Recurrent snot crying for no obvious reason.

I think its been a week now of good and proper homesickness - a feeling I had forgotten about and how illogical yet overwhelming can be. I have vague rattling memories of being at Uni in a hall of residence and realising only after the Easter break, that everyone else on my floor had felt much the same as I did, but we all were trying far too hard to be cool and grown up to admit it.

I remember also, feeling homesick half way through some really big adventures back in 2012, when I went to Bangladesh for a 3 months, with a trip to Albania afterwards before carrying on to many other locations. The forward propulsion helped then, but also the randomness and wonderfulness of finding myself in a backpackers in the middle of nowhere (Berat, actually) and finding myself with 8 other kiwis. One of them was named Duran (after the band Duran Duran) and was from Hamilton. I often wonder where he is these days. He was doing travelling right - had been in Albania for a while, and paid for hostel stays by helping out a bit with running them. He had popped down from Tirana for what was supposed to just be an overnight stay, but ended up there for a week, each night washing his t shirt, undies and shorts and laying them out on the balcony to dry, ready for the next day.

I digress.

The clash of a very, very responsible job and wanting to have the freedom from responsibility that travelling entails means my head's a bit all over the place. As I write, I am one night shift away from a week of exploring Cornwall. Most of my brain and body wants to hibernate, hunker down and slowly emerge into normal life again - but I know I need to (and want to) launch from my night shift low place to the awesomeness of discovery. Its how the roster falls here (wonderfully so) that I get a week off between night shifts, so most of my adventures are going to be like this. My predecessor here did it with toddlers, and international travel, so its imminently doable. 

I think also back home, post nights was when I would head off to see folk in Rotorua, or some other mad drive and visit to people I cared about. While I do have folk here, its still slow-emerging-new-normal and the chance to see them will come the next block of days off in July. 

Every time I head out exploring I feel like the land in front of me getting revealed around me like one of those settler computer games (screen shot below is from the magnificent "before we leave"). This is even with the internet tricking you into thinking you can know a place before you get there. 

So lots of reasons to feel drawn home, its all normal. 

And lots of great things here just on the cusp of tomorrow, all exciting. 

Sleep, then work, then sleep & the last of the packing & go. 

Lets do this.