Should we cruise around the world?
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2006-02-09 07:24:09 - Graham Ellis
Cruise Liner in Venice.Waiting for a pizza in the Acropolis on Tuesday, I was reading the material they provided ("The Sun"). A self-evaluation quiz - "how strong is your marriage" - caught my eye for a few seconds and I read (paraphrasing):
Which of these best describes your view of the future?
1. I look forward to the day that we're not together
2. We're saving up for a cruise around the world when we retire.
3. Goodness only know what next year will bring.
OK - it just HAD to be number 3.
A year ago, I wouldn't have expected us to be expanding / growing the way we are with the seismic shift that projects such as Well House Manor will bring ... and as plans for that develop, we're seeing other natural ways of how it will work into our lives. The train campaign - increasing the awareness of the train services to Melksham and the threat they're under - has brought us from being unknown in the town and sitting at home most evenings through to a frenetic series of meetings - "if it's Wednesday it must be ...", and appointments on non-training days that are timed at two-hourly intervals. Not everything has worked out as well as we might have hoped or reasonably expected but - hey - there's a risk in everything and where something doesn't go as planned it can be amended to suit all or, if need be, a decision taken to stop it going too far off the rails.So, rather than looking back, I look forward and I have to say that the Sun's third option just has to be the right answer. I can add that I'm certain of one thing - that future will be Lisa and Graham in amongst all the aspect marked "don't know" and "we'll see". And one other thing I'm certain of too - we're not looking to tie up just yet!
There was a lovely smell of veggie pizza wafting out from behind the counter, and a young couple came in and wanted to sit where I had the paper open. I didn't continue reading the quiz - I just took a quick look at the scoring for the question that had set me thinking. Option 3 was middle-ranked, but it strikes me that we would be pretty sad and insular if, with all the exciting things we're fortunate to have around us, we were already looking forward to putting the brakes on it all and going off on a boat.