Travel

Well, come rain or shine I should write this blog, whether there's something interesting happening or not. It is now pretty quiet at the moment, certainly no events I can report, just normal boring life in London's more salubrious suburbs. It seems at the moment that many women like me while they are in America (I have a lot of online friends there) but as soon as they would hit British territory the force field would operate and put them off. I have been to America twice, and found both there and here the people are the friendliest and easiest to get on with that I've met. I don't intend to move there at my time of life (they wouldn't let me work there anyway, which is ironic as I don't actually work here either!), but if only I could ship the lot of them over here that I know and we could see how it went.

There are a few that could tempt me over there as well to see them, but as yet none have invited me. If I need a good reason to go there, that would be it. Nowadays I prefer my travel to be of the day trip variety, much less trouble and no time to get bored with some godforsaken corner of the world that is probably their equivalent of Southend or Neasden and their own nationals would rarely go to anyway. My experiences of abroad have been varied, but I find my energy and enthusiasm for spending time away has reduced with the reality of staying somewhere else compared to the imagination in advance. I can go shopping, use public transport, see beaches and cities anywhere in Britain, and apart from usually better weather I see far more similarity in each place I go to than the differences in houses and landscape I do come across.
America seems far closer to home because I can find my way around and go shopping as we share a language, but though I haven't been there I reckon I wouldn't feel like that in another English speaking country, though unless I do I can't be sure.

I see it as an asset to be so comfortable with my own surroundings not to need so much variety. I've done it and it isn't all it's cracked up to be. Of course I've had some great holidays abroad, but most depended on the quality of the hotel where I usually spent about 90% of my time, combined with the (usually English) people I met there. On the positive side the nicest place I've been is the Washington DC Hilton, which also had the best pool area which could have been anywhere in the world though it was in the middle of a major city.
I've also had a few great holidays in fancy beach hotels in France and Israel, but have grown out of the family holiday thing now so wouldn't fit in any more there. Morocco and Spain were also nice, as was Scandinavia and Amsterdam, it's just I've 'done them' now and fascinating as they were, have less need to clock up more and more new locations just for the hell of it. I certainly intend at least a few more day trips, and please God if I ever have a family will probably go away with them, but as things are now, the holidays can wait.