It's all gone a bit quiet round here...

That's mainly because I have a new favourite thing, namely: instagram. A little photo-sharing app that lets you run pictures through a series of retro filters, tag them, and share them with online friends. It's insanely addictive. I've probably come to it quite late, as I'm one of the last people I know to have an iphone. But it has certainly been keeping me from blogging. Maybe I can claim I've been micro-blogging, in a way. Oh no, wait - that's twitter. Or maybe I can consider it photo-blogging. Anyway, if you happen to want to follow my feed, you can do so here and find me as @bittersweetcity if you happen to use instagram too.

A new life manifesto, courtesy of instagram?

The other reason it's all been a bit quiet is probably because this is the start of my 30th year and I've become much more focused on the future. There's a pressing need to shake things up this year, which if you've been reading previous posts, you will know has been on the agenda for the Mister and I for almost 3 years now. Careers have really taken over our lives for the past year, but the continued stresses and upheavals felt by changes at my place of work, and the sector itself, are spurring me on to do something different. And I mean it this time. I'm hoping to be able to quit my job by August and with savings, attempt the long-awaited travelling and working abroad scenario I've been going on about on here for years. I'm working on the plan in earnest now. Here are my prequequisites: 

1. Must be French-speaking. I've been sort-of speaking well-ish for coming up to 12 years. It's time to get bloody fluent. Oui, je voudrais parler couramment, quoi.

2. Must be warmer than Britain. 

That's not a lot to ask for, surely(!) I'm considering anything from training for a TEFL course to pouring café lattés in Bordeaux. Or preferably, rum punches in Mauritius.

The thing that scares me the most is waking up on my 30th birthday on August 25th and thinking, "I know exactly what the next 12 months will be like." I am frightened of having everything all planned out, and yet I want to know what I won't be doing this time next year.

It means having to take risks. Scary, but good. It's the last time in my life I think I'll be able to, before I need to consider if, or when, I have children; before I need to make plans to be near my mum, as I'm her only child and she is on her own. I know being free of responsibility sounds selfish, and it's never truly possible. 

But just once I'd like to try it. 

Surely I'm not alone in having thoughts like these. People of the interweb: do you also have them? Have you acted upon them? Better still, have any success stories or tips you can share? I'd be ever so grateful. 

Til' next time (stick around, I feel an increase in productivity coming on ;)...

Escape

This time two weeks ago, I was waking up on a sunny morning in Bordeaux, looking for the first café au lait of the day. The Mister was across the road, buying pains au chocolat, and we were looking at one another sadly, for it was the day we were due to fly back to London.

We had three hours to kill before it was time to get on the airport bus; that most depressing of transport types. We had already walked most of the length and breadth of the city but we knew it was important to keep moving and not think too much about the holiday taking its last gasps of air, and light, before being consigned to a dusty suitcase of memories.

We walked around until lunchtime, as the students at the University streamed out of classrooms and onto sunny squares, as office workers took cigarette breaks and murmured covertly over cups of coffee, and as more new tourists streamed into the city, gaping up at the magnificent sea-horses at Girondins, and snapping the circus big top pitched at the Esplanade des Quinconces. We met a sweet German couple in their seventies who asked us to take their photo with their old 35mm camera. They beamed for the picture like two lovesick schoolchildren. The Garonne glistened and beckoned as children played in the fountains at the Miroir d'eau.  I took a breath, on the tram back to the Gare St Jean, and held it, sitting very still, while I listened to that little voice inside, which said, why not stay?

Collecting our bags from the hotel, we had a minor argument, about something trivial, like luggage tags, or whose bag held the dirty laundry. It was only because we were both sad, and we had nothing to be angry with Bordeaux about. It was like it was something to do whilst waiting for the airport bus, because it was better than thinking about what we were doing; leaving this beautiful place which had enchanted us and made us want to stay and do anything just to have a little dog and live in an apartment with a balcony and raise French-speaking children.

We put our things underneath the bus and they got pushed to the back, as they always do. A family of South Africans sat near to us and talked very loudly about their cars and houses, their tannned blondeness and plentiful gold watchery seeming out of place on an airport bus. As we passed the Grand Theatre, and then the Piscine Judaïque, and finally the international school,  I cried a little. I turned my head away to the window, so no-one would see, and I made a promise to myself.

One day, little voice. One day soon, I will.