I think I'm doomed to want to be anywhere where I'm at right now. There's always a sense of missing out on something, or being in the wrong place. Growing up, I lived in a small coastal town in Australia and had the most idylic childhood, surfing and riding horses and hanging out on the beach - certainly in stark contrast to my husband's life growing up in Kent, UK. Yet there was always a longing to go to the northern hemisphere - perhaps because of the literature I'd read (because of course Australian literature wasn't as interesting, because, like, Australia), the films I'd watched, the English and German grandparents. I was always meant to to be somewhere else. That's a hard thing to live with. You sit on the edge of a cliff at home and look at the ocean and imagine the tides washing up on foreign beaches, where you are meant to be.

I was meant to be in Europe right now, driving over toward Greece and Albania, in a fifty year old Land Rover called Butters.

Butters, Morocco

She'd got as far as Morocco, over the hot and dry mountain passes and into the desert, the Atlantic coast, the souks. She'd spluttered up the coast of Portugal, performed amazingly on steep inclines where I worried we'd flip over or fall into the sea. How free we felt, for a few months. How wild it was to be on the road. Yet looking out to sea, I thought of the tides washing up on the Surf Coast, and my father, his gills drying out, dying.

I went to Split, once. I remember sitting on the edge of the jetty and the ice blue Mediterranean. I was 28. Game of Thrones was not a thing yet, and Dubrovik was a mysterious city no one went to. I remember diving into the water near a bombed out hotel close to that city. My son fell off a table and the hostel and split his lip. We took a ferry up the coast and slept on the deck under the stars. In the moment I had a little panic at losing my passport, but it was in my CD case. Yep, 2001. You travelled with CDs, not with Spotify. A discman and batteries were as important as cold beer.

So yeah, I'm thinking of other shores. I know in my heart I am exactly where I am meant to be, because I have the honour of being around as Dad shrinks and transmutes into other matter, but I dream of being in Europe.

If I was in Europe, though, I'd think of any excuse to get out of going to Hive Fest. I'd want Butters to break down somewhere, maybe in Slovenia in the mountains, or on a beach somewhere north of Split, or maybe I'd already be in Turkey. 'What a shame I couldn't make it', I'd say. 'I really wanted to go!'. It wouldn't be a lie. Not really.

Tweaking things, Portugal

The thing is, I'd be beside myself with social anxiety. I'd worry that I wouldn't be able to articulate anything without sounding like an idiot. And what if no one wanted to talk to me? I'm not really a social person, as much as I love being friends with people on HIVE that I really, really like. I don't want to drink to loosen myself up these days. I don't even like staying up late!

It's all a moot point. Butters is under cover at my ex brother in laws place in England. I haven't even booked return flights yet. Even if I made myself go, slapping myself out of any social anxiety I have, it's logistically impossible. Right now, I just hope you keep your Hive Fest posts coming, so I can live a little over there through all of you northern hemisphere folk that I've got to know over the years. Because I really like you, and want to hang out, but I'm glad I'm in Australia, so I have an excuse not to.