Recalculating route...

Detours, old friends and first times (and enormous feet...)

Earlier this week I was a bit lost. Not in the ‘messy middle that comes before the gorgeousness of change’ way that is a whole 2025-vibe for me, but quite literally. To be clear, I was driving and the sat nav had my back but I’ve never been one to completely trust that technology isn’t trying to fuck with me…

Heading to The Shire (Gloucestershire) to hang out with a couple of Pink Ladies (school friends par excellence), I succumbed to learned behaviour and plugged the postcode into the sat nav when I got in the car. I know this route like the back of my hand - and how long it takes - so was somewhat surprised to see a different route pop up and an additional 30 minutes added to my journey. Cue expletives and a quick message to R letting her know that I was not going to be on time (which pissed me off more than her because she’s not a complete control freak like me!)

Anyway, in almost comedic analogy, an unexpectedly closed road meant I had to take a markedly different route to get to a place I’ve been visiting for decades. Junctions I would have turned left at without thinking had me heading in the opposite direction, muttering under my breath about the time this was adding to my journey and berating myself for not having known this was going to happen and therefore being able to control the whole situation. Oh the irony. Or was it the universe trying to tell me to slow down, enjoy the view, take time to see things differently and not worry about how I get to where I need to be but to trust the process and know that I’ll end up right where I’m supposed to be?

When the detour finally brought me out to a familiar spot on the road, it was just before my favourite part of the drive. A windy, tree-lined road with a steep drop on one side that never gives me the flubbers (a story for another day) as it offers up a first view of The Shire in all its glory. With views stretching out towards the Welsh border; Sudeley Castle, Belas Knap and Winchcombe directly below, it’s a visual meditation and I felt my shoulders and jaw relax.

It’s not ‘home’ - that was 75 miles behind me at this point - but it is the place where some of my oldest friends live, close to our teenage stomping ground and where there is always a blanket of acceptance and love just waiting to wrap itself around me. I’ve read a lot recently about how important it is to make new friends in midlife because they will just know you as you are now, without being clouded by your job, family set-up, commitments etc. And whilst I don’t disagree, there is something so very special about the friends who’ve known you since childhood, before you ‘became’ any of the things that adulthood brings. The decades of shared memories where the same stories nearly always surface whenever we meet - like life rafts in sometimes stormy seas - keeping us connected across the months and the miles, making every meeting feel like we’re just catching up in the Sixth Form Common Room after double English.

Will we ever work out exactly where all of our nicknames originated (probably not), was there ever a time when I had a fringe at school (absolutely not), did we all fancy the same boys (almost certainly), do we count ourselves incredibly lucky to have a friendship group that has lasted as many decades as there are people in it (five, and yes, so bloody lucky).

I’d headed to The Shire on Wednesday because I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been able to schedule a mid-week catch up with some of my favourite people. The date I had suggested coincided with a floating sound bath session that R was planning to attend, scheduled to coincide with the strawberry moon. As we are now firmly in my Trying New Stuff Era, I took this as a sign that I was about to pop my sound bath cherry. I can’t think of anyone else I would have wanted to experience this with - R is one of the kindest, most empathetic souls I know and she put me under no pressure whatsoever to take part but made sure that I was completely comfortable with what was going to happen.

I can’t deny that I was nervous - more in a “fuck, why have I signed up to wear a swimming costume in front of all these people I don’t know” but that’s the kind of shit-talking nonsense I am attempting to be completely done with. No, it was more a feeling of nervous anticipation that disappeared once I had safely negotiated my way onto the ridiculously comfortable lilo and closed my eyes. I can’t deny that, as a consequence of being nearly six foot tall and having my feet dangling off the end of said lilo, I was a little worried that my ‘enormous feet’* (see below) would gently whack the side of some poor unsuspecting stranger’s head during the 90 minute session. Or that I’d succumb to the impending relaxation so deeply that I’d wake myself - and everyone else - up, snoring like a congested warthog.

But no, once I was on that lilo, eyes closed and in the moment, it was glorious. Deeply relaxing and with what I can only describe as a vivid ‘light show’ going on inside my head. If I hadn’t know how long the session had lasted I would not have been able to tell you whether it was five minutes or five hours but I do know that I felt calmer afterwards than I’ve felt in months and I slept, no not like a baby, but like I’d been awake for days. I woke refreshed, not only had I tried something else for the very first time and loved it, but I’d combined it with a healthy dose of quality time with R in her beautiful home and garden, catching up properly and putting the world to rights. That I also managed to squeeze in quick squeezes with two of the other three Pink Ladies was the icing on the cake. And J, there’s a squeeze with your name on it ready and waiting!

Driving home from The Shire I forgot to put the sat nav on - blame that state of deep relaxation - and started off on the drive I know so well. The road closure was still in place so I had to detour again - a reminder that sometimes you have to override your brain’s learned behaviour to stop it doing what it’s always done. Because what’s that favourite quote of mine again? The one I’ve used so many times at work especially over the last few years, often whilst holding my head in my hands and laughing maniacally. Oh yes…

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.”
Often attributed to Albert Einstein but only after his death and without firm supporting evidence (want to bet it was actually first said by an exasperated woman whose name has been lost to history?)

* On holiday in Majorca with my then boyfriend (now husband) circa 2001, I booked a massage in the hotel spa. I should really put ‘hotel’ and ‘spa’ in inverted commas because neither is an accurate description of what was on offer. Anyway, I walked into the treatment room - painted salmon pink with absolutely no soft furnishings or other decoration, a floor that looked like it was sluiced clean at the end of every day and a massage table that could have doubled as a dentist’s chair. I did as I had been instructed (take off all your clothes and lie on your front under the sheet) and then the lady tasked with massaging me into deep relaxation entered the room. Her first words, “Oh my God, your feet are enormous!” ensured that I neither relaxed nor have I ever enjoyed a massage since as those words ring in my head every time I enter a treatment room. And, for the record, if my feet were any smaller I would topple over (keep telling yourself that, Big Foot!)