Birthday Boy

"There's all my big birthday plans out the window then eh Tan!"

My big birthday plan was to be on a nice campsite, relaxed and enjoying the sun with a nice glass of Rose wine before a good evening meal.

Hmmmmm! Best laid plans an all that! Although to be fair I am on a nice campsite with a beautiful view of the magnificent Beynac Chateaux right there in front of me. 

It's just that there is no sunshine. In fact after last nights heavy thunder and gales I am amazed Sadie, awning, and us are still here this morning. I also have a headache, Tanya's been sick, I can't dry my washing, the so say 'wi fi' access on this campsite does'nt seem to work and the weather forecast says the bad weather is here for the next few days. 

Enough to make a guy feel quite low don't you think? Especially when it happens to be your sixty fourth birthday. Well that is exactly where I was headed this morning. Down and low. We got up to a dull grey drizzly morning. Tanya was sick and me finding two more ticks on her did not help. (I have tick removing kit so no problem just not nice. Although I love dropping the little sods in the gas burner and roasting them.)

A couple of words here about this journey. It is about fun and adventure but not completely. For the majority of my life I have been in relationships with partners/wives, family etc and sometimes wishing fervently to be as I am now. Free to do as I please. Those relationships, my family, children, grandchildren etc were/are vital in adding value, experience and enabling the best years of my life which were with Kate. All in all a pretty full and rich life. 

Circumstances are such that now I finally have time, health and wealth to get to know me. The ultimate relationship if you like. Oh! And it's great when the sun is shining and all is going according to plan. It is though surprising at how little it takes to pull that rug of secure'ness, or OK'ness, out from under your feet. Especially when for most of your life that 'insecure'ness' has enjoyed the supporting buttress of a good partner/wife.

So. How do you deal with a 'shitty' start to your sixty fourth birthday? Well firstly I remind myself that good or bad, like or dislike, up or down. All are just thoughts in my head. They come and they go and all involve the same two neurons (all I have left now!) rattling around the same old, and rapidly diminishing. neuronal pathways. I have choice as to which way I want to go. Whether it be up or down, like or dislike or, most importantly, action or inaction.

So; and secondly, I chose action. That's why I am now seated back in Sadie after having walked up to the Chateaux in the drizzly rain, paid the entrance fee cos Tanya was allowed in, and had a great time exploring this medieval and picture postcard Chateaux cum castle. It was the location for much of the filming of Joan of Arc and much of the re re-creation of medieval genuineness, or twenty first century ideas of medieval genuineness, has been left in place.

There is a certain strange type of humour comes as you stand in a fourteenth century barons bed chamber and note the outlet of the rudimentary toilet podium really did allow him to shit directly on his subjects way below at the bottom of the cliff. 

All in all a good outing and choice. I am back on track now and about to visit Andy, a regular at this site who is from Hebden Bridge. He is a folk musician cum guitar player and I am to borrow the cd of Jens Kommick, a german guitar player who sounded amazing as we listened to his cd yesterday while the sun was still shining.

A wee postscript.

It is now several hours later and after a wonderful time spent with Andy and Jane over a bottle of bubbly. Funny isn't it. How the sunshine I wished for my birthday did actually arrive. S'just that it didn't come from the blue sky above but directly from the hearts of fellow campers. Guess the right choice was made eh