ROAD TRIP BACK TO SLOVENIA

Hello again. Longggg time no see.
It seems I’m forever writing my blogs from present moment to past, never truly catching up to The Now. That delay is usually 3-4 months, when I have time to process things and see experiences for what they are. Saying that – I have never had this long of a pause from not writing. It’s been 2 years since I last posted anything, 2 freaking years!!

A lot has happen in that time frame. And I guess I’m putting it into 3 different blog journal pieces. One such thing that definitely deserves its spot on my blog memorial is a road trip back home I’ve made with my Gaia the dog and Eros the cat in summer 2020. In midst of p(l)andemic I went back home for 5 weeks, driving from England Cotswolds to Slovenia, Brezje.
The second thing that needs to be written in a separate blog journal is a tribute to my lovely Gaia – almost a decade long companier , who sadly and suddenly passed away in September 2021.
And the 3rd important thing that has happened in these two years is me stepping into my new reality, which is much recent from march 2022. End of an era in Cotswolds after almost 6 years, New job, New location, New lifestyle and brand new reality.

So first things first and lets jump back in summer 2020. From what I can recall; it was a very mellow time of covid, lockdowns, and all the bullshit from that narrative. Pubs closed and in my village setting I was left with my usual peaceful life of solitude, walks with Gaia and Eri, reading and indulging in freedom (as my bosses were renovating their property for 2 years so I really worked just once a week in their London house). Altho that kind of life suited me at that time, I was longing for some form of adventure. Anything really.
And as normal holidays were a no go because of all the madness around covid rules and flights etc (also the fact I’m not getting vaxxed), I came up with something quite epic for that given circumstances. I’ve asked my bosses if I can take 5 weeks of my holidays all together. Luckily they agreed and I can still remember the shock and fear on my father`s face when I told them over facetime about my plans.
Altho I did this road trip back and forth from England to Slovenia 3 times before, I’ve never did it on my own. It was together with my ex and with just Gaia. Not to mention we were now in the midst of pandemic and I’ve got a brand new cat Eros to take with us too.
But regardless of all of this, there wasn’t a shred of doubt in my mind that this road trip will be anything less than epic. I know myself quite well now and these 5 years of solitary life and somewhat isolated one gave me a lot! I’m definitely very much in control of my thoughts, emotions and reactions. I rarely stress, take everything as it comes and can very much enjoy the present moment. I’ve enjoyed all the planning, booking of air bnb in France and Germany, booking ferries and planning my route. I’ve divide it down to 3 days, 6-7 hours of easy-going driving per day, with all the stops for food and stretching of all of our legs. The perfect adventure we all needed. And as I “grew” quite a fair deal in these past few years, and dealt with things from a whole new perspective, I knew that I’m more than prepared for this journey and was super excited about it.

Everything was planned, the day of departure arrived, the car was packed to its capacity, took fuffies for a little walk in the morning and put them in the car and we drove to Dover to catch a ferry to France. Everything went smoothly as expected, the fuffies were pure gold and even Eri after initial 30 min of complaining in the car. He was soon relaxed and slept through majority on a back seat or in the booth with Gaia. We went effortlessly through the border patrol, they’ve looked at our passports and pull me out of the line for a car search. Which was quickly forgotten when they saw my lovely Gaia in the booth and especially Eros. They were the cutest thing ever so the woman even took a pic of them and sent us on our way. I had lunch and chill time on the ferry for 2 hours and than drove forward in France for two and half hours more, 10 min from the main highway to a little village where I’ve had our little cottage booked for the night for just 50 eur. I was looking for something secluded, with green surroundings and walking paths for Gaia in the morning. The place came with breakky and had two floors, very charming and upstairs in the sleeping area there were three beds, so everyone could have their own bed. Gaia had the bed on the floor (I’ve just put her cover over), I’ve got the main bed and Eros slept on the bed in the corner near the window. The host was a lovely French lady in her 50s, with her house next door. She kindly invited me for free dinner in her alfresco garden, where we had a lovely food and discussed Life and meaning of being. It was super lovely and I could spend days there. I’ve slept till 11 in the morning, walked Gaia, we all had brekky and we went for the day two of the road trip towards Germany.
I had a very profound moment driving through French countryside, with my happy fuffies, my music on and this adventures excitement going through my veins. I had a glimpse of my future present – flooded emotions of the life I will be having in the future, how freedom feels like, how effortlessness and flow feels like, I had this moments of sheer happiness, content, perfection, tears of gratitude down my face and a strong sense of how my future really feels like. Can not explain it differently, I just know that the feeling came straight from my heart, and that that is the future I am heading towards. And sitting here in my new living room in my new reality writing this, there is no doubt that future I have felt is in the making, solid making with a proper plan and actions behind it to bring it forward.
We have reached the hotel in Germany in the evening, the hotel was at the outskirts of the little forest, tucked into edges of a small German town, 12 minutes from the main highway. I’ve had a really nice vegetarian dinner there, Gaia ofc joined me in the restaurant and after that we were chilling in the room and slept like angels. The spacious room came with nice views and breakky for 120 eur for me and tha fuffies.
After the breakky I’ve packed us up and we went for the final drive of 6 hours, from Germany to Austria and Slovenia.
I think my father still didn’t believe it fully when I drove up the driveway and parked my English Hyundai in front of the garage. We received the warmest welcome. And as it took 3 day to Slovenia and 3 days back, it still left me with 4 wonderful weeks of vacation time. Plenty of time to meet up with my family and friends whom I haven’t seen for almost a year and half.

