No more mosquitoes

More than six weeks have passed since I came home to England and I figure it's about time I tried to finally wrap this blog up so that I can move onto something else. There are actually about ten blog entries I want to publish here before I can close the book on God's Lonely Man so I suspect it's going to be quite a while before I really can move on.

It's been a busy period to be sure, filled with lots of happy reunions and plenty of fun in pubs and clubs and gigs. I ackowledge that I've been quite fortunate - everyone agrees that I've fallen on my feet. There was a suprisingly fat cheque from the Aussie Inland Revenue waiting for me when I got back which kept me in beer and fags for a while. Within a couple of weeks and with the help of my friends I managed to find a great place to live and an (irregular) income.

Deep respect to Jake, Nick, Rich, Foxy and Breo for sorting me out in various ways. I owe you boys.

The transition hasn't been entirely smooth though. Only a matter of hours after I arrived the phrase 'The grass is always greener...' popped into my head and the sentiment never seemed more true. On countless occasions during my last few weeks in India I daydreamed on trains and buses and in hotel rooms about my homecoming - I'd been feeling ready to exit India for quite a while, and yet pretty much as soon as I got back I wanted to return again. It was simply that I felt I understood India, despite feeling homesick I felt at home there, I felt grounded and in control... well, most of the time anyway.

Back in the UK I felt like I was walking through a dream, interacting but not engaging with my friends and family. It was a bit scary - I kept thinking, "Who are you people?! I don't understand you and you don't understand me!" Fortunately I was suffering from a temporary albeit weird kind of reverse culture shock and after a week or so it had abated, although I still feel it sometimes. I find myself supressing panic in supermarkets, fuming at the weather, staring at Big Brother in numb horror.

The greatest joy of my return is undeniably my family. I have two brothers in Bristol - one older, one younger. Last week I found myself getting depressed by the weather, which was - frankly - a joke. It rained incessantly and it was cold and windy. Apparently there were warmer days in England in January than there were last week. I'm sure one or two of my readers have not yet had the pleasure to grace these shores - well, let me tell you guys - everything you've heard about the weather in England is true - it's fucking shit.

In all fairness and in order not to annoy the Anglophiles I should point out that's there's lots of good things about this country too. For example, they serve pints of cider in every pub, there's fast wireless internet connections, great gigs and club nights, lots of interesting people, loads of hot women in Bristol, great Indian restaurants and, what with all the immigrants - illegal or otherwise - it's very multi-cultural.

But I digress. I was talking about my brothers, Jake and Tom, and the weather-induced doldrums.

So, I was getting pissed off with the rain last week and as a result I was feeling strangely edgy and unhappy. I thought I'd go and visit Jake, I knew that a chat with him would help me get my head straight. I turned up and found that Tom was there too so I had the benefit of two sets of positive brotherly vibes aimed at me AND I was given a roast dinner AND I watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica. Sweet medicine for the soul! I felt positive and refreshed as I walked home. It helped that it had temporarily stopped raining but the point is that this kind of friendship is just priceless. I don't know how I coped for so long with my family so far away.

The truth is that the last six weeks have been full of ups and downs... just like the six weeks before that and the six months before that and the six years before that and - well, you get the picture. Life is just like that, isn't it? It's hard work whichever way you look at it. Life's been pretty straight-forward for me over the last couple of years and now it's threatening to become complicated again. That scares me. I didn't even need to work on my friendships when I was travelling because people were usually in and out of my life within the space of about a week and most of them had just as few problems as I did. Now I'm home and the pressures of life are taking their toll on me just as they have been on my friends and family while I've been away.

I understand now why half the travellers who return home get sucked back into the grinder and half leave again at the earliest opportunity. Of course, I'm over-simplifying the issue, but it's to illustrate a point. There must be some way to retain a balance between your dreams and aspirations and the realities of every day life! That's the only thing I'm struggling with at the moment - apart from the weather. I think in this culture it's really, really hard to find such a balance.

Another reason to smile is the robo-babe from Battlestar Galactica - Cylons never looked this sexy when I was a kid!