Escapism in England

Escapism in England

Northumberland, England

The stresses and strains of day-to-day University life are often too much to bear, especially in my final year of study.  Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the North East of England is brimming with students and workers alike, all running around like headless chickens with whatever tasks they have to deal with.  On one miserable, grey, February Friday morning, the ceaseless pressures of work all became too much and I stormed out of Uni and stropped all the way home in complete refusal to do anything more.  I curled into the womb of my bed and whilst safe in the snuggling comfort of my duvet I sank into my own little world, my own place where no one could tell me what to do.  It was just me and my own thoughts.  I thought of how when moving away from my family home I was expecting to feel so much more free and independent, of how I would have control over my own life and of how excited I was at the prospect of my unknown future. But now when it came to the crunch I felt more trapped than ever, and scared about looming decisions that needed to be made, and right then I realised that I was growing up.  Thankfully, I had the relief of my mother visiting as of Saturday, which may not sound like a relief to some people, but unlike with other visitors there was no need to play the host, to constantly please and entertain, I could just take the time to be myself.

Escapism is a mental diversion to relieve depression or stress by means of entertainment or recreation.  Northumberland was the perfect destination, an anonymous environment to escape to, a place where I had no connection with past or present trials and tribulations.  When my mother arrived in the morning I received a long awaited hug and felt a strong sense of comfort, love and familiarity, and I realised how much I had missed her.  We drove north up the coast for some time away from reality and the carnage of the city.  We decided to spend the night in Alnmouth; a small, quiet and peaceful coastal country town – the perfect escape.  It consisted of a single street, lined with quaint black and white Old English houses, two wooden-beamed pubs, a pastel coloured gift shop and an all-organic, all-free-range style convenience store.  With the shop owner’s suggestion we found an invitingly warm and friendly B&B for the night.  With a room, enormous double bed, television and tea set each and our own bathroom for only £50 for the night we were delighted with our cosy find. 

Alnmouth High Street

Desperate for some sea air we left the car in Seahouses and got a bus to an estuary near Holy Island.  With sand beneath our shoes and the sea breeze fiercely rattling our cagoules we were content and made our way back down the shoreline.  To our left the estuary seemed to swirl in every direction, the tide eerily drawing in not with the crash of a wave but with a steady rise in water level.  It made me feel uneasy and I became hypnotised by the suspicious whirl-pooling of the deepening liquid.  On exiting the estuary we noticed the aggressive pounding of the waves that crashed onto the shore, the wind causing the foam to fleck into the air and the crashing water to spray into fountains of white above the dancing waves.  In the distance Holy Island stood in solitude amongst the excitable waters and we trod amongst broken shells, sticky seaweed and dank driftwood, and scrambled over slimy rocks and sweeping sand dunes.  It felt so refreshing to get back to nature and to the sea, somewhere I always felt I belonged, my troubles whipping away with every seabird that swept across the sky.

Halfway through our walk we came to Bamburgh, whose famous towering castle perched naturally on the landscape, a part of the coastline itself.  The sheer rocky edges of the mount hold the fortress high and proud, fascinating and impressive.  We delighted in watching wetsuit-clad surfers scampering from their Volkswagen campervans into the rushing seas, catching a wave and then falling back into the abyss again.  I could picture the pleasure in owning a mobile home, travelling wherever the wind goes, free from commitments and the world at my feet.  The centre of Bamburgh itself is a quintessential English village, dwarfed by the crow-circled turrets of the castle.  It felt medieval and exciting, like no where else I had been and the sense of pleasure in coming across somewhere so charming and mysterious was both relaxing and intriguing, it was good for the soul.  We found a tea room in which we delved into hot beef, onion and gravy baguettes and scones to our hearts’ delight.  We drank countless pots of tea all of course served on top of white doyleys in floral tea cups.