I would usually come back to Slovenia for short week or 10 days, and usually not in summer months as I want to explore other places in summer as well. Therefore this visit felt very different. Gaia wasn’t back home in 4 years or so, so she enjoyed my parents and people and animals and our usual places we loved going to in Slovenia. Eri was mainly exploring the 3 floor house for 4 weeks and was outside only on the lead and supervised, as I didn’t want to loose him and go back without him. He also really liked chasing our two cats in the house – Gafa and my old Kat.

As fuffies had nannies in form of my parents, I was able to go out and about much more freely, knowing they’re taken care of. Therefore I was able to hop to the Croatian sea side for 5 days, being invited by my youngest aunt and her partner and my cousins Spela and David. Being away from my family and friends all these years, usually left little to no time to spend any quality time with my extended family (and especially as it’s so vast and so many people). And for that reason I was really happy to be invited.

I had drove to the camp they have gave me the address of, quickly realising it is a nudist camp. Haha, haven’t been in this kind of environment for years and years and years. I’ve absolutely loved it. This freedom and easy-going and relaxed natural state everyone is in was like a breath of fresh air after stuck up English way of being. Other 3 cousins that live just 100m from my parents house and my flat joined us for the weekend as well, altogether 9 people. We had an awesome time, stayed in a big motorhome and two tents, the parcel few yards from a crisp sea, had few toys for the water as a yet ski and were speeding on the waves, skiing and having fun. Ohh boy I have enjoyed all of it! the people I have not seen in ages, the food and my aunts cooking, the chats and overall very quality spend time. Also driving around EU with my English car was and is an absolute breeze for me, much more so than driving there with my dads car which is same model and brand. On the last day when we all packed up, we drove to Novigrad where two of my uncles have their summer houses and were there with whole families. We spent few hours there, went for a swim, had pizzas on the beach and than went back to Slovenia. I was driving back home and my aunt, her daughter and my other cousin Karmen came with me in the car. Interesting conversations continued and my heart just felt very full and wholesome.

The next two weeks flew by quickly, catching up with people I love and spending a wholesome lovely time with people I love and places that are very dear to me. This was honestly the first time in 5 years that I came back home and had a genuine feeling that I could stay few more months. Usually I would have enough of Slovenia after 10-14 days, looking forward of my return to England and to peace. I guess it was different this time as fuffies were with me and it was summer time, where people also had their vacation, freedom and time to socialise.

The good times were soon at it’s ending times and last week was spent mainly with my parents and brother and his family. I have not cook anything for 5 weeks either as I was longing for home food and food I love in my favourite Slovene places, so it was truly an indulgence in all different areas.
The goodbye time soon arrived, my car overpacked once again, this time with lots of Slovene goodies as well. The time to go back to my Cotswolds reality arrived and we said our farewell. Not knowing at that time that it was the last time Gaia had experienced home and saw my parents.

The 3 days drive back went smoothly and effortlessly as expected, and was not dragging at all. We had a really nice two floor hotel room in Germany on the way back, with very indulgent breakfast. And stayed in small family hotel somewhere in France, with disappointing dinner and quite unsatisfactory vegetarian brekky there. French people still have a long long way to go to be able to cater vegetarian meals outside of their main cities in comparison to the rest of the Europe and England.

I have returned back to Cotswolds with absolutely lovely memories, a sense of accomplishment that this epic road trip went so effortlessly, with a full heart and lots of love shared back and forth between the people I care about.

What I had no idea at that blissful time tho – was the fact that I was walking back to one of my toughest and shittiest year (emotionally) I have experienced probably in a whole decade. 
But writing this now here in my new reality far away from Cotswolds – I can resonate completely with the phrase – This too shall pass. 
Which takes us back to the beginning of this blog – where the only constant in this universe really is indeed Change. 

Till the next time, Nella.