Music, Loving, Laughing and Dancing

Last week, whilst enjoying the last few days of 2009, surrounded by four delightful puppies who seemed to grow in intelligence and confidence in the days we were looking after them, I stumbled across my horoscope and its predictions for my decade ahead. I say I stumbled across it, I actively looked for it, skipping almost instantly to the back of the magazine to see what pearls of wisdom it could offer me. The low self-esteem part of my being likes to hear people, albeit voiceless words grouping me with a plethora of others that happen to be born under a certain star, adorn me with advice and compliments.

This particular horoscope offered me the usual advice on money and relationships but its finishing note said that towards the end of the new decade I could start to expect music, loving, laughing and dancing.

Surely I should expect this everyday of my life?

Thankfully I do not take horoscopes as gospel and would will not wallow in the shadows until late 2019 comes about where the gift of music should be bestowed on me but it got me thinking about the last 5 months of 2009 and how I have experienced more music, love, laughter and dance then I have in a long long time.

5 months ago my fiancee and I left our 'ordinary' lives to wwoof around the UK. To 'wwoof' is to volunteer on organic farms, in woodland and permaculture projects in exchange for food and accommodation. We took with us a beautiful big black van full of essential kit, treasured possessions, facilitators of joy and many books. Vanny has served us very well. What I left behind was an admin job in an office which was slowly eating me from the inside out. I don't miss this job. I do miss some of the people I worked with.

So as I sit here in my mum's house on our temporary break from wwoofing as a fresh inch of snow falls each hour. I look forward to the next leg of our adventures and also look back on where we have been.

Here are the stories, the music, love, laughter and dance, the poetry, the aches and pains and the joys of being on the road.