the water’s edge dipping their bright veggie batons into the sludgey brown liquid, searching for cockles. Rare butterflies and moths flutter around you as the light bounces off the verges in the dusk.
It’s of no real surprise, that this is classed by the authorities as a site of Special Scientific Interest.
And historic interest too.
Barnacle-encrusted shipwrecks shaped like fish skeletons sit silently at low tide, rotting away into the mud after decades of abandonment. Once upon a time, these boats might have been taking people to and from the Isle of Sheppey, or up towards the Thames gateway, which sits only a few miles further north. In 2026, they mainly serve as opportunities to take atmospheric photos. No filter needed.
As somebody who lives in Swale and loves walking, you’d think from my enthusiasm that I might be strolling around this often forgotten beauty all the time, but I’m not. It usually takes a suggestion from my friend S, who crosses the water every day to get to work and can incidentally tell me a whole host of facts about it that I would have never otherwise known:
“Just off the coast at Queenborough is ‘Deadman’s Island’. It’s where they used to leave behind all the men and boys who died aboard the prison ships which moored around here in the 1800s. Many of their remains re-surfaced on the island a few years back. It’s strictly a no-go zone, but people still try and get photos.”
“Back in the day there used to be a prominence of brick production sites along here due to all the clay and chalk, and easy access to London by boat. A lot of the city’s landmarks were built with those bricks.“
And many others.
And each time I learn something new about the place or see a pair of butterfly wings in patterns I’ve never seen before, I remind myself why I need to get back and explore more of it. I’ve spent many hours exploring it over the years, yet barely scratched the surface, and that’s both worrying and exciting in equal measure, given it’s right on my doorstep.
And when Lonely Planet and all the other established travel guides out there get their acts together and proclaim that the Isle of Sheppey and Sittingbourne are right up there with the likes of Machu Picchu and the Taj Mahal as places you must see before you die, there’s a danger that this place may start losing its magic. Once the secret’s out there, crowds will start drawing in, the snazzy cafes and sports clubs will start popping up, and the wildlife will retreat back into the undergrowth.
But that’s hopefully not for a while yet. Even Faversham hasn’t made the list.
Yet.
See it whilst you can, anyway.
If one thing is certain, you’ll have a Swale of a time.
This month I ticked off an item from my bucket list, by going on a steam train ride with my parents.
It was the second time this year I found myself fawning over old trains…
My dad has always been into them, an interest that never really resonated with me in my younger years. Trips up to the London Underground Met Line Station in Watford – just up the road from our family home between 1989-2011 – to see the special visit of some old steam trains – were experiences I felt I needed to politely endure rather than enjoy, whilst dad took countless photos of what all looked like the same thing.
Really, I just wanted to be at home watching grainy American teen drama series on MTV, or playing Donkey Kong Country on the Super Nintendo with my big sister.
Roll forward about 30 years, to February 2026.
I’ve been staying with an old school friend – E – in Willesden Green following another friend’s 40th. I need to catch the Met Line back into central in order to get back to Kent, and find myself enveloped in nostalgia as we get to the Underground station.
“Look at all this old, original architecture!” I hear myself say as we enter, in a voice I don’t recognise. The dark wooden panelling around the ticket booths. The brickwork and vintage sea green tiles. All the things I wouldn’t have even blinked at as a child who used these trains a lot, suddenly becoming something of fascination and awe.
I bid goodbye to E by the ticket barriers and head down to the platform. The winter morning sunshine poking out from the white skies casts a glow over the leafy suburb that sits on the other side of the fence. I’m reminded of growing up in Watford, that confusing it’s-not-London-but-it-is-London sprawl of a place which is often maligned in jokes. A bit like Slough, maybe only slightly nicer, and with a name that doesn’t sound like a garden pest.
I reminisce seeing the tube trains pull away from Watford Met station out of my childhood bedroom window; close enough to see the passenger-shaped silhouettes through the carriage windows, far away enough to be unable to identify them. Disappointing, when you’re trying to spot your crush on their way home from the Boys’ school next to the station.
The nostalgic thoughts continue all the way to Baker Street, when something even more strange happens.
I’m actually excited to see it. Because nowadays I really appreciate and understand, that it’s the oldest station on an underground network that was the first of its kind anywhere in the world, and that’s something pretty remarkable, to be fair.
When we used to travel into London from Watford in the ’90s / early ’00s, we’d change at Baker Street to catch the Jubilee line to Bond Street, which pretty much meant Oxford Street, which pretty much meant crowds, strangers, and shops. As much as I appreciated the opportunity to go into bigger shops and buy things I couldn’t find at home, I wasn’t otherwise fond of the area, mostly because of those same crowds, and strangers.
And also because there was a wild rumour flying around at the time about somebody buying a Mars’ Topic bar at one of the dusty looking snack shops on the platform, and finding the head of a chocolate-encased rat as they bit into it. Not sure how true that is, and will never really get to find out…
…but it was all enough to taint my view of the Underground somewhat.
Until I became old (40), and suddenly Baker Street station represented a key part of our social history as opposed to nasty vermin surprises…
In February 2026, instead of thinking about the accidental digestion of rat heads, I think about how there’s a Wetherspoons next door that was once a high end dining hall affectionately known as ‘The Chiltern Court Restaurant’, a popular pit stop for those about to take a ride on the new subterranean railway in the late 19th / early 20th century.
I must visit it, because conveniently I need a coffee or five, and that refill machine is a dream in that situation. Now cleverly known as ‘The Metropolitan Bar’ in homage to the Underground’s first ever line – opened in 1863 – the space is just as familiar as it isn’t. Same old sticky tables and nachos, but surrounded by grand pillars and vintage rail posters that remind you of the role of this same set of coordinates in years gone by, when the world had yet to learn about paninis and pitchers of WooWoo.
Because it was only just about getting used to the ChooChoo.
It’s hard not to notice a beautiful – almost comforting – sense of anemoia creeping in at this point. You think about all the people that ate in this very same room decades before you, where they were going, and why they were going there? To check out potential homes in the new, leafy suburbs of Greater London perhaps, or a trip out to the countryside? How were they feeling? What were they chatting about?
It took my parents 38 years to convince me to watch Sir John Betjeman’s famous 1973 documentary ‘Metro-Land’, about the creation of the Metropolitan Line and – most crucially – the positive socio-economic impact it had. Many of the towns and villages in north-west Greater London would benefit from a quicker access to the city centre granted by the new Underground system, and grew larger and more populous as a result.