Bamburgh Castle

With satisfied stomachs and a new lease of energy we continued the latter part of the walk.  I relished in this quality time spent with someone so close, who I had spent my whole life going on walks with, this release, this return to innocence felt very special.  With the tide closing in and the sky darkening, we made haste as the water was closing in on the headlands and walkers scurried across the bays so as not to get cut off.  The Farne Islands in the distance watched us and the momentary flashes from the lighthouse reminded us that it was getting late.  Arriving back into Seahouses the sea seemed enchanted with the golden shimmer of the sunset.  We walked through the small harbour where a seal bobbed at the water’s surface, calm and tranquil in contrast to the tumbling waves beyond.  Fishing trawlers and tourist boats were receiving new licks of red and aqua for the upcoming spring and summer seasons.  I loved this spot.  Fishing nets and cages were casually strewn about the pier, buoys and rescue rings decorated this benched quarter and the humble rumble from a boat’s engine provided an ideal anticlimax after the seven mile walk.  The nautical theme continued when we went into The Ship Inn.  This pub contained a roaring log fire and actually seemed like a ship itself, entering it is like stepping into the lower decks, with a plethora of nautical antiques and replicas adorning the walls and hanging from the ceilings.  These include brass telescopes, murky lanterns, wooden barrels, gleaming underwater helmets, heavy lead anchors and even a ship’s steering wheel, and on none of which lay a speck of dust.

Seahouses Harbour

We returned to Alnmouth to relax in our softly furnished rooms, choosing what we would like for breakfast and delving into the unimaginable comfort of the memory foam beds, completely exhausted and drifting into dreams of lighthouses and seagulls.  The next day we packed our bodies to the rafters with a traditional English breakfast then headed west for our second walk.  We arrived at Hadrian’s Wall and clambered up and down its grassy, rocky ruins, imagining the marching Roman military on one side and the Barbarian Scots on the other. The views were sensational; rolling countryside spread to the horizon, and odd glimmers of sunshine fused with the drizzle to cast rainbows that seemed to shoot up from the ground, then disappear just as quickly.  The walk varied through fields to forests, by reservoirs and soggy paths, all with the wall stretching majestically in endless direction.  When we stopped to rest I noticed how quiet it was despite the strong wind and the sheer volume of life.  Numerous types of birds nestled amongst the grass and whooped in the air, and the cattle and the sheep all lived in perfect harmony, happy and unafraid.  The sheep had such clean and fluffy coats, they looked healthy and I shared in their contentment of this sweet country space, wondering if all who get the chance to visit here feel the same sense of release in being somewhere else.

Hadrian's Wall

To conclude our Northumbrian mother-daughter weekend we visited Hexham before I got dropped off back into the real world.  This attractive town with a park at its centre and beautiful architecture did however show signs of city life re-emerging, with an increase in people and in size, and a sly Wetherspoons that had crept into the old cinema building.  A sigh and a goodbye to the weekend and the comfort of my mother’s company delivered me back into Newcastle, and the week-beginning Monday morning rituals hung over the both of us.  All was not lost though, this weekend had given me a chance to take a step back, to take a deep breath and recover, to remember the strong and able person that I am and to take a small journey back into childhood, a safe place without worries, a place where someone else looks after you.  The chance to escape to somewhere completely different, somewhere not even that far away is available to anyone who is willing to explore.  It’s amazing what you can discover just outside your doorstep.

A Sense of Home

A Sense of Home

Montpellier, France

‘The nature of ‘home’ [...] from which we are constantly displaced, but which we constantly try to re-place.’

