Are you REALLY doing that?

Why not? Do you see any alternatives? I invited the moor to move nearby, but it refused. If I wanted the moor, I had to drag myself into a car and drive northwards, exactly like Mohammed did with the mountain. I had no choices: flying with a dog- and her, well our, baggage- was not convenient, furthermore, once there I would have had to rent a car which was not going to be cheap.  People tried all sort of tactics to make me change my mind. It is going to be a long journey, there will be dangers on the way,  and so and so. It is funny when Italians (with my father leading the troop) start thinking that all serial killers, all terrorists and all natural disasters  are located past the Alps!

I was surprisingly relaxed about driving all the way there, and confident that nothing bad was going to happen: my grandmother’s name was England (Inglesina) she used to love me, England (the nation) was going to be equally kind.  In the worst case  scenario, I would have escaped  from the awful Italian summer heat.

Yes but, alone? And why alone? The idea of having someone to share the journey with was tempting, but could I find anybody suitable? I did not want to deal with the “pale woman burden” (quoting Rudyard Kipling), aka some wimp complaining about everything. and I was not sure my travel plan would have suited the average person. What if the average person would not have enjoyed the moors, the weather, the trials? Going trialing in the UK for a month was the equivalent of taking a leap of faith,  it was not fair to ask anyone to jump from a cliff into the unknown with me.

The scariest thing was probably the length of the journey, in kilometers (or miles, if you prefer). I knew I was going to have a blind date with British trials, but my whole “academic” career had been like that, having been always sent – and for years, not months! – from a very unknown school to another.  When I was eight,  as we moved to a different house and I was forced to move to a different school, I did not know anybody there, and I never managed to like it but, in the end, I survived. When high school (junior high) time came, I could choose whether to attend the local one, where everybody else was going, or pick an unknown, more difficult and more prestigious one.  The local school had a bad reputation and my demanding parents simply told me that, I should not make my choices following the mainstream, but learn choose what was best for me and stick to it, even if I had to do it alone… The same happened with  senior high school (raise the hand who wants to go to a difficult one!), and with the university later:  most of my friends were going to engineering, computer science and economics whilst I, unable to pick my first choice (veterinary medicine), was going to major in British Literature.  It might sound easy, but it was not:  each time, however, it became a little  easier and it strengthen me enough to accept and scholarship and fly to Massachusetts all alone.

A month alone in England (and Scotland) could not scare me, trials were waiting and no good opportunity is meant to be missed!

The journey continues here.