Tues 9 Dec: Closing Time

I find myself in the last days of my employment. Come Thursday, my career as a teacher, a life which I have known for the past eight years, will be done. The experience which I have known every day as the present is slipping spectrally into a past: my past.

As for what waits ahead? There is doubt, certainly. Yet I am happy to be doubtful about things because if I wasn’t a little fearful of what lies ahead then I don’t think that the whole thing would be worth doing. There is something about the unknown – of place, of experience, of spirit – which promises to mark the distinction between that which is ordinary and that which is different.

Once work is done, I shall have the time to look more carefully at arranging my travel up to Dunnet Head, to buy a last few bits of essential kit (some waterproof gloves and a tougher outer layer have been new additions this week), and to take on some walking practice. I feel that Brighton-to-London, or Canterbury-to-London might offer a suitable warm-up.