Aticipation.
Things are goodish at the moment. It makes me scared.

I'm going to Europe later this year and trying to save for it - which is difficult when my income is below the poverty line. All the same I am going and I will save the money for it. There's people and places I want to see - my brother's wedding is incidental, an excuse. He's a fuckstick anyway and once Mum is dead I doubt I'll ever talk to him again except maybe through lawyers. It's almost a pity his fiance is such a nice chick ... but who can account for tastes?

Istanbul - the palace of Constantine, Sancta Sophia, the Golden Horn, the Greek ruins on the Agean coast and Idil (my best friend ... whom I've never met - and my Turkish tour guide. I hope she'll show me Smyrna and Ildiri :) - Rome - Split (Diocletians Palace - oh man how I want to see that!).

There's so much I want to see ... the Rhine and Danube 'limes' of the Roman Empire - the forts and frontier remains ... Hadrians Wall and the Housesteads Cohort Fort - the Pennine unit forts, Caer Leon , Verulamium/St Albans, Colcheser and the Temple of Augustus that caused the rebellion of Boidicia. Just to see all this stuff which I've been reading about all my life - it's hard to describe how it will feel, and I cannot describe it until I see and feel it. But I feel the anticipation of it now, it's been a hunger in me for well over half my life. To make all - or some - of this stuff real, to see it ...

It's all coming real now, at last. I am doing it, this year. I could go on about how good it feels but I think I've covered that now. To coin a phrase - it's a dream come true.