Watford was effectively part of that Metro-Land, and we had lived in it, but I never really knew what that meant. I certainly wasn’t bothered about watching a film about the likes of Harrow, Pinner and all those other suburbs we’d pass on the way into central, but as an older person, I found myself glued to the screen admiring it all. It would turn out that E had watched it once too and we had a great chat about it, but I wouldn’t imagine we’d have done so over those gossips on the landline during the evenings of 1999.
And now I find myself looking more intently at everything whenever I take the Underground, particularly on the original lines. The hidden passageways once trodden by thousands of vintage shoes, the remnants of platforms of disused stations (known colloquially as ‘ghost stations’). Echoes of the past reverberating around the very present, dozens of metres below street level.
If there are indeed ghosts on the Underground, what must they think of the passengers of today? Shuffling along at pace. Stressed. Shoving into each other. All staring at small metal oblongs and all lost them within themselves, just trying to get to their destinations as quickly as possible in a world that doesn’t seem to wait anymore.
Not because it actually doesn’t, but because we often forget that it can.
I frequently think that if there was anywhere in the world I could go – if logistics weren’t an issue – it wouldn’t be so much about a place anymore, but a time.
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”
I’ve always adored that quote, even though I know it doesn’t always apply. Some of life’s ‘storms’ are just too rubbish, and if you’ve experienced something really terrible, then the suggestion that all will be okay if you simply get up and jig about would probably – rightfully – be met with short shrift.
Particularly if you’ve broken your leg.
But literal storms in Snowdonia, one of the most beautiful places in the world?
You can definitely dance in those.
Which is probably for the best, since my good friend S and I weren’t to have much choice otherwise when we recently travelled up. Being Wales, there was always going to be over a 50% chance of rain, we anticipated that, but we weren’t expecting a full old storm called Dave to be joining us on our camping trip.
He could have at least asked us first, not that he’d have taken ‘no’ for an answer.
Nature never does.
But there are particular places in the world in which whatever the weather does, you’ll be smitten with it anyway. Snowdonia is one of those places, and it gets into my veins every single time, both in the hottest of sunshine (rare), or in the wettest of winds (much less rare) .
We ate sandwiches in the car by Lake Mymbyr in the pouring rain. Camped in a tent that flapped about more than me trying to decide what crisps to buy in Tesco. Felt extreme levels of euphoria every time the stove was alight for long enough to make a cuppa. Got the majority of our clothes soaked, and subsequently worshipped the on-site tumble-dryer.
Yet during all that time, we were amidst some of the most stunning scenery I’ve ever set my eyes upon. The full moon hovering above the silhouette of the mountains, lighting up the way to the campsite loos at midnight to such effect it made the headtorch redundant. The azure waterfalls flushing down the sides of steep, slate inclines with their picturesque rock pools perforating the path. Fields of emerald green refracting the limited bursts of sunlight whilst sheep and lambs looked on.
Even in the worst of weather, some places just manage to grip you… in the same way you’ll grip on to a rock whilst a gust of wind tries to blow you into the Welsh skies, or down into a watery ‘llyn’ (not to be confused with a Lynn, who probably works somewhere in your HR department and drives a white Merc. Wears a lot of perfume.)
Clouds starting to gather over Snowdon
We were disappointed to not quite reach the peak of Snowdon, choosing to turn back 15 minutes from the very top due to treacherous 60 mph winds and hail on the ridge. It was the only time we gave into Dave’s demands, but perhaps by being so vehement he was trying to do us a favour. A different decision could have resulted in injury or worse, which would have spoiled everything.
Instead, we could take pride in being among only a scant handful of people to give the final stage of the climb a good go that day, a day when record-breaking winds (93 mph) were being recorded only down the road in Capel Curig.
Is the sense of achievement greater if you complete something with the assistance of good conditions, or if you don’t quite make it (but get very close!) in terrible ones? It’s fair to say I felt more proud of this ascent than the times I’ve reached the peak in favourable weather, simply because it was a lot more challenging and scary.
And maybe we could say the same thing about a lot of things in life. The harder you have to work for something, the less it becomes about the end goal. The finish line means less if you got a lift halfway, the certificate is less impressive if you copied the answers.
Instead it becomes more about the tenacity required just to give things a go when so many others wouldn’t.
(Another mountain, another philosophical lesson about life. How does this place do this to me every single time? You can read about another one here).
When you visit Snowdonia, you can be assured of three things:
1) You will fall in love with it and turn into a complete orophile, a word you’ll only learn whilst trying to work out the name for how you feel.
2) You will be touched by the kindness of local people (discounting the funny ol’ fish at the petrol station who seemed to take great delight in telling us we’d struggle to find a garage open on Easter Sunday to help with a car concern. Fortunately a man overheard and rushed to reassure us, demonstrating point 2).
The third thing? It’ll add a few new hues to your lens, and you’ll never quite be the same person again.
Many people who know me will know that I’ve written a complete diary entry, every single day, for thirty years. I didn’t intend to, but once you get into the habit of something like that, you can’t quite stop.
The diaries are personal. I started them in the interest of recording all the things I didn’t want to forget, but over the years they’ve been a valuable way for me to process my thoughts and feelings too. This was particularly useful during childhood, when things were ever-changing at pace.
I was very lucky to have a stable and generally happy upbringing. When I post what I’m about to post, I want to make it clear that I acknowledge and appreciate that. But – like a lot of young people – I really struggled with anxiety.
Throughout my teens, I had zero confidence in myself. I felt different to everybody else, hated my appearance, and was often ridiculed and laughed at by the ‘cool’ girls for being a bit “weird”, because I enjoyed different music and could be a bit quirky.
And I looked the way I did. I was regularly referred to as Bugs Bunny because of my teeth and – on one particularly damning occasion that I can fortunately laugh about now – Robbie from Eastenders, because of my straggly hair (as well as the teeth, again).
Some lines stay in your head forever:
“You’re SO sad. You know that don’t you?!“ (First week of secondary school, from a girl who’d gone to the same primary school so I felt had the evidence to say this. Ouch.)
“What’s wrong, Sophie? Did you look in a mirror?!” (Year 11. Same girl and her friend. Double ouch.)
I often felt that nobody really liked me because of these things, which as a child is a really nasty yet very common way to feel. In reality I had many lovely friends at school, and though time and distance can naturally cause some friendships to drift, they will always have a special place in my heart because of what we learned about life together. The problem at the time, was that I just didn’t understand why they’d want to hang around with me. I didn’t even want to hang around with me, because it would have meant having to look at my face, and I didn’t even like looking at myself in a mirror, which probably explains why I often looked a bit of a mess. Vicious cycle.
