Freedom was once the Summer holidays,
Stretching boundless and unimaginably rich after the end of term
But the reality, constrained by over-protective mother,
Grew into a desert of boredom till I longed to be back amongst the society of school.

When I was fourteen, in 1968, we went to Australia and returned again by ship
And reassured by the bounded world of decks and rails
My mother granted us the freedom of abscence from her side
But to a young mind even the novelty of oceans and landfalls palls after five weeks.

University was the great bid for Freedom
Yet faced with a surfeit of opportunities others had long since been jaded by
A full diary bursting with commitments
Left no room for even the F!

A live in relationship
Full of the promise of pleasure on tap
But replete with ready made family
Soon became a web of shopping and bills and complication.

And when the tap seemed suddenly and permanently dry
Affairs offered new freedom
But soon enough proved to be
Double trouble, twice the binding.

We joined a Naturist camp
Spent weekends free of clothes with the sun and breeze on bare skin
But a barbed wire fence circled Five Acres
And at the end of the day you still had to dress to leave.

Time passed and I surpassed my father
Who also never left Her side
For any solitary reason other than work
But I - I went flyfishing in a concrete bowl at Walthamstow!

Twelve years in we went to live in Ireland
Where I tasted moments of freedom
In the hills, by the rough sea
But moments only because even in Paradise you have to earn a crust.

I never lost the habit of moments though
Drinking in the landscape wherever I llive
Striking out across country, up hill and down dale
Going to work as the crow flies.

So at the end of the day
Still seeking freedom
I arrive here
open a blank text window, engage the mind...

Where shall I go today?