I love to look down from the hills. Here's the Thames valley looking rather tame, if you will forgive the expression. It's pretty and evovative, if not vertiginous. But I love such places with their tranquillity and history.
I spent the evening at a work function for a colleague who is leaving. Not for the first time someone remarked that, in effect, I don't fit the stereotype of an office-based project manager. Well of course not. Eight years in Transylvania did their bit. I don't see life and work in the West through the same lens as those for whom urban Britain is confirmed home. I wouldn't. That is no judgment. Simply it is the broad open spaces that offer me comfort. The land that, somehow and quite inexplicably, feels like my home. It's tame compared to former haunts. But I love the hills here.
I love the hills. But if only I had a good and trusty human trail companion. I've passed beyond the point where solitude has special virtue. If only there was a refuge in the hills at which to stop over. Back in Transylvania there were stopping places, but no-one thoughtful to talk to. Here I have friends few of whom ride and no haven in which to hide away. What am I missing? I have a sense that, unseeing, I'm passing by someone or something. Or looking too hard.
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