No backing out

Well, that’s the tickets booked for the trip to London in September. No backing out now!

I have on a few occasions come quite close to calling the whole thing off. I’m a bit of a wuss, you see, and have problems with, well, quite a lot of things to be honest. I’m rubbish at travel unless there’s someone with me who I can trust to make sure I don’t get lost. If that sounds a bit abnormal at my advanced age, let me assure you that it leaves me mortified. However, I can’t help how I feel. I’m not as bad as poor Marcus Trescothick because I can actually get on a train or a plane and go somewhere if I have to, but the amount of grief it causes me rarely makes the effort worthwhile.

I also have no sense of direction. Ask some of the other Rampants: they’ll tell you as much!

Additionally, I can’t do packed spaces. The Tube in rush hour is possibly the closest thing to hell I have experienced in my life so far and last year’s trip to London resulted in a rather embarrassing panic attack that fortunately only a couple of others witnessed.

I get homesick closing the front gate in the morning some times. It’s not too bad going to work, because I know where I’m going and what’s ahead of me. Ask me to step out my comfort zone and I will transform into a hand-wringing bag of nerves. It struck me that for all the years spent on this planet I basically know the area within a five mile radius of where I live. Anything outside this may as well be the North Pole.

Agoraphobia is a real barsteward thing to face, but when I think of some folks who can’t even set foot outside their door it makes me realise actually how lucky I am in comparison. And you can take ‘little steps’ to help yourself. Basically, I’d as soon stay in my house most of the time. It’s safer, I feel calm there, and it’s easier. However, easier is not necessarily what’s best: sometimes you’ve got to challenge yourself to do something that goes against your natural instinct to hide away.

I was especially down at the back end of 2006 without really understanding why, but then the Rampants all hooked up as a result of following Ramps on Strictly Come Dancing that year and they gave me a lot of confidence, even if it did take a while to admit that I had one or two ‘issues’. After all, who wants to admit to being abnormal? And of course an enormous amount of credit actually has to go to both Ramps himself and Karen Hardy, who although totally unaware of it did a heck of a lot to help me. Watching Karen get the best out of Mark each week and watching that confidence grow, dance after dance, made me realise that if you put your mind to it you can achieve just about anything. It felt as if a blow had been struck for introverts everywhere!

It’s being reminded of this that keeps me trying to challenge myself to rise above the fear of getting on a train and travelling to London. I still can’t do it by myself, but one day I am determined I will. So I am saying a big thank you to all the Rampants who have helped me or been very patient: especially Annabel, Liz, Lorna and Tricia. Travelling may be a mundane thing to most folks but I literally couldn’t even think about it without you.

And of course, that would mean no cricket! I am determined to try and see another Ramprakash innings at the very least, weather/injury/fate permitting. Just my way of saying thank you to him for inadvertently inspiring me to try and do something positive rather than spend my entire existence stuck in a rut.

London, 6th of September, here I come!