Day 351, The Last Post

El viaje se acaba. The journey ends. Day 351 of our grown up gap year, as Su calls it, dawned and we awoke to see sun-drenched French countryside through the window of our overnight train to Paris from Barcelona.

We chose to travel overland in the train-hotel so that the journey becomes an event rather than merely a means of getting from A to B.  You get dinner, breakfast and a cabin with two beds, a shower and WC. Somehow the planned leisurely 12 hour ride took 14 and a half. The crew had no idea when we would arrive. At 1015 when I asked the larger than life waiter in the restaurant car he told me "we are arriving" but we were still going at 1130.  Perhaps he was making a philosophical point - we had been arriving ever since leaving Barcelona. Perhaps he too has learned that life is about journeys not destinations.

Since we left work and the UK on 14 September last year there have been many obvious highlights such as spending time with  family in Cameroon, making two trips of a lifetime around South America and exploring Spain.  But the real luxury has been having time and space to recover from life in London where often the apparently urgent gets prioritised over that which is really important. Removing 50 hours of work per week and related stress revitalises the body and mind. I feel physically more active but less tired and mentally more stimulated in a mind less cluttered. It's also amazing what a year of good sleep can do.

It has been a great opportunity to think - to make sense of the past and work out what is important in the future, whilst always remembering to live in the present.

As the train finally reaches the end of the line, pulling in to St Pancras on the last day of this special year, we don't know what the next year will bring but whatever it is we are ready and looking forward to it.

First glimpse of London:
the Olympic Rings at St Pancras Eurostar Terminal