But this isn’t a ‘woe is me’, because the reality was that I was far, far from alone in being the target of ridicule.
My form at school earned a lovely nickname within the wider year group: ‘Slags and Weirdos‘. I never needed to ask which category I fell into. In the earlier years of secondary school there was a bit of an in-form rivalry between the two of us because we were so different, but by the end of year 11, we all seemed to gel. Maybe it was a mutual respect following the shared experience of being judged by others, but it showed to me at an early age the value of trying to understand and respect people’s individual stories, even – especially – if on the surface they differ from our own. The importance of recognising that all groups have their own challenges and experiences. The ‘Slags and Weirdos’ had more in common than they initially realised, and we were the best form because of it. Go the A’s.
And I know that this kind of social politics still goes on in schools today, that young people are struggling more than ever with their mental health, either with anxiety like I had or things much more serious. I feel for them, I really do, particularly in the advent of social media, where the judgement and bullying can be constant, and not just confined within school walls.
Whenever I read through my old diaries, there are so many occasions when I just want to respond, to go back in time and reassure or advise myself from the future. I obviously can’t do that, but writing this feels like the next best thing. Who knows, maybe the 65 year old me will feel like doing similar after reading back over the 2026 diary. A lot of our life is only really understood or contextualised in time. That’s how it works.
Much of the content below will seem trivial. It is trivial, and that’s why my responses are mostly in jest, but the problem is that I didn’t know that at the time. The fact is, that it was a very upset thirteen year old girl writing some of these entries, and whilst I personally think it’s healthy to be able to laugh at ourselves – which is why I do so throughout this post – I don’t want that sentiment to be forgotten.
Why am I sharing this? Well for one thing, I’ve been trying to work out for years how to make some use of my diaries, since I’ve spent so many years writing them. The other reason is that I think sometimes, even within the furthest flung corners of the Internet, things are found when they need to be. If any youngsters come across this page at any point in the future – my nieces and nephews perhaps – then I hope it can help to reassure you of the power of perspective and time, and why many of the things you’re stressing about now really don’t matter, or that they’ll pass.
I deliberated whether sharing photos from the actual diaries – as opposed to just typed quotes – would be appropriate or ‘too much’. In the end I decided to share them. That way you know the words haven’t been altered or embellished to make for better or more impactful reading, like so many other things are these days. They are a child’s real thoughts and feelings. They were never written with a wider audience in mind, and there was no reason to try and hide or fabricate anything.
So here you have it. A conversation with my 13 year old self, part 1, when we head back to early 1999. This was my first page-to-a-day diary, the first year that the entries started to properly contain feelings as well as facts. My original plan was to do a full year, but within just two months, there was already so much I wanted to say… and that alone speaks for itself.
Names have been obscured and replaced with *** where appropriate.
“I’m really depressed that it’s back to school on Monday, every day something bad and worrying happens, it’s only good on Fridays when we don’t have too many different lessons.”
“There will come a time when you actually miss a lot of things about school, even double Maths on a Monday morning with Mrs Dey (what a legend, by the way. You thought she was evil, but now you realise it all came from a place of care. And in 2024, when you find out she has long passed away, you will actually feel very sad, and regret writing that poem about her in year 9).
You ‘worked’ a 6 hour day which included over an hour of pissing around playing cards at lunch. Bin Duty was once a term as opposed to every single day. You didn’t have to worry about bills or income. The only thing you were really compelled to do was go and learn about new and interesting things all week. You’d love to be able to do that now.”
“Absolute shit day!! There was me, tootling to skool all optimistic, only to find out that ***** knew about the Steps dance we were doing. She was really upset and now the group has split in two.”
“The sad thing here (aside from the fact you were planning to do a dance rendition of ‘Tragedy’ by Steps in the school talent show), is that you had been uncomfortable about leaving her out from the start, but you didn’t have the courage to voice it. You were more concerned about being included in the dance yourself, even if it meant others – like one of your favourite friends – missing out. That’s the real ‘tragedy’ here, and it was a really shitty thing to do. You’ll eventually learn that you must always listen to your gut feeling and align your actions with your values, but admittedly it’s harder to do that at your age, when you’re still working out what those values are…
By the way, in years to come – starting as soon as year 9 – you will ALL be laughing about the fact you fell out over this. So that weekend you wasted feeling grey and sick about this, worrying you’d lost those friendships forever… you really didn’t need to.”
“I’ve heard a cool song called ‘Pretty Fly for a White Guy’ by The Offspring. It’s cool. I heard it in HMV. I’m a goth, it’s official. Chart music today sucks (apart from BSB and 5ive – who are obvious exceptions). Heavy metal kicks ass! The songs have a meaning other than, ‘Oh I’ve just decided I love U‘
“Oh, Sophie. Cringe. The Offspring are NOT goth, nor are they heavy metal, they’re pop punk. You’re not a goth, although you’ll try to be one in 2001 when you start wearing lots of black and burning incense in your bedroom whilst listening to Belladonna & Aconite from your big sister’s Inkubus Sukkubus CD on repeat and using words like ‘wiccan’ on internet chatrooms even though you have no idea what it actually means.”
“Ya know, as a goth, people may think I’m sad, but they’re all a bunch of saddoes anyway. Live and Let Live. Peace to goths worldwide.”
“Hahaha. You’re still not a goth, three days later. And now you’re being judgemental about other’s musical tastes too. Practice what you preach, though you’re right in expressing solidarity with a minority.”
“I’m a little depressed about something. I don’t know any boys. I mean sure, there’s ***** and that lot but no more and it’s not as if I always see them. I hate my school, if it weren’t for my friends I’d want to leave, but (Rickmansworth School) is too weird. I guess I sound like a snob now, but it’s true, go to Ricky, prepared to be bullied if you’re larger than a 10 and look ugly like me (the ugly bit only, I’m size 8). I just hope things work for me like they did for (sister).”
“You’ll start meeting boys and having boyfriends in a couple of years, and the ensuing drama and general cacophony will make you realise why you’re happy to attend an all girls school. A comparatively peaceful oasis within the nonsense.
You will get offered a place at Ricky for sixth form but you will be delighted that you don’t need to accept it and can stay where you are. So you don’t really hate your school afterall.”
