Returning home after a journey is always a little weird. I’m struggling to let go of that wonderful feeling of being on the road, with nothing but unhurried time up my sleeve and where to eat tonight, the most pressing thing on my mind.
Mr Books and I love exploring the back ways and byways, avoiding the main roads as much as possible. We love detours and unexpected finds. We enjoy chatting to fellow travellers, local baristas, wine makers, waiters, bookshop owners and the neighbours around our Airbnb stays.
Sometimes Mr Books has to work when we travel. When the sun shines, I walk and walk and walk. When it rains, I read. He scoffed at the number of books I took on this journey. I refused to count them. They were all the half-read books by my bed. I was determined to finish some of them.
I finished five in total – The Pea-Pickers, Bring Up the Bodies, This is Happiness, Second Place, and First Person Singular. And I made a good dent on All That Swagger, Into the Loneliness, Wolf Hall Companion and Emile Zola: A Brief Introduction.
I collected three more on the way – The Oxford Literary Guide to Australia and Australian Literature (in Rutherglen) and The Penguin Anthology of Australian Women’s Writing (in Blackheath).
Mr Books finished The Glass Hotel and almost finished Damascus. He collected a new pair of shoes (in Cooma).
Tonight I feel restless and lost. I cannot settle to anything. Thursday I return to work. I wish I was still on the road.
Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness hosts A Poem For a Thursday, you guessed it, every Thursday.
This Reading Life 
You finished more books than you brought home. I don’t know, but for me I’d find that reason to celebrate!
I’ve definitely got a yearning to do a bit of traveling, and after just a taste, I’d have a hard time settling back in, too.
The Henry Lawson is quite nice–it sent me off to read the whole thing.
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I hope you enjoyed the whole poem; I’m just glad my beds were NOT,
camp beds and tramp beds and damp beds,
And my beds were dry beds on drought-stricken ground,
Hard beds and soft beds, and wide beds and narrow –
For my beds were strange beds the wide world round.
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I may have slept on a damp bed once or twice while camping. I did not enjoy it… But as Vergil says, after the fact, perhaps even these things (forsan et haec) can make a good story!
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Indeed 😂
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It sounds like a lovely holiday… I’ve got itchy feet too.
But not for travel in Australia. I want to be out of here!
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We love a road trip and usually fit one in anywhere we go, so having the entire trip on the road is fun. We’re very fortunate, we’ve had some fabulous overseas adventures during our lifetime, so happy to wander closer to home until it’s safer. Not sure I will be booking a trip to NZ in a hurry, although I’d love to go back one day. We’re already discussing where we will drive next!
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In my experience, New Zealanders are too quick to have a go at hapless Australians on holiday. From Napier to Auckland, we were flabbergasted at being attacked by complete strangers about all the things they think are wrong with Australia, when we had said and done absolutely nothing to raise the topics they were keen to get off their chests. One woman at a writers festival event, completely off topic, even snarled at us that they would never want to federate with us… as if this was something Australia was trying to bully them into doing. As if!!
So, no, I’m in no hurry to go back to be insulted again.
But I’d love to go to New Caledonia again. My French school does immersion programs in France and Nouvelle Caledonie, and while I wouldn’t go to France at the moment or any time soon, I am hoping that a travel bubble might open up in New Caledonia before too long.
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Hurray! It is always nice to see another Thursday poem. I have really enjoyed your photos on Instagram from your trip. I’ve been traveling vicariously through you.
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I’ve been very remiss with my poetry lately. Still reading some occasionally but forgetting to post! I thought about taking a photo as I walked to work yesterday, but I was so uninspired. That flat, post-holiday feeling was firmly in place!
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You can rely on Henry for a good bush poem. Written from the inner suburbs of Sydney and London. That was mean (but true, he was hardly in the bush after he was 20 or so).
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