Birthday Road Trip

My only birthday wish this year was to get a group of friends together and finally visit the famed Eden Project in Cornwall.

Spoiler alert: I still have yet to see the Eden Project, but ended up being treated instead to (as is so often the case)much better - the unplanned & magnifique.

I think the idea came to me whilst working on some kind of digital collage using the image of the famous "Sleeping Goddess" statue, that slumbers away - half buried under the moss - in the gardens of Eden Project.

That was June. The last weekend in July you'd find me in bed throwing one of the biggest 'silent rage meets silent despair' temper tantrums of my adult life. You see, I've done some serious magick to attract a creative project I'd be passionate about (I work in advertisement, if you think that's cool, fun, creative & well-paid, you are wrong and I'm coming to slap you) to feed my soul and provide some extra pocket money to use for the best thing money can be used for - travelling.

Because I'm a kick-ass witchboy, I have manifested the PERFECT project and it did bring some well-needed sustenance for my soul and pocket money for travelling and I had the perfect way in mind for how to spend them - getting plane tickets for me & David so we could join my parents on their end-of-August holiday in Bulgaria.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but there's this thing about magick: it ALWAYS works and it's ALWAYS AT WORK, but ALWAYS in tongue-in-cheek unpredictable way. It's a temperamental energy work unbound by rules and quite fond of messing with you, little clueless human! So yes, I got to manifest all that from the ethereal realm, only to run into a major roadblock in the earthly realm - of course in all that woo woo work and excitement I somehow postponed the whole practical aspect of being able to travel out - BOOKING THE HOLIDAY AT WORK - and when it finally came to my project being completed and money being transferred to my bank account, guess what - it was too late for David to get holiday approved for those exact days my parents would be in Bulgaria.

So I've lost the whole weekend to sulking: I literally slept for 14 hours, moved through our flat like a shadow of myself and lamented the unfairness of having to give up on my big six-months long vision - ignoring all along that I got to do this amazing creative work and get to be paid for it - what a blessing in its own! Fuck Bulgaria!

All along, David kept a low profile as he was internally facing a dread of his own - waiting for his UK driving license to arrive in the post, so that we could do my birthday road trip to Cornwall (he's the only one who can drive) - well aware that if that TOO fell through, I'd jump into Thames wearing nothing but cement shoes, never to be seen again.

To save you some suspense - his driving license arrived just a few days before our planned trip: the sun came out from behind the clouds, the world got its colours back again and the heavenly angelic chorus could be heard throughout the land.

Our friends Carol, Aga & Steve would join us - which is a big birthday treat in itself - as when you're 30+ in London, your default is people cancelling plans, NOT agreeing & sticking to them. So the five of us rented a car, booked a night in a tipi tent somewhere in Cornwall and embarked on a 250miles journey across the island.

A weekend of surprising hilarity - our campsite hosts Sue & Kev turned out to be the kindest, most random and hilarious characters (that made me constantly look over my shoulder for a hidden camera), and the marvellous improv teamwork of camping when the simplest tasks - like cooking sausages or going to toilet - turn into a collective collaboration project.

There's been so many unexpected variables to this trip - from the campsite we were meant to be staying at being torn down by the harsh Cornish gales the night before, to actually in the end being too pressed for time (we spent 6hrs in car getting there on Saturday & 6hrs coming back to London the following day) to make it into the Eden Project.

Instead though, we have visited the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle

(that I longed to visit since I attended a lecture on its history & various artefacts in Treadwell's Bookstore in London)

and the (supposed)King Arthur's castle in Tintagel

(that I longed to visit ever since reading the magnanimous 'Mists of Avalon' by Marion Zimmer Bradley - note to self MUST RE-READ NOW).

I guess dreams do come true from time to time, maybe we just don't get to choose the order and timing. Cause that would be quite boring, right?