Prepping for Christmas

Many people have asked me about my Christmas plans and how I know the people I'm staying with. When I was first planning to travel to the UK, a family friend back in Canada who is from the UK asked me what I wanted to do while I'm here. I told him I wanted to work and travel and make quirky dreams come true. One of the dreams was to spend some time on a sheep farm during lambing season; get a taste of the work involved and take lots of pictures. I wasn't expecting him to actually know a sheep farmer, I was just mentioning the idea as an example of the variety of experiences I wanted to have over here. Turns out he had more connections than I thought he would and he put me in touch with Henry Brown at Chalk Farm in Eastbourne. I first emailed Henry back in June or July and he said I'm welcome to visit the farm during lambing season (probably April). We've stayed in touch by email and phone since then and at the end of November he invited me to join in the “mad house” at his parent's place over Christmas – the crowd includes his brother and sister-in-law, sister and brother-in-law with their two daughters, his parents, grandma, and random other people who will be stopping by.

Today I started packing and getting things together for my trip to Eastbourne tomorrow afternoon. I think the reality of going away for Christmas finally hit me and I realized that I was really and truly spending Christmas away from my family. Although I'm looking forward to meeting the Brown family and the little I've heard about them has been good, every little thing set me off crying today... and I'm not a big one for crying. It got a little out of hand; I'd just read a note from a friend or my dad and I would sit in front of my laptop with tears streaming down my face, feeling utterly ridiculous that there was really nothing to cry about. By this evening I decided I needed some serious “me” time so I filled the bathtub, lit some candles, and played some music. A friend emailed me earlier today and included the suggestion to just “breathe and listen” so I figured a bath was a good way to do that.

I'm now going to bed cheerfully with warm feet.