Travellers’ Tales: Narratives of Home and Displacement 1998

When travelling alone, I often find myself viewing the experience as a lesser form of displacement.  Even though I have willingly chosen to exile myself, and even though I know I’ll return to my true home eventually - this self-banishment requires the constant search not only for a bed for the night, but for those incredible places which make such a journey worthwhile.  Places that can make you feel at home when thousands of miles away, a place like Montpellier.  One may ask why I might have such an outlook, when I specifically leave home to seek satisfaction elsewhere.  I believe that internally, a part of every traveller wants not to find somewhere like home, but to find places where they feel ­at home.  The excitement of somewhere new makes our yearning for discovery, learning and understanding of that place all the greater. We have a need to get to know our surroundings, a want to feel welcomed.  A release in escaping to somewhere new can yield warmth in managing to feel a refreshingly new sense of place and belonging in such a short period of time.  We mentally interpret each new place onto a scale of a sense of home by physically going there, so let me take you...

Having booked flights at opposite ends of Europe in the summer of 2008 with three weeks in-between, I had thoroughly planned my route.  So when the only available reservation on a train from Paris to Marseille was a mere three days later than my schedule allowed, panic began to set in.  Feeling naive and damning myself for not booking a seat earlier, I was on the verge of tears and after contemplating every possible destination and route, a stroke of luck settled my nerves - there was one last space on the train to Montpellier that same day.  Thankful that I could escape the hectic fumes of Paris, and head to a more relaxed town in the South of France, I took it. 

I had originally planned to go from Marseille, to Nimes, to Barcelona.  So after I had unsuccessfully queried about a reservation to go to Nimes instead of Marseille, I was puzzled when discovering that the Montpellier train stopped there anyway.  Timidly, I teetered onto the impressively imposing double-decker train, recollecting that forgotten feeling of being an anxious young school girl, getting a bus alone for the first time. I had ‘The Fear’ – a phenomenon common amongst travellers, which can only be described as sheer nervous terror when not having booked a place to spend the night.  I caved in and frantically called my mother.  Once she had found out that the only hostel in Nimes looked ‘a bit dodgy’, and once a couple of men sitting opposite had advised that there was not much to do there, it felt like a safe decision to remain on the train until Montpellier.  We cruised smoothly past the distant snow-capped Alps and the green fields of France, and the journey was actually a gorgeous and comfortable one despite ‘The Fear’.  When the train shuffled past Nimes it looked barren and dull.  The men chatted enthusiastically and delighted in informing me of Montpellier, describing it as vibrant, with great bars and nightlife and full of young people (‘like me’) due to the town’s 70,000 University students.

Vibrant Montpellier at night

 I arrived in Montpellier three and a half hours after I left Paris, a sudden wave of balmy late-afternoon heat embraced me and delivered that Mediterranean air of France I was lusting for after the smoggy hustle and bustle of the capital.  It began to get dark and I was struggling to locate a hostel, worrying that by this time there must be no vacancies left. Appearing misplaced and fruitless, a kind French boy named Eric offered to show me the way.  My desperation dramatically subsided and ‘The Fear’ was left to another day, as another stroke of luck meant that I boasted a bed in Hostel Montpellier for the next two nights.  Relieved and overjoyed, I accepted Eric’s offer of showing me around.   I felt excitement fizzing and smugness brewing in my stomach when I saw that Montpellier is in fact beautiful.  The early evening so vivacious, so alive and luminous with countless courtyards plumped with outdoor seating for limitless bars and restaurants.  Dreamy live music played in the cobbled thoroughfares, complementing the incandescent lighting of the cafes, selling home-made ice cream and maple-syrup waffles long into the night.  Eric and I shared deliciously fruity cocktails, and through a massive language barrier, our opinions of his applications for University both here and in Paris.  Paris is of course abundant in charming qualities, such as the cosy Montmartre area, and the dancing electric blue lights of the Eiffel Tower at night, but it also has the chock-a-block, impersonal vigour of a big city. When sat here, in a warmer climate and surrounded by such friendly energy and sparkle, I saw no competition.

