“It’ll seem much quicker on the way back,” darling husband reassured me.
Here I was again, hoisted on my own petard of faulty memory, thinking that this time I could add in a new activity for us to do together. Having regular beach walks, going to the movies, having dinner, or more likely, breakfast is about as far as our list extends. He’s extremely fit, and I am moderately fit; and only from the beginning of this year, when I bucked a lifetime of disliking exercise by starting, then enjoying, a weekly functional weights regime. With my new-found strength and stamina, could we add hiking onto our list of mutual pastimes?
Did I not remember our Bali honeymoon trip when instead of lounging by the pool reading, I ended up parasailing? I hung in the sky, and far below me puttered a banged-up dinghy, and I wondered if this would be my last hurrah.
Had I forgotten our bike riding trip to Cambodia, where halfway into the muggy ride I was overtaken with a migraine, and had to hail a tuk-tuk, get the driver to strap the bike to its flimsy front and ferry me on the ostentatious ride of shame back to the hotel?
No, dear reader, I did not remember any of these salutary lessons. Or instead, I believed in my new-found strength due to above-mentioned regular weights training. Hiking Kitty’s Gorge together would be a breeze. Level 4? Pshaw. No sweat.
As today’s quote highlights; “Experience keeps a dear school, but a fool will learn in no other.”
So accordingly, around three hours into the walk, we had made it to the destination where there was a carpark, toilet and tables. It’s a spot that would have been discoverable by an Uber. That was my tuk-tuk escape moment, but I let this rescue rope slip from my grasp without even reaching for it. After a short rest, we turned back to make the trek to the starting point.
It may not surprise you to know that it was not quicker on the way back. If anything, it was more taxing than the walk there, because I was already tired. By the end, I had dubbed the Kitty’s Gorge walk “Always Another Hill” because the path followed the river at times, then scaled the magnificent hills in an undulating pattern which is lovely to look at but challenging to walk. There was always another hill. Like a woman in labour, I reached the transition phase where I believed I could never make and it would never end. And then, one last hill and we were delivered to the car park.
Did I mention that Kitty’s Gorge was absolutely beautiful? (see pic) That the trees, flowers, waterways were almost enough to obliterate the sensation of blistering feet and tired legs? That despite everything, my teeth became dry from all the smiling I was doing in the forest bathing extravaganza?
I’m taking it as a good sign that even darling husband feels we overdid it by starting with a 19km level four trek. He’s suggesting that our next excursion will be a flat rather than hilly level 2, with a more manageable seven or eight kilometres length. Maybe I can slot it onto our short list of mutual entertainment.
For a while, a week at least, my body still imagines how I’ll walk through my sixth-floor Paris apartment for my nightly toilet stop; return to my low-slung bed with its blackout screen on the dormer window in the attic roof. How in the morning, I’ll slip a coffee pod into the machine, walk across the main room while it gurgles and brews. To the left is the dining table, the right is the lounge. A large space punctuated by three Turkish rugs. I’ll open one of the full length windows and step right out on the tiny balcony, above the roar of the street, and look right towards Mont Martre.
Instead, I’m in Perth. My bed is king size and is easy to get in and out of. The toilet has just one door, not the weird two door arrangement of the Paris place. The morning is a chorus of birds which excavate memories of Perth laid decade upon decade from my childhood to now. I’m back at home with my deluxe yoga altar instead of my cut-down travel version. My life is fortunate, privileged and rich with family and friends.
And yet. And yet.
I continue to wrestle with the mystery of travel and its immense hold on me.
As a fourteen-year-old, making the long haul flight back from London to Perth, sobbing the entire time in the wake of the excruciating parting with my brother, I declared travel to be destructive. It cleaved kith and kin apart. But as I wandered the empty suburban streets after landing back in Perth. They were such a contrast from the bustle and rush of European cities, and I wondered if there’d been a nuclear holocaust to clear the streets so completely.
By the time I was a young adult, I was counting down the years and milestones (degree, early career) before I could move to Europe, and was contemptuous of my peers who’d never left Perth.
Once I’d settled in London as my home in 1990, I focused not on travelling, but living somewhere else, trying on that life as my permanent future. I visited Perth twice in six years, ricocheting from one joyous hello to a tearful goodbye with friends and family before returning to my London life.
