Ah...

You find me in a stuffy, old internet place. Myself and Effie managed to board the bus with only a hard shower of rain to challenge us. Rain we can deal with. Sixteen hours of luxurious bus and mostly flat roads we can also manage. A bit of stretching at half time and it was almost an enjoyable ride.

So I am in Delhi contemplating a hard slap in the face. England I think will slap me. Hard. In the face.

Delhi today had me facing Western reality again. Cafe Coffee Day, Subway, Mango. The service in the coffee shop was the slow, unhurried and amusingly incompetent service that we have come to know and love, but today it seemed irritating. I wasn't in any particular hurry to do anything. But with the shiny interior and the newspapers gushing horrible news of Islamic holy war upon Israel and the entire world, I was made to feel hurried by their sloppiness. Effie felt the same. See what happens? Modern life makes me uptight! It makes everyone uptight!

It still doesn’t feel real that I'm leaving. Just sorting through emails, arranging plans and in two days the country I have fallen in love with will vanish.

Hmm. So today I feel fear. Background fear. Like everything could just go wrong. But of course things can only go wrong if fear is allowed to reign. I worry that England will sap my desire, my strength to play music. I worry that I will get dragged into the undesired situation of occasional gigs and full time bar work. But what use is this? I just feel down. I feel anxious, depressed.

It’s possible, I think to come out of it, laugh again, order comfort food (thali, of course) and watch a film in the hotel room. Sideways is on tonight. I know I will be crying laughing.

But again, I realise that perhaps these are just distractions. That essentially, I need to face the future, I need to – plan?

I need to meditate more regularly. Do yoga. My mind and body can open fully up if I let it.

Or will these things become forgotten, given ironic distance and lost, until next time I manage to make it to India?

All in good time.