Long and winding road we travel in life

An abridged audio of this blog post can be heard in the above vBlog, with additional images.

An old boot on a road near Karratha, Western Australia

Like fleeting images from a rearview mirror, the pictures here reflect a life travelled. Some show empty roads and vast landscapes that stretch away forever, while others capture people, fellow travellers along life's journey; a long and winding road on which we are all journeying.

Strange things happen when you travel far from home and explore the world independently, immersing yourself in and embracing all that comes your way, good or bad, and learning to deal with it regardless. When I did so at a young age it was particularly life-shaping. I strode out like a latter day Laurie Lee to make my own personal discoveries in a far away distant land. Whereas writer Lee went to Spain at the age 20, I went to the island continent of Australia at 21 and stayed for a year.

With travelling buddies in Narrogin, Western Australia, 1988

When you travel far from the safety net and familiarity of home, life changes forever. Assumptions, certainties and fears that once seemed deep grounded are challenged, reassessed or blown away.

You grow, you learn and you take some hits, but you get back up stronger, wiser and more resilient.

Yet it is only when you look in the rearview mirror after the years have become decades, and the decades have become multiple decades, that the true enormity of how these experiences have shaped your life becomes clear.

As I look at these pictures of distant times and places, the younger me and the people I fleetingly criss-crossed with on life's journey, I know some part of me will forever reside in those scattered far off places. But I also know that even if I travel there again and embrace nostalgia's wistful warmth, something will be missing. That something is the magical convergence of being in the right place, at the right moment and with the right people - and the happiness it brought.

A break while cycling through the vastness of the outback

We are all travellers on this strange and wondrous journey called life, so take the time to check that rearview mirror and appreciate those fellow travellers you've met along the way, the ones who travel with you today and the ones you have yet to meet.

Book cover artist coincidence

Kit Foster's cover art

Last summer I mentioned in a blog post a coincidence involving the artist who designed the cover for Dolphin Girl.

I said I'd return to the story once the book was published, so here goes. It begins in March 2013, when I wrote a short play entitled FAE. As the title indicates, it was a play with a faeries theme.

Four months later, unbeknown to me, a novel was published entitled Fae, by writers Colet and Jasmine Abedi (the sisters write under the single name CJ Abedi). It too has a faerie world setting.

By December, the Abedis' Fae had been optioned as a possible future movie by film director Ridley Scott.

I was still unaware of Fae the novel when, in the early summer of 2014, I sought out a professional book cover artist for Dolphin Girl. There was a good chance that the Forth Bridge would feature somewhere (it is the image on the back cover), so having an artist familiar with the iconic Scottish bridge was preferable. I found Scotland-based Kit Foster and he came up with a number of cover designs, including the one which was ultimately chosen.

It was only later that I discovered Kit had designed the cover for CJ Abedi's Fae - a book that by coincidence had an identical title to my play, was published a few months after I'd written FAE, and is now optioned by one of my top five favourite directors.

As John, Riva, Fay and Fae, the characters in the play FAE might surmise, a little faerie magic appears to have been at work.