Fast forward four years to me as young mother, back in Perth while I worked out my next steps, grasping my half-Greek baby to my breast and hearing each plane overhead as another siren call of her Greek father’s abandonment.
Or not even another year when I was a jaded single mother, returning for good to Australia, having having failed at building a Greek-Australian family. Once I re-settled back in Perth, the sound of planes overhead no longer conjured abandonment; they were a neutral hum in my once again free and enjoyable life. I turned my face away from Europe and focused on building a life in Australia.
By the time my daughter was seven she’d become an excellent long haul traveller, and we made two Greek summer holiday visits to her father, until financial circumstances put a stop to that. My daughter and I both missed Europe, but what to do? By 2016, I’d rallied to be able to afford to travel independently to Greece with my daughter. I could enjoy the wonders of Greece’s beaches and islands without having to teach English, or parent a toddler.
And since 2016, it’s become necessary to get myself to Europe once a year.
“It’s home,” my daughter and I agree. A second home. Not a home we’d like to live in permanently, with its endless winters and poorer lifestyle. But it’s a place we need to visit to feel whole.
I travel and try on daily life, for weeks at a time, pushing back against the reality of my home, my life here. Like a I’m pushing against a leg press machine that will never want to return to its resting position.
And then, I come home. And am grateful. And plan the next trip.
And now to the meat of my French trip; the writing retreat.
You may perhaps recall my unsuccessful French writing retreat experience in September 2025, when I bolted 48 hours into a nine night stay. With bare-faced lies about an invented family emergency, I managed to get a lift to the train station, (there being no taxis, buses or any other means of escape), a train to Toulouse where I hired a car and drove to Biarritz and back. (When adventure comes knocking…)
This year, I chose to attend a week’s French writing retreat convened by Mariel Hacking, owner of the Limnisa writing retreat in Greece. I’ve been to her idyllic writing centre three times so far, and I knew Mariel would guarantee quiet mornings for getting on with the work, and a writing consultation with kind, incisive feedback. She was the guest facilitator at Nathalie Edward’s exquisite The Mill in the small town of St Georges de Luzencon in the Occitane region of France.
The Mill is a magnificent four storey building which is well into the process of being lovingly converted into a creatives’ haven. My bedroom was both redolent with historical charm as well as offering a fresh new ensuite bathroom. Plus there was the rush of the river, its incessant sound day and night was a balm in the French heatwave. This was the week of the horrendous Bordeaux fires on the other side of France.
The library at the Mill is an incredible feat of renovation which retains much of the mill’s mechanical parts with a funky, sympathetic interior design. Plus, every book I ever wanted to read on writing (and many more I’d never heard of) were all there. I compared that with last year’s French fizzog where the “library” consisted of ten books, one of which was the host’s self-published memoir. Plus this year, I was allowed, even welcomed in the kitchen, which is a must for me. I’m not the type that thrives being catered for; every now and then I just need to prepare something for myself.
And of course, there was the company; I had travelled with my dear writing buddy Karen, and met two other women there. How wonderful it was to suffer side by side in the morning as we wrote in silence until 1pm. Over lunch we broke into endless discussions of our works in progress, and all things books and writing. Of all the art forms, writing seems to be the one that most encouraged procrastination; a writing retreat seems to be the winning formula for me at least.
I think back to my excited blog on 28th June 2926 (On the Eve of a Journey) as I was about to embark on this 2026 French odyssey. I reflect on this new layer of experience and how much this year’s trip added depth and breadth to my love of all things French.
Was I ready to come home? Perhaps not. Am I happy to be home? Yes, and no. This week, after trying to curb my impetuous travel urges, I succumbed and booked a mini getaway in the south-west of Western Australia, three hours from home.
“I just need to book something on Airbnb,” I explained to my long-suffering husband before heading out the door for two nights. I offered for him to accompany me, but he wisely refrained. Perhaps he recognised the look of the writer seeking to recreate that writing retreat feeling.
I’ve been back in Perth since Wednesday 5th August. But I will continue to wallow in photos, and plunge myself back into the sights, sounds and smells of my French Extravaganza. Sunday Blog-wise, I’m still only up to Saturday 18th July on the trip, when I boarded the train to Paris from Chartres, car-less and once again burdened with my voluminous baggage. I reflected that the solo part of my trip was over, and from that point on, I had friends to continue the endless “comment ca marche?” (how does this work) moments of travel.
