Adventures

July has brought with it some exciting events. I love the change of pace of summer and that, done right, it can give you some well needed time to reflect and, crucially, catch up with friends and family. It's also pretty nice if there is a little adventure thrown in there. This summer looks like it is going to provide all three.

Last summers adventure, looks great, was utterly terrifying!

Next week I'm going to spend some much needed time laying by a pool (albeit with some Greek verbs to learn!) and hanging out with my Mum, the perfect combination. Then follows a week in England before husband and I jump on a train to Paris and begin our European adventure. I've been working my little socks off to free up the time for this trip so I am absolutely thrilled it is finally here. We hit France, Spain and Italy, eat a lot of food, drink a lot of wine and generally just have a really great time.

A much more humane adventure, summer sun in Greece.

This trip also feels a bit more than simply a holiday though. After a brilliant but intense year I'm excited to be on the road with just a couple of good books and a beach towel. As much as training for ministry is a wonderful blessing it also leaves you very on show. People have expectations of you the minute you say what it is that you do, rightly so in many ways, and you are assessed constantly on every aspect of your being. This goes beyond simply competence at your role to who you are as an individual, again this is arguably as it should be, but it does make for a goldfish bowl like existence sometimes. For this reason I'm so excited to take some time to be anonymous. To be Nikki rather than a trainee Vicar and to have no objectives but to see where the trip takes me.

I'm also excited about embarking on an adventure. There will be so many things that I will see for the first time, so many new tastes and experiences, so much to take in. Whether it's walking the Alhambra in Granada at night or seeing the Eiffel Tower all lit up, I can't wait to stand and stare for a while. I'm so aware that it is moments like these that stay with you for a lifetime. Those moments where you need to sit down to take in everything that is around you and simply be grateful to be here and be alive. If life isn't punctuated with those moments I truly believe it is the poorer for it. You don't need to go to the other side of the world to have those moments, but if you can? Well, what a blessing.

And last but not least I'm excited about some time with the husband unit. When I got engaged someone said to me that marriage is like studying for a PhD in another person. Well five years in and I'm pretty sure I've got enough info to write a 70,000 word thesis! Still, the wonderful thing about relationships is that you can never truly get to the end of someone else. There is always more and even more so when you are making memories together. To learn more about each other and coax one another out of bad moods when the trains are delayed is all part of the experience and I hope we will emerge stronger for it.

So there we are! That is my next adventure. How about you?