Coming Home

In search of inspiration – for the day as much as for the blog – I turned to the book that has been my comfort and delight these past months – Unsuitable for Ladies, an anthology of women travellers edited by Jane Robinson.

I flicked to the chapter called ‘Coming Home’ and considered the following:

We had now concluded our long journey of more than three months and a half. I was rejoiced at its termination; for though mixed with many pleasurable associations, many new ideas acquired, many wrong notions dissipated; I was tired of the constraint and the increasing hurry from object to object. I was glad to rest, and to be able to see the dawn and daylight appear with indifference. I felt inclined to do as an Indian officer I heard once did. After he left the army, he paid a man to blow a bugle every morning at daybreak, that he might have the satisfaction of feeling he need not get up.

Lady Sheil, Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia, 1856

I quite like the idea of paying someone to blow a bugle for me every morning (and liked it even more when I mis-typed that as ‘blog a bugle’ – shall I blog a bugle? How would that work?) but otherwise wonder what Lady Sheil took from her travels in Persia at all. I’d like to think that the six months I’ve spent travelling have made me more appreciative of dawn and daylight than less – literally and metaphorically.

It seems as though I will be staying in Ireland for a couple of months to work on a project here, but I’m determined to approach my stay with no less curiosity and open-mindedness than I tried to bring to the last six months. I haven’t lived in Dublin for more than six years and I’d like to reacquaint myself with the place. So, alors, my new blog project (I do like a project): Home Town Tourist. If anyone has Dublin hints for this (temporarily) returned emigrant, please share!