I arrived on the 20th of July as planned. It was about 8pm and everyone was ready to retreat to bed as you can see by the robes. Ada and James, our niece and nephew, were excitingly waiting for me for an hour before I actually arrived... I was excited too, and so was Emma, Rosemary and James, one of Emma's brothers. Louise, the mother of these beautiful two is arriving today and on Friday more family arrives to gather, celebrate the date of the anniversary of Emma's parents wedding and the following week the anniversary of Aunt Margaret's passing... Many motives to gather as a family who will come from nearby and far.
I'm here lying comfortably in bed at a friend's house in London, the preferred destination of most asylum seekers who are desperate to cross.
A lot of them have already risked their lives to arrive in Calais from places as far as South Sudan. Many come with money gathered sacrificially from all the savings from their communities and families, expected to be paid back once they start their life in Europe.
The question that I had at the start, "how wild can a human be in Europe today?", is still part of this journey, even though I've gone less wild the last week.
It's not easy I would say. Access to drinkable water is becoming very difficult, never mind fresh spring water. Access to rivers is harder to find and I've been seeing more and more rivers totally dried out and old fountains in the villages without any water, even though the big monoculture farmed fields do seem to have irrigation water, even in the middle of very hot days which is a total inefficient way to use our precious water.
