Packing up

The week before my flight consisted of tying up all the loose ends in London. Packing up my room, wrapping final scenes for a short film filmed earlier in the year and performing in a one night show the evening before I'd book the van to take me back to my Nan's. When I took on the role in the play I thought it would be an idyllic way to leave London. Though my optimistic thinking didn't fully consider how stressful it might be chucking in a heap of the extra rehearsals during my only days off before moving out.

It's ok though, with a little help from my friends it all worked out.

In reflection I can kind of see that I made myself more and more busy to stop myself from digesting the reality of what I'd taken on.

Though you can't hide from things for ever as I realised on my way to the airport.

After I was all packed up and ready to go with my beautiful friend Pops and new mate Charlie the van man, we made for Oxford. I called my Dad who knew I was coming home but seemed surprised that it was to go to John O'groats. I reminded him that "I wasn't joking when I brought it up at dinner last time I was home". He's ex forces and quizzed me on what equipment I'd got. This is when he discovered the bag I was planning on taking and told me to forget it. I'd now be taking one he'd gone on tour with; a trusty bergen I later named Olive.

He dropped the bag off with an array of other things I might need but didn't have and instructed me to have the bag packed at 18:00hrs. 6 O'clock came and I had packed the liner, full to the brim. Unsure how this huge bin liner looking thing was going to fit into the bergen I started to unpack it. This is where my Dad enters slightly worried at my lack of intuition. Together with my Nan we started again, fitting the liner into the bag and then the bits and bobs.

At this point my nerves started to set in and the jokey exterior i'm incased in inflated to protect me from acknowledging it. I thought it would be funny to say that I wasn't taking a swimsuit because "from tomorrow onward I was a woman with nature!"- and would bath in mystical lakes, nude. Now considering the fact it was September and I was planning on walking until the end of November, I would be in Scotland then England and the audience consisted of my Nan and Dad - I can understand why they didn't laugh. But the fact they took me seriously made me more adamant. Tensions heightened and due to my lack of seriousness I was left to pack the rest of my bag alone.

I regretted my stubbornness about the swimsuit within the first week of the walk. One of the only times I was camping by an almost completely secluded lake, fully clothed I dipped my foot in to test the water, the cold shot through me so fast and harsh I got brain freeze. Off I went to cuddle the baby wipes warm.

My bedroom window - Walthamstow

Thats a wrap

Too much stuff club