After visiting my parents on the other side of the planet, it is time to visit my husband’s parents.
I think I have mentioned before that they live in a beautiful property on the other side of the country. It is on top of the hill, overlooking a stretch of green woodlands. There is no air pollution, no sound pollution, not even light pollution — you can see the starry night very clearly on the cloudless sky.
Bit rural.
As much as I love being there, I always dread the time when I have to be in contact with nature. Three days in, I started getting sneezes and hives because of contacts with something I am not sure of (although I suspected that one of them must be pollen because the weather turns to sunny again). I constantly get anxiety attack during night time because anytime I get near to a light source, some kind of bugs would fly towards my vicinity.
Oh. My. God. Please just give me a can of RAID, so I can end this misery.
I was almost always covered in something, be it dogs’ hair, cats’ hair, dirt, dust, or some sort of unknown organic matter. It was way beyond my comfort zone. But I marched on, because I know this is important.
It is important because I know how important this is for my husband, and my inlaws that I’d be there. And it is also important personally for me because I have a point to prove. That I can survive the countryside. Barely.
So one day, I told my husband–who were at that time busy helping my inlaws with some kind of construction work on the property, that I was going to go for a walk. This is important to remember that the kind of walk I am talking about is nowhere near the walk I am used to. This is not the walk to the city centre for a nice day of shopping, mind you. This is a walk in nature.
Nature. Outdoor.
I know this is going to be hard for me, so I got myself prepped before I went for my walk. As my driving instructor used to say: poor prep produce piss performance… or something like that.
I wore a big yellow hi-vis jacket on. This is to make sure that if there is any random car or motorcycle or a big massive dangerous tractor coming towards me, they can see me because I will be fully visible. Later on this jacket became a massive uncomfortable belt, because the day was getting hotter and hotter.
I brought with me a bottle of water, and also a packet of Scottish oatcakes. I don’t know why I brought it, but I think the survivalist in me believes that on the event of me getting lost in the wilderness, I could at least survive an hour by eating oatcakes. I could also bribe a bear or a wolf with it. Or scare the bear or the wolf by showing off the oatcakes, and make them think that I am Merida.
Some of you might scoff when I said that I might get lost on my little adventure. But please see it from my point of view. My inner magical creature is a hobbit, so I am not built for an adventure. Remember how miserable our adventuring hobbits were when they were on their quests, and they were the outliers. Most hobbits would be happy to stay at their hole, having seven meals a day, and partying.
My gaming experience has shown to me how terrible I am at reading maps. This inability to read and pick a correct direction has been proven so many times by how useless a Google Map is in my hand, when I am walking. All these, combined with the fact that the area is ‘slightly rural’, and some paths were not yet named in the map.
I do not think I was exaggerating my concerns about getting lost.
I also have my powerbank fully charged, just in case. And also have my earphones on. This is incredibly important.
It is not the music that I am after. I am completely fine in a quiet place. But the woodlands is not a quiet place. Without something covering my ears, and a distracting sounds, it was hard for me to ignore the sounds of critters. Gosh! Writing that alone gave me goosebumps!!
Listen, I don’t know enough English to detail the name of the noises coming out of the bugs. But you know it. The cricketting noise, the fluttering, and the scariest of all… the buzzing noise. I hate them all. Every single noise they made push me closer to either insanity or heart attack.
So yeah, I plug my ears. I sacrificed the beautiful calming sound of the water coming from the spring, hitting the rocks as they running from the creeks to the river. I sacrificed the sound of the wind blowing in the meadow, the grass hitting against one another, the baas and the moos, or even the barking sounds from afar echoing through the hills. I could not get past the sounds of the critters.
I pressed on, walking down the hill, and reached the nearby village. Got myself a bottle of Irn Bru (I am pretending to be Merida, remember? Brave?), and walked back up the hill. The whole thing took around three hours, although it did feel like forever.
My husband said that he would be happy to pick me up whenever I gave up walking. This is also why I was wearing hi-vis jacket, so that in the event that I have a breakdown and refuse to walk further, my husband can spot me from miles away by the jacket.
But I came back. Not unscathed. I was incredibly distraught. My face hurt so much because of the sweat. Do you know that it is possible to have a sensitivity towards your own sweat?
I did not know that. All I knew was that sea water hurt my skin. It stings, and then itch for awhile. When I was a child, I would run to my mother and she would wash my face with bottled water before send me back to the sea where my siblings and my cousins were enjoying themselves.
Only after I move to Britain and sweat during the heat of the summer heatwave, I realised that salty sweat did exactly the same thing to my facial skin. And the sun exposure would just exacerbate further. Sun damage is real mate.
Yeah. Not built for outdoor activities. Thanks.
I was miserable. Not all the time, of course.
I enjoyed the time when it was raining (not too hard because… you know… mud), and the cool breeze would slip into my inlaws living room where we were sitting down enjoying the end of the day. A glass of tipples in hand, and the conversation flew. I think I could live with that.
I still don’t know for sure if I can actually survive the countryside, though. Although I have proven myself to be able to survive alone in a semi-wilderness (as long as I was well prepped with Irn Bru), my husband still thinks that this might not the kind of lifestyle for me.
He might be correct. I might not be able to adapt for something so different from the kind of life I am used to. I might not be able to overcome my fear towards creepy crawlies, hence would not be suitable to live so close to nature. I might not be happy with the change of lifestyle altogether. But on the other hand… I might.
So… who knows?
Right?
Mellow Yellow 