“Right, today was fairly bad. Everything was OK until lunch. ***, *** and *** did impressions of me doing (the) Tragedy (dance), but just as (a) joke, which I’m aware of. I needed the loo so I got up and left the classroom. ***, *** and *** followed me out to see if I was okay, and I turned a bit tearful. I’m sorry I can’t do the stupid dance.”
“Okay, firstly, you need to accept the fact you’ll never get any better at coordinated dance (or any dancing, for that matter). Secondly, why on earth did they think a self-confessed ‘goth’ would make a great member of faux Steps! You don’t even like Steps. They should have just asked *** in the first place, if nothing else it would have saved the dramas of 08/01/1999. Whoever organised that bloody talent contest had a lot of tears to answer for!”
“At my party, she completely took over the CD player, we only listened to songs she liked. She knew I hated Billie music so she deliberately had that on.”
“Well thank goodness she (really nice girl, by the way) did take over the CD player at the party. Nobody would have wanted to listen to Weezer or Nirvana, just you (and possibly Emily), and you can do that in your own time. And one day, chart music will pine for something like the innocent, upbeat tones of Billie Piper. You might feel embarrassed to know that when you’re an ‘old lady’ (you know, 40) you’ll be straight on the dance-floor when that same song chimes in on 90’s nights. Because you want to. Genuinely. Pop music at the moment is the best, you don’t realise how good your generation has it. Keep her on DJ duty!”
“Hockey with Emma. There is a very fit boy there, I have a feeling he’s been noticed by me last year walking home. He’s from the Boys’ School, I could tell because he had Boys’ school gym socks on. He has dark hair in a style to Jordan from NKOTB. I’M GOING TO HOCKEY MORE OFTEN!!”
“You will never see him ever again, Sherlock. But you WILL see the real Jordan Knight, performing in Manchester in 2012. The rest of the New Kids will be there too. Yes, even Joey. The one you cried about last year because you fancied him so much but he lives in the States (and also has zero interest in meeting you, as he sits in his mansion with his beautiful blonde wife and millions of dollars).“
“My life really sucks!! I’m fed up with all this arguing at school. *** and *** went off again at lunch, *** was upset, *** has been quiet all day. *** and *** feel sorry for *** and I’m just alone. If *** and *** become best friends, who am I going to be best friends with? I’ll just go with ***, but *** and *** don’t get on well. I’m sick of this. I want to be ***’s best friend. I h8 this (oh look I’m so stressed I’m repeating myself). It’s going to be impossible to have 1 good day, and I’m going to say so at lunch tomorrow. I’ll say, “look, it’s no good pretending everything’s dandy (ok, crap word). We must talk and be rational about this.”
“Christ. Where to start with this chaos… maybe just know that in as far away as 2024 you’ll go for brunch in St Albans with at least half the people mentioned in this entry, where you will spend a great deal of time reminiscing and laughing about dramas such as this one. Real friends stay, and you can look forward to meeting your very best friends in the years to come. That’s all you need to know right now.”
“I feel so stupid! Everything’s muffed up because of me! When I asked *** 2 join our group, it upset a few people aka *** and *** and I think maybe *** They were upset because I’d not asked anyone about it first. I understand why they’re upset and I feel so stupid! Now *** and *** have left the group and even sat somewhere different at lunch. I have a feeling someone is in a mood with me, well actually I know they are, the thing is I don’t know who. *** refuses to call us a group.”
“I’m glad you were considering ways to conserve valuable energy (and ink) when you wrote “2” instead of “to”. It’s a shame you expended that same energy on feeling way more upset about this than you needed to. You’ll all be friends again before the week is out anyway. Please stop crying about this. It’s really not worth it. Watch some TV instead, pick up a new book, learn to paint, spend time with your parents and make the most of the free cake on the days out at all those old houses and gardens.
And sometimes people just like to sit in different places at lunch to switch up the scenery. Don’t let overthinking become a habit…”
“Went to hockey with Emma. Unfortunately, the fit boy wasn’t there, but I hope he’ll be there next week or else!”
“Saddest love story ever known. He won’t be there next week, and neither will you. You and Emma will start bunking off from hockey club and cycle around the park for an hour instead before going back to her house to play Paperboy on the Sega. You’ll lie to your parents but the probability is they know this already. The shite hockey skills and lack of bruises kinda give it away.”
“At lunch some girls came up to me and implied that I looked like a boy they knew. I’m insulted!”
“Yeah. Comments like this don’t really help with the hang-ups, and the fact you’ll still be able to visualise this exact moment – some year 10s near the stairs by the modern language department – in 2026 isn’t great. But whatever, hopefully it was a fit boy at least. Or one that will grow into a hot man. Maybe it could be worse.”
“Confusing day. I felt that *** and *** were both in a mood with me and I had no idea why. I think it’s because I didn’t tell them what *** told me yesterday about *** and the legs.”
“Trying to second guess what people are thinking and feeling is – and will always be – exhausting. Just ask them, instead of overthinking. Chances are they’re thinking about Wagon Wheels and German homework as opposed to some idle gossip about some ‘legs’ (wtf).
“*** lent me her old mobile phone, it’s so I can look all cool in front of ***”
…
*Slams head on desk*
“Ooh! Today was scary! In PSE Miss Brown caught me writing, ‘I HATE PSE’ in big pink writing all over one of the pages of my rough book. She had a go at me after school.”
“Put the pink pen firmly back in the cylindrical Bang-on-the-door pencil case and stop defacing your rough book. You won’t realise it yet, but PSE is actually one of the more important of all the classes. You might find the Resusci-Annies mildly terrifying – who doesn’t- but this is more important than learning about tectonic plates, and more important than learning about parabolas (word last used in 2002). Just because there’s no exam on it, doesn’t mean you mustn’t listen. And that’s exactly why Miss Brown shouted at you about this, because she knew how important it was too.”
“I received my fake Valentine card. The poem inside is sick man!”
“You’ll remember it word for word for years to come, because you keep it:
‘Dear Sophie, your eyes are like shining grapefruits. Your lips bloom like Venus fly traps. From HB‘
Fair play to whichever creative genius wrote that. Even though it was sent in jest… still one of the best you’ll ever have.”
“Valentines day, the one day of the year that is the same all the time – I never receive any cards! I mean, I don’t exactly expect people to dish out money on a crummy looking card for me or anything, but it just adds more proof to my famous hypothesis- I’m UGLY”
“You have literally just received a Valentines card from your childhood crush. We can ignore the fact it was a joke. You can’t be that ugly anyway, your eyes are like shining grapefruits, apparently.”
