Travels with my daughter

This time last year we headed up to Edinburgh for a few nights.

It was a significant trip as it marked the first time we’d been away as a team of two and the first time we’d been away since the pandemic. The lockdown years were spent happily at home—we are both introverted homebodies, after all—but we were finally ready for more. Ready to break new ground together, stretch the edges of our comfort zones hand in hand. Ready to make new memories.

Last summer, I responded to a travel writing prompt on Medium about how it felt to go away for the first time after Covid had turned the world upside-down. I wrote about this Edinburgh trip. A trip that rewarded my leap of faith with heady feelings of freedom and joy, and with pride (and gratitude) at the brilliant travel companion my daughter has grown into, and at the confident solo parent I have grown into.

I wanted to share a couple of extracts from that article. The first relates to the photo. York to Edinburgh by rail is one of the most glorious journeys in the UK. The second is my attempt to capture in words a small and simple moment that felt truly magical. I’m glad I tried, as reading it back, I can feel it all over again.

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This was the best part of the journey.

We looked out of the train window at the expanse of blue, so close to the sea now the tracks were almost kissing the sand.

We were quiet. Just staring out of the window. The sea unseen for years.

A moment of reverence.

Our cheeks were flushed as the carriage was stuffy, and our eyes (and our minds, and our bodies) tired.

But this,

this was the jolt,

the jump,

the start we needed.

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The first night, we held hands and made the steady climb up the Royal Mile in search of the reassuring homogeneity of a Pizza Express.

I hope I always remember how I felt when we walked that walk. One word—free. She felt it too, I could tell. A lightness. Almost giddy. We messed about. Balanced on steps. Avoided cracks in a manner no doubt deeply annoying to other pedestrians. Laughed at a small dog blatantly having his photo taken for Instagram. This was a freedom we had to leave home to find.

This feeling for me is the power of travel encapsulated. Leaving everything behind. Being fully present. Two years of being nowhere but here have honestly not been awful. But the massive injection of joy from being elsewhere together—so special. And certainly something we plan to repeat.

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And repeat it we shall. Tomorrow, after a much-needed quiet start to the Easter holidays, we are off to Edinburgh once more. What This Week #11 is scheduled and ready to send on Sunday morning. I’m switching off, ready to revel in freedom. Ready for the next adventure.