FEARFUL OLD FOOL

Back home I cross the hills to Malvern most days and swim at the Malvern Spa. Today I head for Malvan where I intend spending the night. Malvan is on the coast. It is reputed to have a fine beach. It is a few kilometers north of the Goa state boundary. Tomorrow I will ride up into the mountains to sleep in the cool of a little visited hill resort, Albi, from where a side road circles down to Goa's capital. Forty years have passed since I rented a small house in Goa, on Calangute Beach. Goa is full of ancient memories. I delay my arrival for fear of what I will discover, not so much in Goa as in myself. I was callous then. Callous and a coward. I had broken out of jail, on the run from a life sentence. My jailers were a wife I loved and two small children whom I adored. Did I think of them? Yes, often, and with tears. So why run?

BUY BOOKS AT BEACON BOOKS

HOME IN HEREFORDSHIRE
For any of my local readers, Beacon Books at 23 Worcester Road, Malvern, have OLD MAN ON A BIKE in stock. I will be doing a signing later this month.

HAVENS

Reintegrating after a long solo journey (in this case, six months) takes a while. Journeys have direction and imperative: Get up, get dressed, get on the bike. Each day brings new people and fresh interactions. The countryside changes as does the climate.

Now I am static.

I am back home in England. We - my wife, Bernadette, Jed (17), and Josh (20) - live in Herefordshire at the foot of the Malvern Hills. Jed is a freshman at junior college. Josh is a freshman at Leeds University – Spanish and International Relations.

Our home, a 300 year-old cottage, lies down a narrow lane. The cottage is set in a large garden. Roses, clematis and ivy compete for wall space The lawns need mowing (right now, the ground is too wet). A gate opens onto the village cricket field. A cedar tree shades that corner of the garden. A line of oak trees divides the cricket field from surrounding farmland.

Idyllic?

Yes - though my judgment is prejudiced.

And I have been lulled into inaction.

The great American essayist, James Baldwin, wrote: Havens are high-priced. The price a haven dweller must pay is in deluding himself that havens in fact exist.