She was gone, gone...

So. That was then. This is now. Well, sort of...  And today (well, three days ago actually - I'm writing this in the past for the future present) - I'm packing my bag again.  This time adding a passport.  I’m getting on a train this evening (let's just accept that it's this evening, right? Well, probably) and will spend half the night wandering around Gatwick, so if anyone fancies joining me for a vigil?  Then (God willing) I'll hop on a plane to Greece.  
Why?  Well...

You know how you meet some people online and just know?  Well, I have this weird idea that the Internet is a conduit, that it’s allowing us to meet up with our..what would you call them?  Soul brethren?  Psychic tribe?  Hell, I dunno.  But I do know that there are some people I meet online and just know…that we’re linked in some way.  I don't always get it right, of course. Sometimes I get it more than a bit wrong. When I say this to my friend Jane, she just raises an eyebrow and says, 'Random Twitter Guy' and we both fall about laughing.  But, hey, he was never one of mine - he was my offering to her. But, actually, I don't get it wrong that often.  And not with Kim.  At least, I don't think so. 


Anyhow, I met Kim (randomly) on Twitter and we shared a daft sense of word play.  Don’t know why but got talking a bit deeper than one normally would with a total stranger. Went on from there and now she’s one of a very very small handful of people I trust.  Yeah, I have trust issues. 

Anyhow, she runs a company called Serenity Retreat.  Based on the Greek island of Lefkada (just above Kefalonia) it offers ‘retreat style holidays for solo travellers on a spiritual or self-development path. It’s about finding some personal space to simply ‘be’.’    

It sounded (and still sounds)…delicious.  Not to mention warm. And, hey, Greece needs our support, right?  But – old story – couldn’t afford it.  Couldn’t even justify going away really…the bills are mounting, the credit cards are squeaking…you know the score.  But then I thought, sod it.  If it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.  Let's give Fate another chance, huh?  So I fired off an email to a travel editor on one of the nationals.  
And he said…Yes.   
Huh?  I mean...HUH??? 
And the fee will cover my costs just perfectly.  But then I felt guilty about not even trying to earn any money in a week (like I have this crazy idea that, as long as I'm sitting at my desk worrying about not earning anything, it's okay?).  Until another very lovely editor I’d pitched it to said, sorry, I can’t pay for travel pieces (you probably don’t know this but the majority of the travel features you read in magazines are written by the staff who get a freebie holiday for writing up a piece) but how about if I commission you to write a couple of other features to make up the shortfall?  And I said, that’ll do nicely, thank you very much.  


And I did.  And so here I am/was/will be. And there I will be. God willing. Jeez, these scheduled posts are more worry than they're worth.  The tense-ion. :-)

Of course, if you wanna come too, just jump or hop or clamber onto a plane; or walk or swim or crawl or whatever... and I’ll see you on the beach. Hopefully being serene.  Ish.  :-)

Serenity Retreat: www.serenityretreat.co.uk

 PS. Okay, so I haven't quite gone, gone quite yet after all. Forgot to say... of course, you know where the title for this post comes from, right?  Yeah..our Syd...

This was yesterday, btw, and the day before that this pinged up on my screen and made me smile...another version of the same old song... Teenage White Riding Voldemort  hits the hi know? :-)  Sink row nicety, huh?

And now (yesterday) I really am gone...