Enjoy the view, enjoy the ride…

Life can be strange, the journey never quite as we expected, the road never as we envisaged. Yet, however hard to climb that hill is, no matter how fast we take those bends, there is always beauty to be found, always.

I took my children to Bristol this weekend. After a dozen of her friends raved about the gorge-fest that is Zaza Bazaar, my daughter was desperate to go. So, go we did.

Or at least we tried.

But (and no doubt this will surprise ALL of you) I’m not perfect. I make mistakes. I (gulp) did not book a table and that was a big fat fail.

Or, at least, it could have been.

It turned out to be the best thing ever. Instead of feasting at an all you can buffet for an allocated one hour and fifteen minutes, we rode on the Bristol Sky Ride. We watched a man dressed as a golden robot scare tourists with strange sounds, sudden movements. We watched the boats, ate ice creams dipped in blue sherbet, waved at our reflections in the Millennium Square Observatory. The restaurant we eventually ordered lunch in told us there would be an hour wait for our food. Even that didn’t spoil the day; in some stroke of amazing luck my little ones decided to be the perfect children and waited patiently. We played, coloured in, told each other stories and when the food came they actually ate it (rather than throwing it on the floor/at each other/down themselves).

It turned out to be a great day.

Life is like that. The decisions you make take you down avenues you never planned visiting and yet, sometimes, those avenues turn out to be the right ones after all.

And, as I always like to turn these blogs around and focus on writing in some shape or form (however tenuous) the same can be said for the craft. Plots you planned perfectly change once you start writing, but usually for the better. Characters develop strange, perplexing ticks you never expected but immediately love. Your career, your prospects, are always uncertain due to the industry’s very nature. Yet faith in the journey, faith in the craft, remains.

I’ve learnt to work hard, work very hard, but always take time to enjoy the ride.

Wherever it takes me.