The end

None of this was expected. As I was charging along in my Edinburgh to Newcastle train, I was amazed at what was zipping along in my mind. The day before I had prepared myself for a difficult day. This work and I have been together for over two years and now this was it. The end. It was time to take down the sheets, take down the pillowcases, take off the clothes pegs and undo the line, take down the info boards and collect the remaining leaflets. Take all those things and tuck them away into a suitcase. Take the suitcase home and tuck it under my bed. I thought that the day would be difficult, but it was something quite different.

As the train charged along the coast, trundling along the line from Scotland to England, this little passenger was feeling elated. Free. Happy. A sense of achievement. It’s time to move on. It’s time for this to be over. All of this looking behind me at what was, all of those stories and how mine got caught up in the telling, it was time to take it, wrap it up, and put it away.

I’m happy that it’s over. I feel that I have changed in the course of this project. It isn’t that this project changed me, it’s that I was making this work whilst everything around me changed. For that reason, this work has become so much more than what I initially planned it to be. Initially, it was never going to be about me, but at this stage, at the end stage, it seems to be all about me. What an embarassing thing to admit or to realise. The plan was to tell a good story, with twists and turns and interesting facts and characters. Although all of those are there, it still somehow ended up with me. At the end. The end.

This might be my final entry. I don’t know where else to take this or what else to say about it.

Thanks to everyone that followed this story. Thanks for the encouragement and the interest. Thanks for reading through some personal details and sad truths, anecdotes and good stories. This was always going to be an honest account.