AN APPETITE FOR TRAVEL

This is a bad sign: I've lost my appetite. I've hardly eaten anything over the last few days and I don't feel hungry.

It's usually accompanied by low mood. Or rather, I should say, I can imagine myself eating well when I'm happiest - and so the converse is that loss of appetite is now subconsciously linked to feeling down in the dumps.

The kitchen's a mess again. I've failed to manage the tiny space and so there is stuff everywhere. Meanwhile the fridge is full of slowly rotting vegetables - which make me feel guilty. I'll have a clear-out tonight.

To make matters worse, it's Wednesday - the day when the pop-up truck arrives to pollute the local environment with its foul aroma of sizzling buttermilk chicken. I'm not even sure I can go outside.

I often get the feeling that I could eat something but can't calculate what. My brain flicks through the options like an imaginary recipe book. Lasagne, roast chicken, pasta bake, beef wellington, spanish omelette, pizz...ah... no, linguine, ooh lemon tuna, chicken chasseur, sweet-potato-wedges, risotto... and then the invisible book closes and I don't want any of it.

Instead of eating last night, I sat out in the park for the latest sunset. It was golden. Clouds bubbled up from the horizon, pink and purple, and the low-angled sun picked out their edges in absolute splendour. I watched the sky change as the clouds slowly rotated across the sky and the last beams of sunlight disappeared below the trees.

I thought about travelling, out there in the twilight. My manager had asked me again when I'm next going to Italy, and I'd said I didn't know. Then there's Rory who's off to New Zealand for a month. I'd love to be able to do that.

And then there's that adventurous thought of the journey - waking up on a train that's pulling through snow-capped mountains, or standing alone in a vast chasm, listening to the roar of a gigantic waterfall; sitting by a sparkling blue Italian lake, darting through the backstreets of a dusty marketplace, joining a carnival parade with a thousand colours swirling in every direction, or just lying back under the milky way with the warm Coromell and the sound of cicadas.

Hmm. How much of this just a latent desire to escape everything? And how much is a genuine longing for something wider, deeper, happier and more fulfilling? And what is the real problem I'm trying to solve?

I think I'm going to try a jacket potato with beans and cheese from the café. It might help me feel a bit brighter I suppose.