You know the kind; the alphanumeric code to open the main door of the accommodation, the numeric code to open the lock box to extract the key, negotiating the mysteries of tiny, cranky, intermittently working Parisian lifts, an idiosyncratic key to open the apartment door, and a hundred and one logistical questions about the features and appliances once you finally gain entry to the accommodation.
The week’s itinerary was Paris (again) for three nights, Rouen for three. The first of my two main priorities for the three-day Paris sojourn was the Renoir exhibition. I wanted to slip into the current of 1870s Paris and all the “fetes galantes” that were going on at that time that he so loved to paint. Plus, I have Dad’s old print of The Boating Party on my wall at home, and I just wanted that moment with the actual painting.
The second priority was Montmatre, sniffing out clues for my fictional hero of my next book project. I may have already mentioned that this character is inspired by my previous lifetime I had on earth as revealed in a past-life reading. I assumed she’d spent time in Montmatre, being such a rackety, bohemian type. As we emerged from a Montmatre restaurant on our last night, I was plunged into the thrill of a full-body resonance of having been there before. Perhaps I may be on the right track.
On the train from Paris to Rouen the next day, we checked in about our goals. My travelling companions are sisters and were seeking information about their ancestor; whereas I wanted to immerse myself in Rouen because I’m locating my character there for her early years from 1850-1862.
As well as the central attractions of Vieux Marche and Saint Maclou, I sought out the Musee de Corderie, a working factory in the hills of Rouen, in Caille valley which was once dotted with factories. And I couldn’t miss the quirky little Flaubert museum; Gustave Flaubert’s birthplace and family home, with a gallop through medical history as a nod to his father’s profession as surgeon of Rouen’s former Hotel Dieu hospital.
Also on our list was a day trip to visit Monet’s beloved Giverny where the lily ponds immortalised in his artwork are. When I first visited Rouen in 2024, I watched as Giverny flashed past us on the train to Paris. This time I wanted to visit this magical place, just a short train ride from Rouen. After a longish ride on the tourist train from the Giverny station to the stunning grounds and home of Giverny, we joined the conga line of people with the same idea. And yet we managed to get photos that looked like we were almost having a private tour, and the charm of Giverny couldn’t be erased by the throngs.
Our digs in Rouen were characterful and charming (see below) with a parquet floor that squeaked like a grand old wooden sailing ship on the high seas. This made it impossible to sneak around quietly at 4am so I could jump on a Zoom to do a three-minute pitch to a couple of literary agents.
But by travel companions tolerated this with equanimity and even sprinkled a little good luck, as one of the agents requested I send some material to read. I wouldn’t find this out until I was at the writing retreat which had formed the kernel of this whole trip and about which I will rave on about next week.
As I cling to the last days of my fabulous five weeks in France, I’m eking out the travel blogs, still several weeks behind reality. You can expect more after my return to wintry Perth, as I savour holiday moments like macaroons.
On Friday 10th July when I left Chartres for Bordeaux after my crowded shuffle around the Chartres labyrinth, I had a five hour, two minute drive ahead of me. I’d abandoned the 6 hour 24 minute, no toll option; hang the expense.
In many ways, the cost ($35 toll charge, if you’re interested) was the least of my problems. It was determining comment ca marche, aka how do toll gates actually work. A little bit like this.
The motorway suddenly fans out expansively, and around 10 gates open up, with different symbols above them. It seems I’ve learned nothing from my madcap drive from Toulouse to Biarritz and back last year. My mind scrambled for memories and I somehow thought the tollgate with just one symbol was the one for me. I was squeezed through the narrow toll gate to find out just how poor my memory is.
Being in a right hand drive vehicle means I struggle to pull up close enough to reach the ticket or proffer my credit card for the next whack of tariffs. So the driver assist in my hire car shrieked that I was too close the right hand barrier, and when I had to open the door on the left to reach the incomprehensible toll booth screen, the shrieks from my vehicle only accelerated. The toll machine swallowed my ticket but didn’t open the gate, and the only thing I could do was the reverse of shame out. With four French drivers behind me, all of them had to reverse out to release me from the trap, beeping and gesticulating just as you might expect.
