Bournemouth.
I visited Bournemouth for a few days this week. It was good, and surprisingly the weather was pretty good too. The hotel was quite old, but not the dusty, rotting sort of old - the type of old that gives a place character and history. I guess you could describe it as a large time capsule, protecting it's aging contents from modern times outside the building. In a lounge on the ground floor you could see where people had carved their initials into the wood paneling on the walls. A tiny piece of them marked and buried within history and time. We did the normal things you do on a British beach holiday... It was nice to spend time with family for a while and eat too much simply because you can because after all - you're on holiday, also it was kinda cool to not have to think about anything in particular. We hardly ever have time to just sit and think for a few hours with only our own minds for company or enjoy the people around us without distractions, and car journeys are the perfect time to think and make the most of the people around you. If you ever find yourself faced with a long car journey and you are on a motorway, just like I was, consider how many people there actually is on the motorway; all of them going to different places, all of them thinking different things and all of them sharing the same piece of road to reach their final destination.
As people we have this sort of obsession to travel, to be anywhere else but where we live. We want to see new things, have new experiences and see new people. But as I approached my small hometown after queuing to get off the M1 I realised that sometimes we have to leave where we feel the safest, the place that we know like the back of our hand and the place we call home because if you stayed in one place for all your life you would miss out a lot. You can't ever bring a sea view inland. There's a different atmosphere in a holiday town that only exists there with all the other people who are there for the same reason you are, it's a connection that brings all of us together - to create memories that will last a lifetime. Just like those people who carved their initials into the wooden paneling, they wanted to be a memory, to live on just like the memories they made while they were in Bournemouth however many years ago.
Laura.
Song: Ghosts by Gabrielle Aplin