Montpellier's Opera House

 By night and day the fine 19^th century Opera House and the trickling fountain are the Place de la Comédie (the main square)’s focal points. With map in hand I had to drag myself away from the fashionably quirky boutiques and craft shops that linked and decorated every street.  Outside the centre, Montpellier expands beyond expectation.  Beyond the Arc de Triomphe and heading for the Roman ruins at the north-western end of town, I found myself meandering on a gravelly path through a quiet and leafy arcade, at the other side of which lives the famous Les Arceaux Aqueduct, astonishing in size and degree of preservation. Exploring further still I happened upon Montpellier’s Botanical Garden, free of entry yet completely empty and unlimited in winding paths, it felt like I had stumbled upon Montpellier’s very own secret garden.  A quick flash of rain sprang the scent of every exquisite flower, shrubbery and grass blade haphazardly into the air, and I was drawn towards an elegant lily pond where I sat to procrastinate with the terrapins that clipped the pond weeds, and the carp that bubbled at the water’s surface.  I mused over the amount of water in Montpellier.  Every square has a fountain perfect for toe-dipping on a hot day; every small park has a pond at its centre. Perhaps this is to compensate or distract from the fact that the coast is roughly another half an hour’s train journey away.  In my opinion, it works.  The splashing water seems to cool the hot mid-summer air, and when sat underneath a willow tree in one of those parks, watching four ducklings testing the water and then flop in after their mother, I felt completely content.  Music can stimulate a certain memory or feeling; it can take you back to a time or place.  I am reminded of this moment when listening to ‘Crooked Teeth’ by Death Cab For Cutie;

‘It was one hundred degrees as we sat beneath the willow tree.’

Of course, in this situation, there was no ‘we’.  The loneliness of travelling alone gives you time to yourself.  It gives you time to get to know a place, at your own pace, and at this point in time: I felt truly at one with Montpellier.

Les Arceaux Aqueduct

 The fact that I was spending a chunky part of my travels in France when unable to speak a word of French meant that there would always be some form of isolation. Yet being a lone traveller I encouraged myself to talk to others, whether they could understand me or not.  So when on my second evening I met three other lone English student travellers back at the hostel, I was delighted and in the thrill of full communication we agreed to go out together and instantly bonded.  There was Hazel – the intelligent writer, Fran – the bubbly curly-haired good-time girl, Matt – your typical masculine man, and me – the excitable blonde.  We went into a bar which showcased France’s number one beat-boxer, in our glee at this hilarious turn of events we drank the cheap punch that was on offer, and nicknamed ourselves ‘The Pelly Crew’.  On returning to an outdoor courtyard we drank lager from an enormous tubular decanter, uncontrollably slipping into ‘Brits on tour’ mode, yet as far as we noticed no one seemed to mind as the place was full of young, bouncy people like ourselves.  A fair few drinks later and back at the hostel we decided that the night was still young.  On the roof terrace we smoked, talked rubbish and laughed until the rain meant that we had to go inside to cause some mischief instead.  We sneaked around, knocked on doors and ran away, got told off and huddled under duvets in the corridors, all because we didn’t want to go to sleep or want the day to end.  The next morning we met for breakfast, exchanged details then went our separate ways.  It felt like we had known each other for so much longer. 

Once I personally felt settled, these people were the icing on my Montpellier cake.  I felt so satisfied at how everything had turned out, at how what initially seemed like horrendous bad-luck had developed into good, securing a reservation, avoiding Nimes, availability at the hostel, the coincidence that I fell in love with Montpellier, and the friends I made.  It wasn’t only the English speakers and the familiarity with home-culture that completed the feeling of being at home, it was the people themselves; it was friendship, which is essential wherever you are in the world.  When you feel at home, you feel like yourself.  So perhaps, finding a sense of home somewhere has just as much to do with the people you meet as well as the place itself.  Get them both right, and you’re onto a winner.

A person might seek to experience somewhere new, a place they feel at home.  This is often teamed with their need to escape from the very place they come from.  To feel comfortable elsewhere but to get away from the mundane things you see and do everyday is surely the perfect escape, whether it is in another country, or your own...