“*** told me that *** thinks I’m annoying – because I help people with their problems.”
“It will never matter what anyone does – or doesn’t – do. Somebody, somewhere, will always have a problem with it. Even in adulthood. But the useful thing is that they’ll never be the sort of people you wish to have in your life anyway, so stop caring about what they think and only concern yourself with the opinions of those whose opinions you actually value. “
And to end with something light…
“Went to Tesco’s. It was sooo embarrassing!! I was walking down the frozen food aisle, fiddling with my retainer in my mouth – when suddenly it fell out and went rolling along the floor – bouncing too. I knelt down (on) the floor and I couldn’t find it then this lady comes along and points to it, ‘Is that what you’re looking 4?’ “.
“I’m telling you this after two whole rounds of braces and an ongoing interest in Invisalign, because if you were still in school right now you’d probably still be getting referred to as ‘Bugs’:
Stop.Fiddling.With.That.Retainer. And wear it EVERY night. Forever”
What’s nice about visiting a foreign city for a second time, is that you really see it then.
The ‘must do’s” have already been done, the main sights have already been seen, and your itinerary feels a little bit more free because of it.
You’ve seen the ‘best’, now you can unlock the rest.
It didn’t take long for Madrid to feel familiar, as my taxi wove around the city towards the La Latina district where my best friend now lives for a lot of the year. I recognised the impressive gates of Retiro Park opposite the big arch of Puerta del Alcalá where I’d had the custom tourist photo taken back in 2022. You know the one, that stilted pose where you clasp your hands in front of you and smile awkwardly at the stranger taking the photo, before having to be polite and pretend that what they took was great even though they basically decapitated you in the picture, and subtly ask somebody else so you can repeat this whole sorry process again and again.
“I wouldn’t mind repeating a trip to Retiro, actually”, I thought to myself, comforted by the fact I knew I didn’t need to. As it happened I had no choice, the park was closed throughout my stay due to bad weather and the risk of falling trees, a precaution in place following a tragic fatality involving a child in 2018.
The weather had been much kinder in March 2022. I had been able to spend the week in a pair of hot-pants and flip flops and even develop a tan back then. I was quite poorly at the time and the vitamin D had been the perfect medicine. This time round, despite only being a few calendar weeks earlier in the year, I’d spend the duration looking like a giant sausage roll about to hit the slopes.
Turns out the rain in Spain doesn’t just stay mainly in the plain. Liars.
In a perverse way though, the poor weather actually added to the experience, as did spending it with a ‘local’. They both made for a very different kind of adventure than the one usually dictated by guidebooks or the perfected sunny curations on social media.
View of Casa de Campo from a central rooftop bar.
I was smitten with Casa de Campo, once a 16th century royal hunting estate and – for the past hundred years – a public park outside the city centre which is about 5 times the size of New York’s Central Park. A large man-made lake forms one of the focal points, surrounded by numerous eateries. H and I chose one and spent a nice couple of hours sat on a table by the window that the slightly abrupt waitress had seemed reluctant to let us have, and after warming ourselves up on coffees decided to see if we could hire out one of the rowing boats we saw parked up on the water. The advantage of it being wet and windy meant that there was nobody else using them. This not only meant that we had the entire lake to ourselves, giving us the freedom to roam wherever we wanted, but more importantly, it limited the opportunities for us to crash.
The cold, choppy waters and my inability to operate a boat took me back to my sailing days at Seasalter. Eventually, H hinted at her frustration with my rowing skills by stating that it “might be nice to see a different part of the lake”. I’m not sure what her problem was. We’d only been spinning around by the boundary buoys for about 15 minutes, but if we were to have any chance of returning the boat within the allotted time then we would need to rely on what H could remember from her rowing classes. In the end we were about 20 minutes late returning the boat, but nobody cared. Do the same thing in Hyde Park and you’ll probably be charged for an additional session or sent an intimidating letter in the post, complete with grainy time-stamped CCTV image of you haplessly buggering about with an oar.
“They don’t really care about time here”, H advised me, and she was right. My watch was a bit redundant for those few days in Madrid, and that felt nice.
The “mercados” – indoor markets – were another highlight. H‘s local in La Latina was Mercado de la Cebada. I had browsed some of the more touristy ones in the city centre during my last visit, but ones like this felt that little bit more real. There was – of course – the encapsulating smell of fish upon entry, but it was overcome by the sense of sight: the rainbow of fruit and vegetables on display, including the biggest tomatoes I’ve ever seen. Can’t get those at Tesco in Faversham.
A man whose stall consisted of piles of chocolate-coated nuts and dried fruits called us over and offered us some free samples. He spoke a bit of English, and seemed to be proud (as he should be) of being able to name the items he was selling:
“This one chocolate covered sunflower seed. This one: coconut. This one: strawberry. And here: papaya”
Papaya.
He’d said it.
For some reason, I only mentally tap in to my fondness of papaya when I’m in Spain. I hadn’t really thought about papaya for four years, when the same excitement – again in a Madrid mercado – had prompted me to pay way over the odds for a giant papaya that I didn’t even manage to eat most of (sore topic. I’ll leave it there). But here I was again, the terrific tropical goodness being flaunted in front of me. I immediately advised the seller that I would like to purchase a selection of his goods. At 12 Euros a bag, I felt the price pretty steep for some fruit and nuts but – papaya.
“I’ll take a bit of everything, but I especially like papaya please.”
He speedily bagged up a range of items and priced it all up. It was a little over the set weight, but never mind, because papaya.
Except he hadn’t included any.
“What about the papaya?”, I asked sadly after looking in the bag, like a scene from a modern-day Oliver Twist.
“No papaya. You want papaya? I charge more.”
Sometimes you just have to accept defeat and move on.
But I have to say, the rest of it was completely delicious, and I was still pleased to have made the purchase overall. Lasted me until my journey home and beyond.
A papaya similar to the one I purchased in 2022, which went to waste.
The wonderful thing about the rest of the time in Madrid was that were no set plans. Pretty convenient, in a place where time doesn’t seem to be a thing. I adored being able to take my time breathing in the back streets: the cute cafes, the crafts and the inviting tapas bars that are ready to welcome you with a plate of local, mouth-watering jamón.