With the sour taste of cortisol bathing my mouth, I tried another gate (the correct one, which shows more payment options. More = better. Not hard.) But of course, I now had no ticket. With another two cars backed up behind me in this new lane, I got out of the car (I’m leaving you to imagine with what cacophony of complaints the car was registering) and I gesticulated helplessly to the car behind me.
“Press the button and call for help.” And that, dear reader, worked like a treat.
I arrived at my Bordeaux region super sympa Airbnb with air-conditioning and pool, realising as I pulled up at the house that there are in fact areas of France which are not beautiful. The accommodation itself was exactly as pictured; blistering wifi, aircon, a lovely backyard pool, full kitchen and plenty of room for one. Situated under the family house, I was a slightly unwelcome guest in this suburban wasteland. There was nowhere, and I mean nowhere local to go. No walks, no cute little bistro, no boulangerie turning out warm baguettes for petit dejeuner. Any errand at all required me to get in the car.
I did try a local walk, but not only was it ugly, I soon spotted two condom wrappers on the meagre path. So depressing to think people had nowhere else to express their furtive passions. My lonely footsteps set the dogs up and down the street to barking as I walked past. A couple of times I wondered if they would leap over the fence to continue their challenge to my promenade face to face. They didn’t but about 500 metres from my pad I saw a black dog jogging the empty streets freely and I hastened my steps towards safety. It didn’t seem the kind of neighbourhood for fur babies; these were guard dogs.
Abandoning any local walks, I drove the thirty minutes to the beautiful city of Bordeaux. I’d shaken off the previous day’s disgrace at toll gate; today I was going to tackle a multi-story car park.
My method for this is to keep on driving (with a bit of shrieking from the driver assist system, because those corners are tight) until I’m almost at the top and there is at least one free bay on one side of me. Just one floor into this mission, I watched as a British tourist attempted to squeeze his large vehicle into a tiny bay, and he scraped the neighbouring car so badly, it lifted up of its wheels. Stricken, he gestured in apology to me, and you can imagine how patient I was, being in no position at all to criticise anyone’s driving manoeuvres. I even lent him pen and paper so he could leave a note on the damaged car with his contact details. Two young Bordeaux boys had filmed the predicament and walked off snickering.
Safely out in the streets of Bordeaux, I had a small taste of this wonderful, vibrant, diverse city. But by 12 o’clock, the pitiless sun had warmed it to an unpleasant temperature which was only going to steadily rise over the next six hours. I found the car park again, paid my ticket, found my car, exited the car park without incident; all minor miracles. I returned to the blistering aircon in my pad in the light industrial area, reflecting that it was the perfect place to get stuck into the writing, and keep up with my work commitments.
Other short Bordeaux expeditions included the sweet town of Libourne, where I’d tried and failed to book an Airbnb for that same week. I tried not to lament the outcome of that snafu, and stay Zen about spending a week in an industrial estate. But most importantly, I got to connect with a friend from University years, and see her beautiful home in France.
This was all just before the wildfires broke out; I was safe in South East France by then, in a fabulous renovated millhouse with the constant hum of the river for company. While the wildfires are now contained, thanks to the selfless work of firefighters, two of whom lost their lives, this traumatic evidence of climate change has surely registered around the world.
But this was a blow still to fall, as I repeated the journey back from Bordeaux to Chartres to return the car. This required not just filling up the tank but also getting air in the tyres. In the true style of travel, all this required several attempts, google Translate, broken French and a lot of gesticulation to get sorted. Triumphant, I drove the short distance from the petrol station to the hire car company, basking in the smug knowledge I hadn’t damaged the car.
But when I drove a little closer I could see the gate of the hire car venue was closed until 2. It was 1.30pm, so I figured I could use that time to organise my luggage, and pulled up just around the corner from the entrance.
In the complicated mental gymnastics that re-adjusting to the closed hire company created, I pulled up, then looked to my left, thought the car next to me was reversing out.
Mais non, it was my car, sliding forward down a very modest slope as I hadn’t applied the handbrake. The bump of the hood against the metal pole fence alerted me that me that was moving; too late I jammed on the handbrake. I got out to assess damage and while minimal, it would have cost me the considerable excess. The driver assist had stayed eerily silent as I slid forward into the railing.
