The Irony Of Vacations

When you will get this newsletter, I will be sitting on a plane on my way back to Australia, after a whirlwind six-week vacation.

Let me report, Europe is officially open for travelling. Wherever we went, droves and droves of holidaymakers were jamming the tourist places as if there was another pandemic lurking behind the corner and if they don’t tick the destinations off their bucket list now, they might never will. A sentiment I share with them.

For me, there is another factor. I don’t I will be able to do long trips anymore. Within a few days of this trip I realized, I can’t walk as much as used to be able to. Future trips will be shorter and more relaxed, with plenty of rest time.

In six weeks, we (my husband and I) covered a lot. We landed in London and after getting over the jetlag we headed for Ireland for a week. There we visited Dublin, Blarney Castle, Cork, Killarney, Ring of Kerry, Limerick, Cliffs of Mohar, Connemara National Park and Kylemore Abby.

After covering most of the Atlantic coast of Ireland we came back to London to spend time with our daughter and son-in-law. In London, we visited the Tate museum, Natural History Museum, Albert Hall, Greenwich, Westminster Abbey and surrounding areas and several other local places. A week and a half later, we went first to Belgium spending time in Brussels and Brugge then to Amsterdam. In the last leg, we spent a week in Spain spending time in Orihuela, Torrevieja, Valencia, Cartagena and Alicante where we happened to be when the world-famous festival of San de Juan was going on.

As I write the names of these places, I am reliving the moments. My biggest regret is that I was not able to capture daily adventures in my notebook. There simply wasn’t time. When I mentioned that in one of my LinkedIn posts, a friend of mine, Carmen B wrote, “Don’t worry about writing. Just enjoy. The memories will form by themselves and then you can write about them.”

That helped me to loosen up. I parked the writing aside and concentrated on observing and enjoying. I also read a lot. About the places I was visiting, the new cultures and their history and also from the collection of books on my Kindle. That made me realize, how much I missed leisure reading. Too many writing assignments had left me no time to read for the pure joy of reading.

Now, the question is, “Did I enjoy my vacation?”

“You bet, I did.”

“Do I want to come back to freezing cold Canberra?”

“Yes, I do.”

I am missing home. I want to sleep in my bed and eat home-cooked meals.

That is the thing about vacations. When you haven’t been on one, you long to go. And when you are on one, you want to come back home.

Just before going on vacation, I wrote I will try writing a Lynda Berry-style book during the holidays. It didn’t happen. Instead, I picked up another hobby - urban sketching.

It was something I wanted to do for a long time but never got around to it. Looking at European architecture, once again I was inspired to try and I am glad I did. I really enjoyed it. The process of drawing intricate buildings is so soothing and meditative. There is something therapeutic about it.

On the same note, I managed to fulfil one of my dreams. Three years ago, when I visited V&A Museum for the first time, I saw several people sketching in one of the galleries. I told myself, one day, I will do that too.

It was a wild dream because I had no idea whether I will ever visit the museum again. When we came back to London from Spain we had a free day and we decided to visit the V&A Museum again. I took my sketchbook with me. While my husband did a guided tour, I sat in the same gallery and sketched. It was the best feeling in the world.

Holidays also give you the time and mindset to look at things from a new perspective. For the last two and half years, while being stuck at home, I was fully focused on writing and pushing out stuff. End June is the time when I review my annual goals to see where I am with them and what I need to do to achieve them.

I realized I had been very hard on myself. According to my 2022 Business Plan, I was to write and publish12 books. Although I have written three books already this year, they are not ready for publication. I have decided to take the pressure off me and take as much time as needed to publish them.

I am going to devote the second half of the year to finish my novel. If I am able to do that, it will be a major achievement. I am very proud of two achievements in the first half of the year - writing consistently on LinkedIn since January and developing and running the ‘Write Your Book In 30 Days’ course successfully with 16 participants.

Rest of the goals, I am going to take them easy as I know I will be travelling more in the second half of 2022.

What were your goals for 2022?

Have you reviewed them lately?

If not, now is the time.

I will be running a sprint Write Your Book In 30 Days from 18 July. If you are interested register your name here.

That’s all from me this week.

Neera Mahajan

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