A place that made me realise, I actually do quite like shakshuka(although a home-cooked attempt a week later was nowhere near as nice). The video game bar where just the addition of cigarette smoke could have made one feel like they’d travelled back to the halcyon days of the 1990’s. The juicy green olives and peanut mix served with drinks. The world’s biggest Zara, where I bought some lovely beige trousers because – you know, I’m forty now. Even the Venezualan restaurant which H – bless her – had been incredibly excited to show me but at which I experienced an unfortunate case of food poisoning (the tequeños were still worth it).
I don’t always believe in visiting a place twice when there is so much of the world to see and – were it not for H – I’m not sure I’d have gone back to Madrid. But once you take the time to go beyond the crowds and tourist hotspots, and really get into the veins of a place, it takes a hold of you a little bit. Some places just know how to clutch at your heart and awaken your senses, even if all you’re doing is exploring their hidden sides. The bits that don’t make the guidebooks or TikTok.
Of all the 164858273 (or however many) articles I’ve written here, it’s still one of few that has had a life beyond this website. Thought Catalog published it, it had thousands of views worldwide, and was warmly received by a number of friends and acquaintances who shared it further.
An executive summary of “The Truth About Turning Thirty”? Well, essentially, it was about ignoring societal expectations and realising that ‘milestone’ years end up being a bit of an anti climax, and nothing to dread. In many ways, turning thirty was a relief. Didn’t have to think about it anymore.
Back in 2016 when I shared the article, a few older friends asked if I would do a similar piece in the future about turning forty. I remember wincing at that prospect at the time: “Forty?! I mean, I’ve just about handled turning thirty. Forty will be a whole new kettle of fat, oilyfish. Really not looking forward to that one.”
If I’d historically thought I’d be married with children by thirty, then forty was a whole new thing. Not only should I have definitely had a family of my own by that point – and beaten that biological clock so many warned of – I should have also nearly paid off my mortgage by then too, be worshipping Himalayan salt lamps and all things magnolia, wearing cream linen suits to buy yoghurt-coated macadamias in M&S, and preparing for early retirement.
Or so I thought.
(An image which proves why AI isn’t a complete threat to art 😉)
The reality is, I’ve still not married. In fact, the closest I’ve ever got to an engagement is putting a beef Hula Hoop on my forefinger whilst snacking, and I’m unlikely to ever be a mother. One thing our generation of females was brought up leading to believe was a must do in life, is pretty much not ever happening for me (for a number of personal reasons beyond age, plenty of people become mothers after 40)… but, the Earth hasn’t imploded afterall. My mortgage is still massive and – thanks to the state of today’s economy – I’m probably going to have to carry on working when I’m a skeleton that’s been six feet under for 50 years.
But the interesting thing?
I care even less about any of that than I did when I was ten years younger.
Because there are two things that happen concurrently as you age, and they both repel each other slightly.
The first is that you think you should be continuously developing, progressing, moving forwards, and all that jazz. Just like all those well-intended lifestyle influencers on social media, who punctuate their prose with new-age words like ‘up-levelling’ and ‘manifesting’ – and who make us feel guilty for drinking Pepsi Max instead of turmeric-infused liquidised tree moss – suggest.
The second is that you have an ever growing appreciation of how fragile life actually is. And that if you’re just here, breathing, seeing, experiencing – then actually that’s enough – and that thinking about the next goal, whilst having its place and purpose sometimes, can actually become quite exhausting if constant, and detract from the things most precious.
And the latter of those two things is the one I find myself bowing into the most these days. A global pandemic that fell within my ’30s contributed massively to that. Remember that weird time, when suddenly we all realised how the smallest things – like shopping for groceries and finding one person to walk with – were actually exciting, and what mattered the most?
Maybe because they are. Always were, always will be.
After something like that, all those social milestones which had been plotted into the land ahead got dug up and chucked into a household refuse tip along with all the other fads of the past.
But even without a pandemic, I think it still would have happened.
In essence, the older you get the more you realise that time and headspace is better spent on the things we have than what we don’t have, and how precious time is. It’s nice to dream about tomorrow, but not at the expense of today, which is incidentally the only time we ever really have.
And then – as much as we wish to deny it – there’s a third element too. One which wasn’t as visible at 30. One which I hadn’t felt the need to account for when I was ten years younger, writing my previous piece.
It’s that of age, and the natural impacts it has on the body. Key limbs or organs beginning to struggle (for me it’s my peepers, damn you, recurrent corneal erosion…). Lines on the skin requiring more and more latherings of cream. Grey strands battling the brunettes and blondes for ownership of your head, making you feel less like Cruella and more like a full-on witch, pining for the halycon – by comparison – Cruella days of the past. The body slows whilst the days and weeks around it seem to accelerate.
The brutal truth that we are closer to the end than when we turned 30, even if we still – hopefully – have a long while to wait.
And what does that really mean?
It means ‘just press play‘.
Just effing press it.
Dance to the song that’s playing right now. Though there may not be as many DJ’s, cocktails and 2am boxes of fried chicken to go with it as there were ten years ago, there’s still a rhythm in there somewhere. But, if it’s taking a little while to detect it, then it’s also fine to take a rest for a bit. (‘Superstition’by Stevie Wonder always served a great purpose as being a good time for a loo break in order to get back in time to celebrate the impending arrival of the Vengabus).
And eat more beef Hula Hoops.
Because ageing – turning forty – really isn’t a bad thing. At all.
(See you again when I’m 50. If I haven’t abandoned all things internet to join a magnolia-worshipping, tree-moss eating cult on some remote island in the Pacific).
There are certain things that feel hard to admit in public, particularly as a 40 year old female. But here we go:
I really don’t like yoga.
And that’s surprising, because as someone who’s always been in touch with my more spiritual side, yoga feels like the sort of thing I should love. And I really, really wanted to. But, after years of attempts that always concluded with me counting down the minutes until the end of the sessions, or having the instructor move my limbs to where they needed to be, I realised that I just… don’t. It’s a no-ga from me. I’ve downward-dogged for the last ever time, no more chances, or time wasted trying to like something that I probably never will.
I get why other people like it, though. I think all of us can benefit from more mindfulness within our daily lives, but what I’ve come to learn is that it doesn’t always have to be about things as disciplined as yoga, or meditating in a quiet room with strangers in a pretzel-shaped pose (and probably paying £15 an hour to do so). Instead, I think mindfulness and meditative activity can be practised anywhere, anytime, it’s just about figuring out what way feels right for you.
The other week I had to catch a train to London. Usually, I’d spend that time in the same way that most others do: doom-scrolling on my phone. Catching up with life admin. Conversing with people via WhatsApp. Watching reels about AI cats eating pastries. Basically, anything that fills up the time and makes the journey go faster… but pretty much always looking at a phone.