And that, ladies and gentlemen is why I take out no excess insurance when I hire a car. Next week, I’ll share more about Rouen, Paris and the wondrous writing retreat.
I’m a couple of weeks behind in posting; this was before the Bordeaux fires. Thinking of everyone impacted by fires across Europe.
It all started with my misunderstanding about the distance between Chartres and Bordeaux. When initially planning my holiday, I mistakenly thought I could walk the Chartres labyrinth as a cheeky little day trip from my base in Bordeaux. More thorough research showed that these cities are just under five hours apart. Then accommodation booking snafus meant I had about four days to account for before I could move into my super sympa Airbnb with air-conditioning and pool in a Bordeaux satellite area, Ambares et Lagrave.
So I decided to spend those four nights in Chartres before picking up a hire car and driving to Bordeaux and back. I needed to be in Chartres on a Friday, in order to tick off my bucket list activity of walking the Chartres labyrinth. That’s the only day of the week the Cathedral removes the chairs.
My accommodation was directly opposite (and I mean, directly opposite) Chartres cathedral, and I settled in for a glorious four days. Bottom left is a snap of me sitting next to the heart of the labyrinth earlier in the week. Once, there was a plaque in the centre, showing the Minotaur and Dedalus (the maker of the labyrinth that trapped the monster) but that was ripped up during the French Revolution and used to help make a canon.
I must have looked particularly beatific as I sat there because after a few minutes a nun approached me to tell me of all the treasures in Chartres, not least of which is a morsel of Mary’s veil, (or perhaps a close approximation of same sold by a wily entrepreneur?) said to have miraculous properties.
I came back on Friday, the chairs were pulled back (middle image), but we were still forbidden to enter. A funeral service took precedence over a bunch of crazy tourists who’d travelled from afar to walk this beautiful eleventh century labyrinth. And then, by 12 o’clock rather than the advertised time of 10am, we could finally walk its winding path.
They say don’t meet your heroes, and while there were truly transcendent moments for me shuffling along the path into the labyrinth whose image is so familiar to me, it’s simply too crowded to turn around and walk back out again. But I still have had this walk in this iconic labyrinth. It’s one of the few remaining from this period as cathedrals elected to rip up the wonky floor tiles and add a smoother surface.
And then, it was time for me to leap into my hire car and make off to Bordeaux, laden with my Chartres souvenirs from this amazing building. Labyrinth fridge magnet? I don’t mind if I do. Next Sunday I will fill you in, dear reader, with the drive to Bordeaux. What indeed could possibly go wrong with that?
Last Sunday blog, I was checking into my Airbnb at 7am on Tuesday 30th June, thanks to my kind host who took pity on me, a long-haul flight survivor. I didn’t dare test the wheeled backpack-plus-suitcase combination on the metro from Charles de Gaulle airport, opting for a taxi.
Just a few streets shy of our destination, the van in front of us stopped in a small, impassable street and the driver descended and proceeded to load and unload fifty boxes. Finally I was deposited at the approximate location of my accommodation. Then I just had to peer at the map, check I was travelling in the way the arrow wanted me to, wrangle a door code, ascend two flights of stairs twice (because, baggage), and voila, I’d reached my home for a week.
For my next book project, I’m researching the period 1850-1920, with a keen interest in the Paris Siege of 1870 which culminated in the Paris Commune of 1871. A post-Revolution Revolution if you will, to tackle the unfinished business of the French Revolution we all envisage, with the guillotine and Marie Antionette heading to her doom. The Paris Commune of 1871 was a diverse group of soldiers, students, women, artists, looking for the egality, liberty and fraternity, even sorority that hadn’t quite been delivered.
For my precious Parisian week, I toggled between knocking out the work to keep the dollars rolling in, and hitting the streets for my book research. Out into Paris I would go, shedding those dollars more rapidly than they could accrue.
I’d made a haphazard list of places to visit, and at the top of it was the Musee Carnavalet of Paris. I headed there the day after the big flight. A bit like IKEA, the Musee Carnavalet made me walk through all the previous galleries until I could get to my desired historical period.
With that ticked off, next on my list was the Pere Lachaise Cemetery, but did I visit Jim Morrison’s grave? I did not. Instead I found my way to the Mur de Federes, the site of the last stand of the Paris Commune. Here the final rebels were cornered, lined up and shot and buried where the wall now stands. That brought La Semaine Sanglante – the Bloody Week to a close, where French government troops executed between 20,000 and 25,000 (no precise figures are available) of the Communards, without trial. Not before the rebels had seen imminent defeat and murdered a Bishop being held hostage, and torched much of Paris, so there were atrocities on both sides.
