Send In The Clowns

"Time is a circus, always packing up and moving away."

- Ben Hecht

Today I can say it -- it's ONE MONTH until I leave on the next adventure. Thirty-one sleeps.  It will be here before I know it...now.  Wasn't always that way.  First it was a glimmer of an idea, probably, oh, a couple of years ago. When my friend, Katrina, promised she'd wait to go to the Harry Potter studios with me.  Last August we agreed -- the spring of 2016.  London, Liverpool, and Dublin. We added another friend.  Then things started to solidify.  In October I added two extra weeks and The Cotswold Way with Camino friends to my itinerary.  In November we bought our airline tickets.  Is it 2016 yet?  We started booking and paying for tours, admissions, and in-country travel.  But it was always 'next year.'  We were going 'next year.'  And damn -- next year was a long time away.

And then it was 'this year.'  On January 1st I started my official count-down. 100 days.  I loved the symmetry of that.  But it still seemed so far away.  More bookings followed.  I bought pounds and euros at entirely the wrong time. Emails and messages flew fast and furious.  Was it April -- yet?  And they have longer to wait than I.  We're meeting at Paddington Station on  April 28. How do we fill the time from now until then? Without driving everyone around us crazy?  

I FaceTimed with my friends in the UK.  Even they, who live there, are excited for our walk.  And then yesterday we received our itinerary for the Cotswold Way.  We'll be staying in a 17th C inn, a country house on 8 acres, a stone cottage from the early 1820's, a 17th C coaching inn, among others.  Ramp up the excitement meter.  How can it not be April yet?

But now, the circus is oh, so close.  I can almost see the flags of the Big Top over the hill.  There's a faint whiff of popcorn and cotton candy in the air. What's that I'm hearing?  Elephants and monkeys?  The roar of the crowd?  It won't be long now.

And I've got tickets to the circus.