Day 6: Familiar Faces

With being back in Catterick Village - the place that i spent most of my childhood (the first few years were spent just up the road in a town called Colburn), there is nearly always a sense of nostalgia when i get back here. This will last for maybe a day or two and then is usually gone. However, one advantage (for me, anyhow) of being back in the area that i grew up and also went to school in, is the chance for me to see familiar faces from my school days. It might be a little known fact that i used to be bullied at school - partly cause i was tall, partly cause i was one of the smarter kids in the class (is it ever 'cool' to be intelligent?). Anyway, i just used to ride the storm - i told myself that i would do better than any of the kids bullying me and in returning home, it's often a delight to myself that i was proved right.

Y'see, as i wander about the area visiting people, i see a large number of those familiar faces - often with a pushchair or pram in tow. Now, whilst having children and settling down is an aim of, i'm sure, a good many people (and why not?), a lot of these people also have some ambition to see a bit of the world before they do so. Instead, most of the people i went to school with are still in the same area and, when you look on Friendsreunited or other such websites, they always have been and, probably, always will be. It seems their lives consist of mainly working a job they don't really like so they can save up enough money to go out at the weekend. That may sound ideal to some people (each to their own) but it wouldn't have done for me. Now that i'm living a good few thousand miles away, in a job that i love, in a place that i like that and a different country entirely, can you blame me for feeling pleased with myself??