Wagons Roll

I have been thinking recently about lovers past and present.

It probably has something to do with the house, and the fact it now seems as though I am committing to something for the next 30 years, which is pretty close to marriage when you think about it.

Firstly you have to find one you love. Now you might get lucky like I did, and it will be the first one you see. But most likely you will have to experience between 10 and twenty before you find the right one.

Then there is the phone calls to siblings/parents/influencers, telling them all about it, moments of doubt about wether you have made the correct choice, hearing stories from all and sundry about the things that happened before you came along, convincing yourself it will be different when you are there, picking bits that you want to keep ( and those you want to change).

Then all the paperwork, and the questions, and the planning, and then, when the deal is sealed, and it is all going ahead, crapping yourself because you appear to be in for the long haul.

But I am doing with someone who I finally feel will be there with me the whole way.

In the past 10 years the lovers, good and bad, have either walked two steps ahead, or two steps behind.

And as beautiful as they all have been, they have not been the sort that I thought – you know what, I could hook my wagon to this.

Which is, after all, the reason it has taken until now to do anything remotely grown up.

Although I still love them all, and probably always will, I have decided that not only could I hitch my wagon to this one, I have moved all the stuff out of the wagon, put it on eBay, sold the wagon itself to a German backpacker, and got on board on a whole different one!

Whilst all precautions have been taken to ensure a painless exit should the wagon say, break down, fall over a cliff or start taking on extra passengers (!), I really feel like the father in “The Children of the Oregon Trail” – headed off in a new direction, into the unknown, but knowing deep down, that it is the right thing to do.







Now – as long as I can avoid dying of dysentery……