UK 2.0: Bristol - The Farewell

The sun did not smile on this trip. Not a single day without rain has passed in Bristol while I was there. It was just like the very first week when I initially arrived. This trip has a been a fruitful and hectic one. So many things to do, so many people to meet. The 16th Encounters was excellent too, I enjoyed it very much. Here are some snippets of time I stole just to be with a land that has nurtured me for a year and a half.

I made a promise on the Great Old Lady's deck to walk upon it once more in the 'chill winter air'. I kept my words.

Early that overcast Saturday morning, not many tourists were around. The good thing about revisiting a place is how you can pick up details you have missed the first time round. Little things that made a place all that more intimate.

I have passed through many times beside this graffiti-strewn wall around a soon-to-be museum, but never took pictures of it.

The weather was kind enough to allow me a few private moments on Brandon Hill at sunrise before it started raining cattle and donkeys again.

Light faded, squirrels waved.

I looked upon these familiar verdant fields of Filton in front of Destiny Church as more clouds rolled in. Perhaps by the time I make another trip to Bristol again, you might have moved somewhere better. No, I do not doubt things would certainly be very different - for indeed greater things are yet to come.

I wish to extend my thanks to The Girls again for the sumptuous dinners you have invited us to. May your hearty laughter long resounds, both in that blessed house and for every house you shall abide in as long as you live. All the very best to you all! To Eugene, for the favors you have shown me, may you never fail to find the same a hundredfold wherever you should go. Great is your destiny and from what I have seen, you have laid hold of it most fully. God bless you!

I would love to have seen the brilliant blue of Bristol's sky at least one. Little did I know that something better was waiting for us as we waited for the bus to Heathrow.

An unbroken double arched rainbow! If this is the farewell of a season, the final stroke on a keyboard ending a chapter - Aye, I can live with that! This is it. Even now, new adventures in another place has already been set into motion.

There is one final chapter of UK 2.0 to do, one that concerns the start and the finish of this trip. Back in my HD somewhere, there are also a few more events and odds and bits from UK that I planned to chronicle. Those I will do when I have the time.

Perhaps the reason why I was happy in UK was simply because I lived as though I never intended to come back. It was the place, the only one that mattered at the time. And now I am back. My heart shall not be divided. For now, for this season, no other places are relevant but Here and Now.

Do I miss Bristol? Do I intend to return? Do I intend to travel? To go away to a faraway land for an extended period again? To the first, I choose not to. To the later, I intend to, when the time is ripe.

Very early this year (2009), in the Exeter Cathedral, as I opened a heavy wooden door to peek inside, a children workshop was going on. The church worker asked if I would like to go in for a visit. I said, 'nevermind.' She smiled, 'maybe one day with you child.' I did not answer. I smiled back and closed the door.