Staying away for the New Year

I don't think I've done this for forty years - I'm going away for the New Year. And I won't be driving - I shall be a backseat passenger in Jo and Clive's car. After a few days of photo work after Christmas - I have a scanning project dating from July 2017 to finish off (Mum and Dad's collection of family and cruising photo prints) - I'll be in the mood for travel. I might have planned one or two long day trips - to Oxford, say. But for once I've accepted an invitation to stay with friends in Hampshire.

It's two nights away near Lymington, with the sea and the New Forest, and the shops in Bournemouth, all close to hand. I shall be staying with Jean and Geoff, and will see Jean's brother again, and local friends Janice and Peter. So an all-adult get-together. We all like each other and are of the same mind. Jean and Geoff's dog Basil likes me too. The weather won't matter. It'll be posh frocks and wellies anyway.

I have a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne - and a small selection of posh artisan cheeses - already purchased and ready to take. We're eating out on New Year's Eve: it'll probably be expensive, but never mind. There'll be nice food indoors anyway. I get a proper bed, all the home comforts. All I have to be is my usual amiable self. All I have to do is float along and be sociable. I can and will do both.

It all sounds excellent, and I'm genuinely looking forward to it. I admit, though, that's it's also an experiment.

I never normally stay overnight anywhere. I like my own bed, of course, but there's more to it than that. I have a psychological need for oodles of personal space and a highly-structured daily routine. That was how I managed to survive ten years ago, when my world had turned upside down. I still need the same winning formula. I bolster myself with to-do lists, and lots of planning and record-keeping, backed up with photos showing what I did, where I went, and what I ate. Every day that goes well - and most go very well - is an achievement based on careful planning. I can't live a chaotic life. I couldn't enjoy a leap into the unknown. Bohemian, improvised living isn't for me: it would get me down. 

Keeping in constant touch with the framework I've set up for myself is my way of staying in control, and having control maintains my self-confidence and personal equilibrium. I know myself very well by now. Deprive me of my routine, even for a day, and I will start to feel unhappy and edgy. Classic withdrawal symptoms! It's a tribute to the friends I have that they never crowd me and make me feel I need to escape. But then I haven't put our time together to any great strain. Now, with this New Year adventure, I'm putting a little pressure on myself. I want to find out whether I've improved, whether I can be a successful guest for more than just a few hours.

So this two-night New Year experience is frankly a test. I want to see how I bear up. If it goes fine, then I know I will cope with longer breaks from my ordinary life.

It's already been proposed that sometime in the coming year my circle of local girl friends could spend a few days in Prague or Vienna. I've never seen either of these cities, and the travel-loving part of me says YES. But the part of me that clings to a supporting daily routine says NO. It would be so nice if I could go with them with confidence.

Of course there are other issues. For instance, I have a reluctance to fly anywhere. I know this could well develop into a real fear of flying, hidden behind (and justified by) a genuine concern over DVT, and a strong ethical wish not to pump jet exhaust gasses into the upper atmosphere.

Even if I never fly away to far-off destinations, I still take a lot of holidays each year. But all of them in the caravan, on my own, where I can have privacy and exclusive personal space, and maintain that comforting daily routine. The caravan is literally a home from home, partly because I can take along so much personal stuff. I wonder whether I can create a 'home-from-home' feeling out of an overnight case? Will it freak me out if I can't squeeze it all in? Should I (for instance) bring along Rosie (my little smiling china cat), who is my companion on every caravan trip?

People who know me must find the picture I paint of myself at odds with the person they see. But we are all complex. This two-night experiment will either convince me that my longstanding instinct for turning down invitations is a wise instinct, or it will be something of a breakthrough. Fingers crossed.