Pre trip impressions

The first part of our travels should bring to the foreground our own separate agendas. Yvonne will head into the Limousin for a week of tutored painting. We expect this to be an opportunity to test her skills and to develop new ways of dealing with a countryside so different to Australian bush.

Randall is still yearning for his bolt hole in France. After reaching a point in 2007 where the Tarn area around Albi was looking good, we decided that the Tarn was not on in 2009. We are now back into the Lot/Dordogne areas. Randall is really looking forward to his 10 days walking through areas and places that we have enjoyed in the past. He will go within a kilometre or two of 3 gites where we have holidayed over the past 8 years. A special moment to be repeated is to sit on THAT SEAT at Loubressac (just a bit further along towards the church in this shot) whilst watching the tractors below harvesting. Thinking of just how good things could be, if chances were taken.

As Australia continues to descend into trivia with a Prime Minister so focussed on self publicity and so inept at leadership and management that he needs to exploit a young girl's gutsy sailing for his own selfish needs, I will be very glad to be away from all that, deep in the Lot countryside shortly. I can hardly wait.

I am also more pleased than ever that we opted to go for “transition” earlier than most so that we can deploy our more relatively youthful bodies and energies exploring the world rather than waiting until we had “enough” capital behind us and our bodies less willing. These last few years have been enlightening as we have battled through the GFC and now through ever more stupid and self serving politicians to ensure that we can get by on what we have saved and to grow these savings further. Our financial skills have been given a real workout by both sides of politics but it will take more than their greed and financial ineptitude to keep us down from here on in. We have not even left Australia for this year's exploits and we are now in early planning for 2011 and more searching for meaning in this world.