Following Like Sheep...
We were about to board the plane at Barcelona airport, when a text came in from my neice Jess...
'We're just setting off', she said...
They are travelling from Devon... Anadi and I from Spain, and in a few hours we will all be meeting at Buxted Park...
We had had a bit of a mission getting to the airport as there were six of us, and we had been instructed by Malcolm, of 'Running Crazy', to stay on the train until the end of the line to the airport....
The train stopped, one of the couples got up, and the rest of us followed them off the train, only to discover we had disembarked too early and so had to wait awhile for another train to appear.
'We are sheep'... One of the men laughed, we agreed; all of us quite happily bonded by our mistake sitting chatting away on the platform...
But we had all just followed...
Like sheep! Unconsciously... 'They must know...'
I mused about how much this might be occurring in many different situations... How much we are just following the crowd...
Our society encourages this through many mediums, like fashion and advertising, and doesn't particularly remind us to think for ourselves...
This incident has alerted me.... !
We then had a long long walk to the easyjet 'wing' of Barcelona airport and it was 'touch and go' as to whether we would arrive in time for our bag drop...
After the very long walk, the queue was very long too, and after asking the official lady twice if we would be okay, and her saying 'yes, no problem', another lady came on duty who immediately rushed us to the front of the queue...
So today it was re-affirmed that we are relaxed under pressure... But that we also allowed another to lead us down the wrong road without really checking...
It feels there must be a parable or a lesson within this experience!
At Gatwick, I had another text from Jess... They had reached Worthing; the race was on...:)
We were doing quite well, until Anita our friendly Europcar representative asked us if we were here for anything nice...
I told her about my book launch, and she got very interested in 'Girlfriend for a year', and in relationship therapy in general..
Our longer chat and the whole car process, meant we were a little late out of the starting blocks...
Rosy and Jess arrived here at Buxted Park about half an hour before us...
But we weren't far behind and it was very exciting to knock on the room next door to us and there they were!
A wedding is going on downstairs and so we have just had a delicious picnic in their room...
But once I have written this, we are off to sit in the lounge and enjoy being together some cafe, tea and hot chocolate Philosophique...
