Back home for the weekend

I am back in home in London today (well, the suburbs - it's just easier to say London). I got up nice and early to get the coach at 9:30 and endured the 2 hour journey despite constant chatter, some casual racism from a few passengers in the coach directed at two German girls and a huge hulk of a man taking up all the space beside me (he wasn't a "fat man" but he did have a lot of fat on him. He was just kind of 'big', and seemed to take up more space than he should be able to. He was like a planetoid - he had his own atmosphere - you couldn't see it but it was there, stealing my personal space.)

My reason for coming home this weekend is a leaving party. Three of my friends are about to go traveling and they're having a farewell party tonight, so I kind of needed to come back home for that because it will be my last chance to see them for a year... Not that it should make much difference to me really, i've been at Uni for almost 3 years so it's not like I've seen them that often in that time. Actually it's pretty typical that they choose now of all times to disappear around the world, now, when I'm almost done with university and about to return home... Are they just doing this to get away from me?

Of course they aren't. I am actually pretty envious of what they're about to do. Travelling never used to really appeal to me when I was younger, the same as the idea of going to University never appealed to me, but here I am. But I don't think I'll be able to take another year out now, I feel i'm too old. No, I don't mean I'm too old for travelling, and I'm not saying I haven't got the time to do it, but my focus for when I finish this degree is to start a career for myself as a writer. Taking a year out for travelling might give me some experiences worth writing about but I don't want to spare that kind of time. Well not all in one go anyway.

What I think i'll do instead is to make an effort to do a short bit of travelling each year. Something like a month out of each year to explore a country I've never been to before and see the world in parts. That's a plan worth sticking to I think.