home now...perhaps.....

It wasn’t a “road less traveled”.

But I hadn’t traveled on this road for many a year.

When I was twenty-five, I went round the world with a pink suitcase.

I had been working in repertory theatre earning pennies, when I got the part of Miss Casewell in “ the Mousetrap.” They told me to dye my hair because it was the same colour as the scenery. They paid me five times what I had been earning in Chester and Canterbury. I had my orange Peugeot bicycle and my flat in Clapham that I shared with Jillie. We ate brown rice and vegetables and filled the bath with a garden hose hooked up to the hot tap in the kitchen.

At the end of the year at Monkswell Manor , the snowed-in hotel of Mousetrap fame, where … and skip this part if you think you might ever be crazy enough to see “ The Mousetrap”,….. the detective “ did” it, and I was his lesbian sister; …I had put away a bit of dosh.

What shall I do? I said.

Shall I put the money into a savings account or shall I travel round the world with Pan Am?

My mother drove me to Heathrow airport. I remember this. I was thinking it was a really bad idea.

“ What an adventure.” She said. “ Call me. Reverse the charges. “

 I traveled to New York and Houston. To San Francisco and Los  Angeles. To Tokyo and Kyoto and Osaka…to Hong Kong and the Chinese territories…to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and India.

This time I didn’t have a pink suitcase. It was green.

 It wasn’t an untraveled road, but I was choosing the one with less tire tracks.

It was friends that I missed. When I was traveling.

Whenever I have been “away’, it is friends with whom I have stayed in contact.

When I have been in America , these curious decades; it is to friends that I have sent letters with stamps and e-mails with attachments.

Do you lose people if you don’t want to lose people…? No.

Do you lose sounds of Westminster Abbey or Paddington Station?

Do you lose the warm waters of Greece or the dusty chaos of Jaipur?

The water traffic of Inle Lake, the motor bike taxi of Bangkok.

It will be friends that I will miss when I am back in my blue kitchen in Santa Monica.
So...to Richard and Geoff, Joy, Auntie Connie and Uncle Gordon, Barbara and Oliver, Gabes, Rupert and Dervla, Libby and Molly, Laurie and Polly, Angela, Malcom, Matthew and Gary, Colin, Cindy, Steven, Vicky and Gregor, Flora, Barry, Nigel, Ben, Amanda and Brian, Mary, Shelly, Bess, Rik and Sally, Maloney, Charlie, Bumble and Charles, Dawn and Po, Hilary, Callum, Carl, Chaiyo, Martin,  Barbara, Dorothy, Julie, Joel, Krista, Frank, Steffie, Jane, David, Stephanie.......a big thank you for your company.....

Joel, my nephew, on the south bank.

Angela on the beach in Anglesey

Suffolk. Richard, Lizzie, Derek, Geoff and Sally...and the Nicoise salad

Carl and Chaiyo

Carl and Cooper

Frankie

David at the BFI

David and cakes

Dorothy and goat and boy with no knickers

Barbara on her birthday

malcom in kew gardens

Stephanie and Beef the puppy

Stephanie

Richard and Geoff

Richard

bess Jones

Steven and Cindy

Peter, Rupert and Flo on Rupert's birthday

Cindy and Gregor posing for the Littlewoods catalogue. Cindy's idea.....

Vicky 

Nigel at the Royal Academy

The Hampshire dogs of Rupert and Dervla. Blue, Bumble and Belle

Charlie and Elizabeth the 2nd.

Barbara and Ollie

Barry on his rooftop in Manchester

Martin and Hilary

Julie at lake Kornas

Sister Julie

Suffolk. Candlelight. Summer. Ah, yes........

Oh…if there was only a table big enough for everyone…..

Hang on…. I think I’ve found one… it’s 40 foot wide. I have plates galore and wine in the fridge.
Bring your own chairs and a story to tell after supper………