But still, it’s a forgotten civil war I had never delved into it prior to this book project. I sat next to the Mur de Federes and re-listened to the podcast episode from A Journey Through Time on the end of the Commune, imagined the last battle raging between the headstones, and the desperate last stand.
After this still and sombre moment, I dined nearby, consuming a very indifferent and expensive salad, not the last one I would encounter in France. And I made my way back to my atelier, my lonely garret for one week.
*With apologies to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who never took a long haul flight
Sunday Blog 241 – 12th July 2026
I can hold myself back no longer. Travel spam incoming. Perhaps starting with my getting-there snafus will make this series on my French odyssey a less insufferable. Here goes. I’m rewinding us back to 30th June so I can start from the very beginning.
Snafu 1. Choosing to take my new, untested backpack with wheels
The new backpack required some assembly when I received it, and its mean little screw did not inspire confidence, but with idiotic hubris I jammed it full of all the things.
“It’s a research trip,” I said to myself as I added four books, three Oracle card packs, several notebooks, five different types of journals and on and on. “This backpack fits MUCH more than my usual backpack. And think of those stair-climbing wheels on the backpack! They’ll be ace!”
On the morning of my departure, the fifth time I re-did my suitcase and backpack, I noted that the action of leaning over to undo and re-do zips elevated my core temperature to fever levels. Sweating despite the winter chill, I began to ponder if perhaps I’d bought a little too much with me. It’s like I’ve never travelled before.
Too late, the Uber to to the airport was on its way. As I waited by the postbox, I spotted one of the backpack’s straining zips coming apart. As the Uber turned the corner into my road, I yanked the zip back and forth over the gap and that seemed to work. I threw it in the Uber boot and prayed. But there would be more, much more unzipping to be done.
Snafu 2. My decision to pack ankle weights
I decided that to make sure I could keep up with my new weights regime during my five-week French trip, I should definitely chuck in my ankle weights. I have never used these ankle weights.
There were not one but two separate screening processes 750 metres apart in the same airport for me to undergo, because I don’t know why (but annoying, Qantas). Also, the second lot of baggage handlers need you to take out laptops and tablets. Why? It’s the same damn airport.
Anyhoo, I watched as my backpack was diverted down the aisle of shame and the baggage handlers called me over. They searched in vain for the source of the strange Xray image of an item resembling machine gun cartridges. I had to disgorge every last item to reach the offending ankle weights. This happened both times.
On the plus side the straining zip seemed to be managing all the doing and undoing. I, on the other hand was hotter than ever. Released from the second bag check, I kept the ankle weights in my hand. The nearest bin was close, and the sound they made as they hit the bottom was incredibly gratifying.
Snafu 3. My inability to drink a coffee
Still buoyed by the loud thunk the weights had made and the release of their absence, I presented at the coffee shop. It was 11.30am and I’d done all of the above without coffee. I ordered the largest size I could get and sat on a table which was very wobbly, but I was sure I could manage this. I could not, and half of this newly purchased coffee threw itself across the table and in an impressive arc around me. Luckily no-one was sitting nearby. The staff cleaned it up, gave me another coffee and then removed the offending table as if to reinforce that I was not a monumental klutz.
And then, just like that, my luck changed
When boarding to flight from Singapore to Paris, my initial flight companion was a man seated separately from his family. The three seats in front of them were empty, so the stewardess offered him to swap. He sat down briefly in his new position, then realised that none of the TV screens were working. He opted to return to his original seat. And then my good fortune was there to be snatched.
“I’ll sit there,” I offered. Movies, schmovies. I would be able to lie down for the next monotonous 13 plus hours. AND my Paris airbnb let me check in straight away, even though I touched down at 5.30am.
I have never understood Ralph Waldo Emerson’s take on arriving versus getting there. Give me an arrival any day.
Today I wanted to tackle the concept of triggers, and offer a message of hope.
