I absolutely refuse to accept age as a limiting factor. I might be 40-something, but I've never felt like I've ever really emerged from my twenties. Other people - people I know and love - choose to allow their actions, choices, attitudes and philosophies to conform to the number printed on their last birthday card. I just can't. It's really that hard-wired in. I don't believe there's anything I can't do. I want to try new stuff. I want to have adventures. I don't just remember what it was like to be a kid: I still am a kid. Life experiences shape and hone what those new, fun things, will be, granted. I'm not taking up skateboarding. But I want to tell you about two things to illustrate this idea further.
First off, a couple of days ago I was driving from the southern Lake District in England, to Glasgow. A sensible driver might have elected to cut across to the M6 and get on that motorway at the earliest opportunity. However, my sat-nav had other - and, as it turned out, rather better - ideas. It wanted me to follow the road up past Windermere and Ullswater to join the M6 much further north at Penrith. I was happy to oblige … the road was phenomenal! A switchback black ribbon laid out across the countryside - For My Pleasure!
Now I drive, for work purposes, a Skoda Octavia estate. Diesel. This isn't the slickest, fastest or most responsive car on the planet. And it's not helped by being fairly heavily laden. Oh and then there's the roof-bars. And the ladders on the roof-bars. But tell me, honestly, what would you do, faced with that road ahead? I gunned it. I zipped up that road, I climbed the hills, I marvelled at the views as I cut yet another corner. Don't worry, when there were pedestrians, I slowed down. I'm not completely reckless. I want to live another day. But I had about as much fun as I legally could.
And, in fact, there was a limit to the fun I could have. Why? Other cars. Driven by 'sensible' people. Old people. Or people with an 'old' attitude, at any rate. The worst two, I have to tell you about. The first was a TVR. Now TVRs are taut, racing chassis, with lightweight carbon-fibre bodies on. And a powerful, responsive engine. Exactly the sort of car you can throw round Lake District roads with ease and pleasure. But not this one. Every time the road opened up ahead, I expected the driver to do the same. Once or twice - no more - he half-heartedly did so. I felt annoyance - partly because I wanted to get past him and not waste the road ahead, but also because I could see and sense the waste of his car. I got past him in the end. Bye-bye old man number one.
The second was some codger in a Golf Plus - itself a rather pointless car (who needs a Golf to be taller?) - and he was not so much annoying, as dangerous. I'd already overtaken - patiently and with plenty of margin for safety - several other cars, including large Jaguars and the like. Most were happy to assist my manoeuvre. But as I went to overtake the Golf, on a straight road I could see clearly ahead, he moved across to block me, and blared his horn. I could barely believe how stupid he was. Dangerous, and a kill-joy. Once I'd started to get past him, he swerved petulantly back onto his side of the road. Then flashed me as I got ahead of him, for good measure. Dick. Bye-bye old man number two.
The rest of the journey was, more or less, glorious. I so wish I'd been driving something more fun, but never mind. One day, I'll have another car as entertaining as my old Golf GTi Mk 1 …
Now onto the second example. For various reasons we haven't booked a proper holiday away this year. We went to Paris for Steve's birthday, of course, and we're off to France again in November for a long weekend, but though we both have a week or so of leave left, Steve wants to stay at home, and I'd like an adventure! So for the first time in a long while, I'm going abroad on my own. I'm going to Berlin, one of my favourite cities, and one I know quite well. But, as someone once said, the travelling is all part of the adventure.
And so the plan is to get a train into London, and take an afternoon Eurostar from St Pancras to Gard du Nord, then pick up the overnight sleeper from Gard de l'Est, travelling through the night to arrive in Berlin around nine in the morning. I'm going to try and stay in the same place Ian, Steve and I stayed back in January 2007. It was very friendly, the breakfasts were great, and it was in the kind of laid-back, artistic district of Prenzlauer Berg just off the Schönhauser Alee, which was very appealing.
Things I don't want to do: the Pergamon Museum; Checkpoint Charlie; the Fernsehturm; our old flat in Leipzigerstrasse.
Things I do want to do: a pilgrimage to the hospital where I was so well treated in 1978 - if it's still there; a visit to the Holocaust Memorial, which I understand to be visually stunning, and which we failed to get to three years ago; pounding the pavements and re-learning the city as it's changed since the Wall came down; hanging out in bars and meeting people.
Sounds like an adventure to me. I'll let you know how the planning goes.
Stay young!
