Travel Plans

I was watching Anh does Italy on catch up TV.  How I loved Italy when Merv and I went in 2008.  My head swims with the most amazing memories.  I could just sit all day and recapture a different one every minute!
As I watched  the program I thought back to why I wanted so much to travel there.  I wondered what made me want to go to China the following year or New Zealand in 2011.  The answer is perfectly simple. I wanted to go because other people shared their lives, their memories, their joy in either living there or holidaying there.

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I used to work as a carer for a 101 year old Italian Nonna.  Her family cared for her and they agreed to have a carer in after she turned 100!  Nonna had dementia and didn't speak a word of English.  Her family shared her story, their story and their heritage.  Nonna died at 102 and I had lost touch with her family before I touched foot in Italy.  I will always treasure their memories of their beloved homeland.
China in 2009 was a different story.  I worked with a friend whose son went to Beijing to teach English at a school.  My friend visited him during school break and she shared her stories with me.  Yes, I wanted to go to China.  Merv and I took the opportunity to take a five day cruise to the southern islands of Japan before beginning our China tour.  Afterwards we visited Hong Kong for three nights.  So many memories which we made our own.
New Zealand was something I had promised myself to share with Merv.  Though Merv became symptomatic in 2010 he was able to walk, talk, eat and drink with little concern in 2011.  We booked a disability cabin and cruised around New Zealand.  His parents had travelled to New Zealand in the seventies, not longer after we were married.  It took us over thirty years to do the same.
Now I travel alone or with Mel.  I miss the times Merv and I travelled together but we always knew our travels were to be treasured.