Missing Poster

Things I didn’t realise I was going to miss

On Monday, I was on the Skype with my fandamily down Cape Town way. Somewhere in the 3 hours of chatting (and gin), my dearest Popsie asked me what I am going to do with my hair on the boat. My hair. To say that was unexpected is a bit of an understatement! I do get it, though. He understands his daughter.

I’m a bit obsessed with my hair. Not in a “style it every day and make it perfect”kind of way. Nope. Can’t be bothered with that. More in the “OK, I’m bored with bright red, shall I go blue? And/or would shaving half of it work?” kind of way. My hair is never the same for more than a few months at a time.

Stick with me…this post is not just about my hair!

I have been planning for this. I’m slowly dying my hair as close to what I remember is my natural colour as is possible. The idea being that as my roots grow out over 5 months on the boat, I need not worry too much about the dip-dyed look in Publicity Photos. Upon hearing this, though, my darling popsie asked if I was accounting for the grey that would inevitably come through due to my now advanced years.

*tumbleweeds*

You can always count on family to remind you of the wrinkle you forgot to account for! 🙂

ANYWAY. It got me to thinking. If I’m going to miss my 8-weekly visits with the world’s best hairdresser, what else am I going to miss?!? There are the obvious ones like showers…and beer. But there are a lot of other things that need thought. So I’ve started a list. It is not exhaustive and I reserve the right to amend/add/delete and elaborate at any time.

My pooch.

Her name is Kirei and she’s a Shiba Inu (no, not a fox) – which is related to an Akita and has a similar attitude – and I love her more than she loves me. They call this breed the cat of dogs. She has demonstrably pointy teeths and loves a good tummy scratch. I’ll miss her warming my toes in bed

friends and family

Bit of an obvious one, here, but it’s true! The support they’ve given me in getting to where I am now in life is unbelieveable. The following collage is not complete (because some of the pics I have of you lot are not printable in a family-friendly format! And also because I have limited patience for trawling through 45k photos) but gives a picture of some of the people I love dearly and the experiences we’ve had. Gonna miss you buckballs x

Mother Earth (as in the Terra aspect)

My Garden, forests and other earthy-smelling places. I love digging in the dirt. I love the wet-earth smell after rain. Jasmine on a summer’s breeze. Big Views. Mud (!!) While on the boat I’ll content myself with sunrise/set, fresh sea breeze on deck and smelly sailing boots below. *sigh*. Hoping port stops will give me a little time to stick my toes into fresh grass.

Personal space

As my girlfriend Vik pointed out…I live alone and have become accustomed to keeping my shit the way I like it. This will not be possible when I’m on the boat. I’m going to have to tone down my need to not have someone’s socks turn up in my bunk or to swap pants halfway through because luggage got muddled and we’re too tired to care (that might be a small exaggeration to make the point). Unless I’m the bosun. In which case All of the Things will be where they Should Be. Take note Crew-family!

Music

The only thing I’m more obsessive about than my hair (OK, maybe popcorn too) is Good Tunes I don’t care what genre (apart from country FFS…did you know if you play it backwards you get your house/wife/dog/car back?). It’s not that we won’t have ANY music on board, but more that it tends to be communal and quiet as the off watch sleeps. And the headphone time I’ll have to myself I’ll likely want to spend sleeping. In fact, the only time I’ll have to myself is sleep time…and I’m unlikely to want to chuck Slipknot on as bedtime tunes. I mean, I love a very wide range of music but at what point am I going to be able to rock out with my socks out?

Conclusion

To whit, there are a lot of things I’m going to miss…and the closer we get to “go” time, the more I tally. Up until Monday, I tallied that against the idea that I was going to go and see the world in a new and exciting way!

True to form…Popsie was quick to point out his favourite Irving Berlin song: “We joined the navy to see the world. And what did we see? We saw the sea.” 🙂

I’ll miss you peeps too! Don’t worry, the good people at Thinking Fox will be keeping you up to date with my on-board antics via satellite email whatsit. You can track boat progress via the Clipper Round the World website and the Crew Supporters Club! If you could send a few missives of encouragement back the other way now and then, it will be very appreciated!

Smooches
SDx