On this occasion though, I wanted to do something slightly different. I challenged myself not to look at my phone once throughout the journey, and to look out the window the whole time whilst listening to music (electronica, without any distracting lyrics) instead. To ensure my mind wouldn’t wander beyond what was right in front of me, I decided to jot down in my notebook all the things I saw along the way. Constantly. Pen to never leave the page, to ensure I didn’t drift. And here’s the output of those notes…
Technically speaking the first thing I observe are the golden, flakey remnants of my seat’s previous occupant’s sausage roll. It’s hardly the most inspiring start to my mindfulness challenge, but I did instruct myself to write down everything. And to some people, myself included at times (usually if hungover), a sausage roll pretty much is everything. So yes. This is a perfectly acceptable start, and I manage to swiftly shut down the resurfacing memories of all the best sausage rolls I’ve ever eaten (Wall’s caramelised onion circa 2012) to focus back on the here and now.
Succumbed to using AI for this image, because my phone ban during the journey also meant taking no photos!
The train rolls out of Faversham and I look out over a bunch of buildings, some of which are the homes of people I know, or knew. The house where my grandad grew up. The churchyard many of my relatives are buried at. My friend Dan’s house. The paddocks which were so lovely to walk around during the otherwise weird, balmy Summer of 2020. The grade II former manor house with the flat I looked around in 2018 which I really wanted but couldn’t afford, and still think about to this day.
The buildings become more and more sparse as we drift towards Teynham. Kentish orchards exposed by the December sunlight, their fruits both a distant memory and a chapter waiting to happen.
New housing developments: we need them, but why do they all have to look the same?
Sittingbourne. I always like to look out the window here, not for the aesthetics – of which there aren’t all that many in fairness – but for the fact my grandmother spent many happy years calling it home. The train runs adjacent to her housing estate and I’m amused by the fact her garage door has still not been painted in over 25 years – pillar box red when I was a little girl, now patchy and pastel. Maybe the white ’80’s Fiat is still behind it, and maybe grandma is still in the house, waiting to dish us up a plate of fishcakes and mushy peas and ask us how our journey was.
“Quite long actually, grandma. 18 years in fact.”
As we get ever closer to the Medway towns, I think about how – despite the downsides, like cost and waiting around on cold platforms with boney seats – train travel allows us to see so much of the area we live in ways that driving doesn’t allow for. This is far more interesting than the M2, and it reminds me of how beautiful and diverse a landscape Kent has.
Some washing hangs from a line in Twydall – a row of vests in blacks, browns and greys – before we pass a large cemetery. The winter sun is beating down over rows upon rows of headstones, shining light and life over those gone but not forgotten.
I can still remember where I was, and exactly what I was doing, when I learnt that the place is not pronounced “Twye-dall” but “Twidd-all”, and it still amuses me as much now as it did then.
“This post is starting to read like a load of old Twydall”, I imagine the reader starting to think at this point… and that would be a fair point to make, but I’ve yet to look at my phone on this train…
I spot the stadium of Gillingham F.C – Kent’s leading football club – but not for long, I predict. Surely Faversham Town F.C will take that crown soon? Champions of Europe, 2035. You heard it here first… there’ll be a procession around the Guildhall and the building which was once ‘Annette’s Baguettes’ and everything.
The train pulsates the veins of Chatham as we travel along the bottom of some steep verges. They are strewn with the gifts from fly-tippers and litterbugs: a jerry can here, a child’s plastic wheelbarrow there, all scattered about like some Generation Game finale, there to observe then try and regale from memory in a list.:
It’s always Lucozade bottles, and I’ve no idea why or how, since it’s not even the most popular soft drink. Maybe their slightly awkward, tall shape makes them harder to fit into bins? Or maybe – given the association with exercise – consumers prefer to try drop-kicking or throwing them in but miss, in a sign that they need to train more.
I’m thinking way too much about the aerodynamics of Lucozade bottles at this point, but I still haven’t looked at my phone.
At the next station, we begin to see the growing numbers of people with wheely suitcases. It’s fun to try and guess where they’re going, using the size of their cases to determine whether it’s a short or long break. There is a sense that the hustle and bustle will only increase from this point, as we get closer to the capital. Empty seats will become rarer gems, as more and more people – and sausage rolls – board the train to occupy them. I best move my bag.
Rochester, an historic old town peppered with lots of pretty old buildings and some not so nice new ones. The castle stands proudly at the top of the hill, and there’s even a sign to tell us exactly what we’re looking at!
Oh wait, no, that’s just a sign for the “Castle Hand Car Wash” that sits some streets beneath it. Not quite as postcard perfect as it could be.
“England’s largest second-hand bookshop” – Baggins Book Bazaar – is still there and visible from the train, but it no longer seems to have its claim to fame painted on the back of the building. Does that mean that there’s now a larger second-hand bookshop somewhere in the country? If so, what a gutting thing to have to do in having to paint over all that. I have only visited that bookshop once, which incidentally is the same amount of times I’ve visited Rochester, but it was quite an experience, – almost needed a map to navigate my way around – and am still very surprised that I was ever able to get out.
Many people get on board at Strood, which feels surprising since this is one of the smaller of the Medway towns. There isn’t a whole lot to see here, just Peking Express, which doesn’t appear to look overly inviting but nonetheless probably serves some tasty satay skewers. My belly rumbles.
We enter the first of the many long Victorian railway tunnels which will punctuate the rest of this trainline as we get into London. We are well and truly feeling the creeping clutch of the capital’s gnarly fingers at this point, the land around us turning from vibrant green into a more dismal grey. The buildings become taller, the sky starts to feel heavier, and everything is feeling a little bit busier. The back gardens are looking more and more unkempt, and I know less about this part this part of Kent, but have heard – multiple times – that it has lots of beauty to offer. I can believe that, as I scope the rolling golden hills in the background.
When the train arrives at London Bridge, I finally check my phone. All I’ve missed is a message confirming the meeting place, and an e-mail about my most recent utility bill.
But I haven’t missed much else. In two senses.
By the way, Lucozade bottle. Just because it’s been a few paragraphs, and they’re usually scattered about everywhere.
Before visiting for the first time, the image in my head of Ireland was always a fusion of greens and greys, Celtic symbols, and a language containing an abundance of b‘s, h‘s, and n‘s strung together in sequences that I have no clue how to pronounce. Shbhnnhsh. All set against some backing music provided by Enya.