Back in 2002, in the early days after the assault, on Mother’s Day I took my daughter Zoë to a sweet child-friendly cafe with a playground, for a meet-up with a group of mothers. The first to arrive by a long way, I ordered a large slab of cake, a pot of tea and a rubbish ice-cream for Zoë who was very satisfied with her treat. I breathed for a moment, leaning into the comfort of the beautiful cafe as I waited for the others to arrive.
Zoë needed a toilet stop after a while, and as I’d never been to the cafe before, I wasn’t familiar with the bathroom’s idiosyncrasies. It was an old-style ablution block a short walk from the tables and playground. As I was exiting with Zoë on my hip, I turned off the light switch and plunged us into darkness. I fumbled with the door handle, turning left, right. It wouldn’t yield. Unease welled up, rising to panic.
Then, I remembered; this was exactly the situation I’d been in when trying to flee during the attack. My body in its wisdom was telling me to beware as the last time I’d been in this position it had been Bad.
When my mind made this connection, the anxiety evaporated. The message that all was safe was sent back down from my rational brain to my body. As if I was re-encoding the doorknob with a safety tag, turning off the fear trigger.
It was pure dumb luck on my part that so soon after the event I was able to make the connection in my head and re-file the scenario in the toilet as safe. Perhaps this healing pas-de-deus between my body and mind was fuelled by my natural optimism, the bedrock of my nurtured childhood, and my fortunate adulthood.
And yet, there was another really key element for me in this; information. My GP had given me the gift of the clue; post-traumatic stress. It was my key to the door out of its dungeon.
I was lucky. So often, people who have suffered trauma are not routinely informed of the likelihood of suffering from PTSD. I’ve never forgotten being on a autumn writing retreat in Greece back in 2022. I was reading Corey White’s moving memoir The Prettiest Horse in the Glue Factory where everything that could have gone wrong in his childhood, did. He’d cycled through child protection, mental health services, drug and alcohol rehabs, prison, you name it. Over all those years and medley of settings no-one had ever mentioned that with what he’d survived, he would have post-traumatic stress disorder.
As I inhaled his book in the hazy Greek heat I was incandescent with fury on his behalf that nobody had ever mentioned PTSD to him. When he finally learned about PTSD, it was a key turning point in his memoir. It began to unlock the mystery of why he behaved the way he did.
I’m not trying to suggest recovery from PTSD, that taming our triggers is an easy process. My moment in the loo was just the beginning of a long road after a single incident trauma. But the healing often can’t even begin if we’re not educated about trauma.
If this speaks to you today, and you want to find more, have a look here. It’s my new go-to resource hub for post-traumatic growth research and information.
And for now, that’s a wrap on this series. Blessings to you.
I’ve more to add to my post-traumatic growth series of blogs – but today just wasn’t the day. I needed to take a breath, bask in the nervous excitement of the-day-before-travel. Tomorrow I fly out to Paris for five weeks of research, writing, working, catching up with friends and getting started on the next book project. Which is set, in, well, France.
What an immense privilege it is to be able to travel. How lucky, lucky, lucky I feel to be able to return to a city I first visited in 1979, where I looked as if I was thoroughly loathing every minute. (Top left image). Being 14 is hard, am I right?
Back as a 27-year-old in Versailles in 1992, I’m reading Jane Austen, yet again, and caught in an action shot. (Top right image).
There was a thirty year gap before I returned to France in 2022, (bottom left image) where for an eye-watering sum my sister and I travelled a short distance between wherever we were when we saw the woman and her horse and buggy, and the Eiffel Tower. My sister had only just tolerated the heinous price tag for the short ride, but once we were turfed out at the Eiffel Tower, still shrieking with laughter about who knows what, she realised that was a per head cost. But what can one do, but pay the extortionate piper and move on? And get a selfie with the Tower, of course.
2025 I was back, but not to Paris, instead straight to Toulouse and the unsuccessful French writing retreat (which you can read about here, should you want to). The one I fled from, booked a car and drove to Biarritz, (bottom right image).
When we travel, we take our past selves with us, like a Russian doll of trip experiences expanding ever outwards. At 14, I was completely dependant. At 27, I was driven around by my boyfriend of the time. In 2022, I still hadn’t tackled driving on the right hand side of the road. But by 2025, I was alight with the freedom that hiring a car brings to a holiday.
So here’s to the night before leaving, to travel, to expansion, to La Belle France and of course, writing.
