*WH*
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009by uninspired Rachael
30km from Carcassonne
“I don’t know what to blog about today,” I moaned.
”What do you mean? It was a beautifully scenic drive today!” Rob countered.
”It might have been, but it’s a bit boring to just write “Today the scenery was very nice. The End.””
”Just put up pictures from today then.”
”But I did that yesterday. Can’t get away with that again.”
What makes it even worse is Grandpa is sitting out on his park bench totally inspired, tapping away at his keyboard like a woodpecker that thinks there’s no tomorrow. He was invited to come for a Carcassonne match, but responded, “Not just now, not while I’m inspired to write.” Aaaahhhh, if only I could think of something.
The disciplines of writing leads me to the wh-questions.
Who?
It’s us still! Here are the kiddos yesterday:
Where?
We’re up at two and a half thousand feet in a generous layby off the one road that is winding its way over the hills.
Wooden seats nestle amongst the trees on one side of the roadway and on the other marble tables are flanked by concrete benches, all in the shade of enormous trees that proved to be a fantastic imaginative playground for a couple of hours while we prepared dinner. Oh yes, dinner. We gave it a Mediterranean name in honour of our new location – the further south we have ventured, the more Med it has looked. House colours have turned to predominantly varying shades of orange, pink and peach – roof tiles have turned from grey slate shingles with one curved edge to rounded terracotta “half-pipes”. Sunflowers still smile at us from their bonnetted faces, but there are also vineyards – row upon row of short stubby self-supporting grapevines laden with green fruit.
When?
Today.
Why were we born now? How different would life have been for us if we had been born seven hundred years ago? Who would we have been? What would we have done? Would we have travelled? It’s impossible to know. Although we certainly would not have been born in New Zealand! What if we hadn’t been born in NZ now? What if we had been born in Vietnam? Or Mongolia? I doubt we’d have been doing this.
What?
Travelling. Occasionally flirting with the idea of returning home. Not because we want to. Just because we know we have to. Grandpa asked the other day how we will cope with being stationary. He also confessed that he’s not looking forward to returning! I didn’t have an answer. Not for either of us.
I could happily keep moving – we could just keep driving down through Spain and before we’d know it we would be in Africa. Imagine that! Without time constraints we could get to know a place, not just zip through. But we are making the most of the time we have and are thankful that we are not going home in October. We could have been on the final countdown, but have a two-month reprieve….
Why?
Why not?
How?
Who cares?!
Time on the road: need to check Jboy13’s record!
Distance covered: 115km
rayres