Mirror, Mirror on the wall ...

Living in London can be hard. I really only remember just how hard when I've spent some time away.

This past weekend I went to Northumberland with Jailbait to do some climbing and to visit my Uncle and cousins.

It was amazing.

The open space, the clean air, the villages and just the general peacefulness and isolation. I did not want to return last night.

Living in London you are just another nameless face on a crowded street. People push right passed you and don't even notice you or care about your story.

Out there people were greeting me in the street, waving at us as we drove passed and just made me feel more at home than an entire 3 and a half years of living in London has done.

Don't get me wrong, I love living in London but I can not see myself settling here for all of eternity. At the moment the work is good, the travel prospects are amazing and the opportunities that London hands to me are unmissable.

Living back in Cape Town there is no way I'd be working on an award winning television show, no way I'd be able to book a trip to Belgium last minute or a climbing holiday to Sardinia and no way I'd learn so much more about different cultures.

But London is not a home.

It is a means to an end.

Though one does have to start asking - How long am I going to continue this means? What is the maximum time that I can see myself living in this city before I start to lose my soul?

I sometimes dream about moving out to the countryside. I can see myself living in a stone farmhouse, couple of children, baking, pottering outside in my wellies and waving hello to the neighbours as they wander into the village.

I wake up and I can't decide if it is a nightmare or a fantasy.

One thing is for sure though - I am going to have to start considering seriously what my time frame for London living is.

Perhaps I could move out to Canada for a bit, experience life there. Or I could pack up and go live in the French countryside for a year, brush up on my French and experience life in that degree.

Or I could become some high powered Television Executive for a major Network and spend my life in the office and then traveling home via a chauffeured car to my Holland Park townhouse where my child will have been put to bed by the nanny not even realising that their Mother was not home to read them a bedtime story.

I wonder what version I'll become.

Could I? I don't know, maybe I could!

At the end of last year my closest friend had a bit of an emotional breakdown and fled London to recuperate in Kenya with her mother for a month or two.

This month or two has now extended to her living in Sudan running some sort of American Corporate Living Complex and exploring other random parts of Africa. She isn't returning to London until July/August and I miss her more than I can explain to anyone. Considering that we usually talk on the phone for more than an hour each day and haven't done so probably since the beginning of December you might understand slightly.

She keeps me grounded and reminds me not to lose my sanity and obsessive over every small thing - which is a common occurrence in the world of Miss M.

The point of this is that of late she has been hinting about how great it would be if I came and joined her in Sudan. You get paid in wonderful American dollars and all of your living expenses are covered so perhaps it isn't that bad an idea - paying off my debt would be a wonderful thing.

Today she informed me* of the many American Companies making documentaries in Sudan and how they have been recently advertising for crew. Apparently the money is amazing and there is so much going on there.

In Sudan? I'm inclined not to believe her so I am waiting on the forwarded mail regarding the said job positions. I think it is just a ploy to get Miss M to come and play with her in Sudan.

But you never know ...

3 or 4 months living in a completely different country earning lots of money and doing something that I love with my best friend near me.

It is actually mildly tempting.

What else is this life for other than taking chances and exploring as many possibilities as you can?

*Whilst we don't have phone contact there is still the wonderful invention of MSN - this is the only way I've been staying sane!