Road to Dushanbe in Melbourne Diaries

Have a sore head from watching the Jesus and Mary Chain last night, playing ‘Psychocandy’ start to finish. A pretty shambolic performance with collapses in the sound system and basic musical ability, par for the course with that band; but, hey, what an album. Always liked Scottish Bands (Mogwai, Arab Strap, Delgados, Belle and Sebastian) so it was good to see yet another one.

My holiday plans for the year are firming, with my final ‘pre-40s’ trip being (perhaps) from Guangzhou, China, then Xian, the Great Wall and on to Kashgar, before somehow entering Kyrgyzstan and ending up via some tour group at Dushanbe, Tajikistan - for a while I’ll be a river crossing from Afghanistan. All pretty out there, but it will get me as far down the Silk Road as I can go without joining the SAS. Flights and visas are going to be a nightmare, but I’m looking forward to it. It also requires me to get thinner and fitter. I’m doing OK with the first thanks to a vegetarian diet, but am not making much progress with the second, being hampered by repetitive strains and other old age injuries.

I acknowledge that the above travel itinerary indicates somebody who’s not 100% happy with his progress in life - or in the words of a colleague “it’s probably better than Tinder or a Porsche”. At 39, I’m phenomenally frazzled and needing an escape of any sort – overworked, down in the dumps, too tired for anything beyond basic social interaction. I’m enjoying the new house in the bushland, and my job is interesting enough, but work overall is becoming too all-encompassing – constant demands, office politics and upset clients. I was at a relative’s birthday party recently, and spent the majority of the time leaning exhausted against a veranda post, uninterested in anything but a tattooed woman in her early 40s.
I’ll write more later – when I have my breath back.

Last updated March 06, 2016