Did my trip to Killarney, County Kerry, change any of that? No, but it certainly added a number of new features to that internal vision, and I fell in love with it instantly.
Even as soon as I alighted the plane I sensed something sweet about the place. Literally. The concourse of Cork airport smelled not of aviation fuel but sugar, and I couldn’t work out why. After spending the following days witnessing more rainbows than I’ve ever seen in such quick succession, I deduced that the air was full of Skittles, which we must have been tasting (or smelling), as per the tagline. I’d later find out the real reason and I’ll tell you that later, but in coming to Ireland, I had seemingly dived head first into a sugary bowl of Lucky Charms, and there were lots of those charms to find.
Sally being one. She was the 12 year old piebald horse that clip-clopped our traditional jaunting car through the crispy orange leaves of Killarney National Park under the instruction of her owner, Mikey, who was the third generation of guides in his family.
“She works two days then has a day off”, explained Mikey. I quite liked the sound of Sally’s working pattern, and briefly thought about becoming a horse, before being distracted by the sight of Ross Castle in the distance. There must be people who exist with the name Ross Castle. I expect it drives them around the bend – or moat – when people come to visit, particularly if they start asking about entrance fees.
I doubt that there’s anybody out there called MacGillyCuddy Reeks, though (and if there are I feel more sorry for them than I do Ross Castle). These unusual words form the name of the local mountain range which is home to the highest peak in Ireland, Carrauntoohil. My original plan had been to spend a day scaling Carrauntoohil, but on this occasion I gave in to sense, on account of not being sure if there’d be enough hours of daylight in mid-November to complete it. Instead I settled for Torc Mountain, the just as impressive 329th highest, and home to a waterfall that is one of the many must-see points along the Ring of Kerry, for which Killarney is the perfect place to base oneself for a few days.
The geography informed our choice to come here out of everywhere else in Ireland. People speak of ‘moving mountains’, but it’s always the mountains that move me. They make me weak at the knees, in both senses. On mountains, time disappears. Things disappear. The entirety of the wider world disappears, along with all its ugly parts. It’s just you and the product of a tectonic plate collision that’s been there for a billion years before you, and will be there for billions of years after. The mountains have seen everything there is to see as they look down on us (probably in more ways than one), yet they do not ever judge. Which is very kind of them.
I’m about three quarters of the way up the ‘prolonged climb’ of the Red Trail and starting to wonder if I should have just stayed in the town and drank Murphy’s in one of the warm taverns before I notice some pink writing painted on to one of the large stones that make up the ‘staircase’.
“Never give up”.
Clearly many before me have experienced similar feelings to those I’m feeling now: tempted to retreat back down, get back in the car and go back to bed. There’s comfort in knowing this.
I thank the anonymous scribe and obey the pink scrawl and I’m so glad that I do so, because I’m soon at the top and able to enjoy the plateaued ridge that runs along the top of the mountain affording misty yet magical views of Muckross Lake below. It’s at this point that a particularly heavy rain-shower occurs, and my thoughts immediately turn to the food in my non-waterproof bag, which wouldn’t taste nice wet. Somehow, just somehow, to my right is a stone shelter complete with a bench inside, the only one of its kind that I’ll see along this entire route. Is this what they mean when they talk about Irish Luck? Either way, I’ll take it, and enjoy the shelter for as long as is needed whilst the clouds get the rain out of their system.
The rain would feature a lot during our time in Ireland, as you would expect from an island in the Atlantic, yet Irish people don’t tend to bother with brollies, a stoicism underpinned by the strong winds that render them impractical. The equivalent of trying to heat a house with a single tealight. I overhear a rain-related joke that evening in the pub:
“Who ordered the rain?” “I don’t know, but send it back”
The women laugh over their Dingle gins, a homegrown product from a peninsular just a bit further north here in County Kerry. Lady 2 is clearly very pleased with her quick-witted reply to her friend, but I get the feeling she’s maybe used it a few times before. There’s regular opportunity to do so in Ireland, afterall.
For every rain shower here on the Emerald Isle though, there seems to be a golden sunshine that enjoys dancing off the orange autumn leaves. That’s how those many rainbows come into being, a fact that always makes me smile as a metaphor for life’s varied paint palette itself. We see another beautiful one as we begin our tour of the Ring of Kerry. At the end of this particular ‘bow sits Kerry Bog Village, a museum in Glenbeigh consisting of a preserved 19th century village where real people lived and worked.
The minibus stops and allows us some time to explore Kerry Bog, and if it weren’t for the host of smartphones being waved about taking photos, we could have quite easily felt that we had stepped back 150 years or so. We venture into each of the buildings, all former homes of workers, and breathe in the surprisingly calming scent of burning peat whilst contemplating what it must have been like to share a kitchen with farm animals and climb up a long ladder to get to bed.
Nearby, an American tourist – one of over a million who visit here each year to connect with their ancestors – is excitedly rolling around on the floor with one of the Irish Wolfhounds. Despite their status as one of the largest and most intimidating of all breeds of dog, this one is looking quite embarrassed by the encounter.
“She said next time she gets a dawwwg, that’s the one she’s gonna get,” I overhear her companion sigh a little while later, as the one-way carry-on carries on in the background with no signs of abating.
These tourists are part of a different group, so I never get to know if they make it back to their bus without a new four-legged addition. Or if they even make it at all. Ireland’s charm is infectious and I wouldn’t hesitate to place a bet on everyone on these buses remembering this day for the rest of their lives. Even the lady behind me, who spends quite some time explaining to her partner – in one of the longest, most mundane conversations ever overheard – that looking at her phone whilst the bus is in motion makes her feel “seasick”.
Well, I guess we are traversing the Wild Atlantic Way…
When we eventually arrive back in the UK, the post holiday blues swallow me up in the way they usually do and I find myself doing the same old things I always do when I feel this way. Searching for documentaries on YouTube about the places recently explored so that I can see even more of them. Listening to Enya and pretending I’m back looking out over the patchwork of greens and golds that make up the beautiful Irish landscape. Carrying out important research on Google…
“Why does Cork airport smell of sweets?”
Well, it turns out that just over the road, as we alighted the plane, 35% of the world’s Tic Tacs were being produced at the Ferrero factory. My theory about Skittles wasn’t far wrong. But I think I prefer my own version of the truth…
Ireland, you were worth the wait, and I’ll be back to collect even more charms someday.
sophiekemsley 