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...but a good deal of the time I wish I were not. My month of travelling in Greece was an extraordinary experience and I would do it all again in an instant.
I remind myself that I must be realistic about this. Staying in rent-rooms and small hotels and eating out most of the time wasn't great for my blood sugar. My readings got slowly less good and in the long-term I think my BG levels would probably have slipped badly. The starting point was excellent, so slipping didn't take me into a really terrible level but by the end of week four things were noticeably worse than usual.
A week after getting back, with my diet completely under my own control again, things are getting back to normal; so no outright damage was done, I think. But I cannot risk burning out any more beta cells, so for that alone I would have had to come back from Greece. Or else settle there permanently, of course. The key problem was not being able to prepare my own food, leading to a diet with a number of things in it I wouldn't normally eat. If I had my own kitchen then that issue wouldn't arise.
Moving on every few days was frustrating, too; in every place I went to I wanted to have more time. That's a good kind of negative, of course. Wishing you could get away from somewhere is a miserable state of mind; wishing you had more time does at least leave the possibility of another visit, another time.
On a more practical level, I really began to miss having a washing machine. Not every accommodation I stayed had a basin with a plug, and scrubbing your clothes with a bit of hand soap and rinsing them out under a running tap doesn't really seem to get the dirt out. It's been good to have really clean things to wear again.
But, ye Gods, the places I've visited, the things I've seen! I know what a cliche it is, but my heart is full of memories I'll cherish for the rest of my life. I've climbed the Acrocorinth. I've swum in an ancient harbour beneath a ruined Mycenean citadel. I've drunk from a sacred spring, and watched the new moon rise over the Isle of Pelops.
And now I am setting myself the task of trying to write about them in more detail than I did in the blog. The task is a bit daunting but I won't step aside from something just because of that; heavens, one would never get anything done! I don't yet have a "proper" job; I have begun looking since I've been back, but nothing interesting has come up as yet (well, it's only been a week). So I aim to make sure I do something useful with the large amount of free time I have at the moment. Being back from this trip feels pretty depressing; something I looked forward-to for so long, now finished and done, and not to come again. No job, nowhere to go, nothing to do; I must keep depression at bay, and that means work. Which means, write.
By damn, though, this country is cold. And damp. And dark. My heart and my bones are missing the brilliant light of Hellas. "Missing" is too pallid a word, indeed; it's a fiercer emotion that that, it's a feeling that wants to cry out in pain and anger, because I have been taken from what had come to feel like my home, and left stranded instead in this chilly place where the sun hides behind rainclouds and the steady wind is icy and blows from the north...
So now let me write and remember.
I remind myself that I must be realistic about this. Staying in rent-rooms and small hotels and eating out most of the time wasn't great for my blood sugar. My readings got slowly less good and in the long-term I think my BG levels would probably have slipped badly. The starting point was excellent, so slipping didn't take me into a really terrible level but by the end of week four things were noticeably worse than usual.
A week after getting back, with my diet completely under my own control again, things are getting back to normal; so no outright damage was done, I think. But I cannot risk burning out any more beta cells, so for that alone I would have had to come back from Greece. Or else settle there permanently, of course. The key problem was not being able to prepare my own food, leading to a diet with a number of things in it I wouldn't normally eat. If I had my own kitchen then that issue wouldn't arise.
But, ye Gods, the places I've visited, the things I've seen! I know what a cliche it is, but my heart is full of memories I'll cherish for the rest of my life. I've climbed the Acrocorinth. I've swum in an ancient harbour beneath a ruined Mycenean citadel. I've drunk from a sacred spring, and watched the new moon rise over the Isle of Pelops.
By damn, though, this country is cold. And damp. And dark. My heart and my bones are missing the brilliant light of Hellas. "Missing" is too pallid a word, indeed; it's a fiercer emotion that that, it's a feeling that wants to cry out in pain and anger, because I have been taken from what had come to feel like my home, and left stranded instead in this chilly place where the sun hides behind rainclouds and the steady wind is icy and blows from the north...
So now let me write and remember.
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