I have to carry on with the Donut Child/Forces Brat nostalgia thing. I was curious as to why, yet again, I was wandering down the Yellow Brick Road that was our childhood and now I realise, British Summer Time starts next week. Ask any Donut Child and they will all tell you they get wanderlust at this time of year. Bloody hell my feet are horribly itchy and I need some sunshine.
Donut children are a completely different breed from the normal Brit. They display some very strange habits, especially at the start of summer time. These include throwing anything remotely warm in the bin, sorting and grading flip flops in colour/size/longevity and smelliness. The smelliest are always the most favourite. Sniffing the interior of last years suitcase, reminiscences of golden sand and Hawaiian Tropic. I have several sarongs that I stubbornly hang on to as they still smell of suntan oil, despite washing.
An inordinate, unexplained desperation to get to the beach, any beach, doesn't matter how cold the water is, just get there. Roll up jeans, stick feet in freezing water and.......breathe. Ahhhh, that's better. Everything centres, the mind becomes crystal clear (obviously due to sub zero temperatures) and the feet drop off. My ex husband thought I was a complete nightmare as, one sunny spring day, when living in deepest Oxfordshire I got in the car drove a couple of hundred miles through stupid traffic, stuck my feet in the sea, turned around and came back again. It calms us and stops us jumping on the nearest plane to South America. Talking of which, I have done that as well. I was separated from said ex and was made redundant. A phone call was swiftly made to nice people in Indulgence office (see definitions at Words of Wisdom..).The Ex was duly bullied into signing forms and £50 quid and 8 hours later I climbed down the steps of the Tri Star and stepped onto Ascension Island soil.
I have actually gone one further than that....bad, bad mother that I am. I decided that I was fed up with the UK and dragged three children, kicking and screaming over to Spain. Yep! Two suitcases, three kids, no accommodation and a flight to Malaga. "Don't worry mum. its only for a year or so", said I, as she howled down the phone and ordered my long suffering Pa to "Pack the Car for Spain NOW Jimmy!". I had a tenuous grasp of Spanish at the time. Believe me there is nothing like being thrown in at the deep end to improve ones tenuous grasp into a 'rude but understandable' fluency.
Most people in the 'real world' are happy and content to move house a few times and consider that stressful enough. Not good enough for a Donut Child, moving around is our fundamental right!! Having been in a house for two years, I start feeling pretty hemmed in and usually try to stem the tide by buying new rugs and moving furniture. Nah...doesn't work. I look around me and the walls close in, I have to move right now, hence my nomadic lifestyle. I have been in this house for three whole years and am more than ready to move this summer. The only reason I am still here is because I wrecked my arm last year, nothing more. Erm, actually I had to wait for The Git to finish Primary..... Luckily I now live within a 14 mile radius of some of the most beautiful beaches in Cornwall and if I feel bad I can pack child, body board and cool box in car and have my feet in the sea in 35 minutes flat!
As I get older I realise that it becomes harder to do these things and must maintain my thinly veiled disguise of a responsible mum, fighting the urge to jump on nearest AV Gas smelling carrier. But I will never give up! That is what makes us Donut children. Nothing is permanent, we take all that life gives but yearn and search for more. It doesn't matter how old or decrepit we get, we are and remain Donut children!
For All you Restless Souls out there.
Muse x
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