I haven’t been on a fairground roller coaster for many, many years. I do, however, remember that long slow climb to the top of the first descent. There is a mixture of dread and excitement as you get closer to the top. Just for a moment you seem motionless at the very apex and then, suddenly, you are plunging downward.

 

Right now I’m feeling that moment of apprehension. Planning this trip has taken over seven months. But, from now on, events are largely beyond our control. We are taking 21 flights, and 10 trains. We’re visiting 10 different countries and checking into 20 different hotels. What could possibly go wrong!

 

It’s hard to avoid thoughts straying to the potential for mishap. When I was young I never spent a second worrying that I might find myself in the middle of a ‘situation’. Indeed, when I was 17, I got caught up in a baton charge of Parisian riot police during the aftermath of the student uprisings of 1968. As I ran down the street, the adrenaline rush was one of excitement rather than of fear. That’s the joy of being young - you don’t understand danger sufficiently clearly.

 

We are living in a world where random acts of terrible violence can erupt with no warning and with devastating consequences. Our planet is suffering ever increasing extraordinary weather events that can overwhelm whole countries. I am not a nervous airline passenger but every time I feel the aircraft taxiing after landing, I breathe a small sigh of relief that, once again, I was on the right side of the statistical odds. 

 

To survive, humans need a sensible evaluation of risk so I make no apologies for letting my mind wander over these issues. However, once embarked on a journey, many of these risks are out of our control so we must venture forth looking around us in appreciation and wonder but with the occasional glance down side alleys to make sure no danger lurks there.

 

I sometimes ask myself where my urge to write about travel comes from. I think three forces are at work. Travel is a very ephemeral activity. The act of travel can be tiring, frustrating, exciting and revealing. But after the passage of a certain amount of time, the valleys and mountains tend to become somewhat blurred and we remember only the deepest and the highest points. The granularity of the experience becomes softened but writing a journal preserves the little details that can be savoured much later. I started writing journals of my business travels over twenty years ago. I noted everything from overheard conversations of paparazzi waiting for celebrities at Los Angeles airport to describing an old German gentleman dressed in a vintage military-style trenchcoat choosing books at a bookshop at Munich airport.

 

Secondly, the act of writing is a pure pleasure. Language is like plasticine, you can shape it any way you like. It’s also like a diamond that you can cut in so many ways to create multiple facets. Language is like music with a rhythm and cadence. Choosing a word can be like choosing a colour in an oil painting. Many colours might fit, but one is just right in the context of the overall image. Language tells all our stories, joyful and tragic, and is the most valuable resource we have. Imagine your world without it.

 

Thirdly, there’s someone special I want to read this; my granddaughter, Piper. She is 5 and I am 67, so it will be some time before she sits down and reads these words.

 

I know almost nothing about the lives of my grandparents. I wish I knew more about the world they inhabited. I would have liked to know not just the events of their daily lives but also their thoughts and feelings. I have nothing and that is a huge loss.

 

This account of our travels will also be a way of telling Piper about some aspects of our lives. I grew up in a very different world than the one she is discovering. Worlds change, but the constants of attachment, family, love, hope and joy are universal. She’s too young to think much about these things now but, one day, she will realise that these universals are the link between her world and mine. Telling her a little about my hopes and fears is a way of bridging our two worlds.

 

So this journal will be part travelogue and part reminiscence. I will be taking a walk back through my life to tell part of my story to a child whose future will be very different from my past.

 

Our long journey begins with a paradox which, for a writer, is a very satisfactory opening. We are going home.

 

Gill and I are going to the places where we grew up. Gill to Belfast and I to Dublin. We are contradicting Thomas Wolfe’s intriguing novel title that “You Can’t Go Home Again” He is right of course. Nothing ever remains the same and our memories of place are heavily underpinned with the emotions and events that we experienced in that location. When we return to those places it is like visiting a film set where we once performed but which is now populated by a different cast. We are outsiders watching the action unfold in a place that was once ours.

 

When I left Dublin the last time it was just after the burial of my sister. I returned to New Zealand drowning in a maelstrom of grief. I was numb with a mixture of guilt, incomprehension and inadequacy. Guilt because I had not found the words to speak honestly to my sister about our inevitable parting. Incomprehension at the cruelty of a brutal degenerative disease. Inadequacy because my grief took possession of me silently and stealthily and I could not fight it. I didn't see that an anger had grown inside me that simmered ominously like a hidden caldera and whose acid waters corroded my vision of the world around me

 

The years passed and I found myself in calmer waters. The depths became shallower and I began to notice the reflections of beautiful mountains in the still waters of an ebbing grief. Now I am ready to go home. I am going to reenter the lives of my sister’s children and meet their children. My brother will also be there. It has taken a long time not to fear that going home would reignite memories I wanted to bury. I have no fear now. Happy memories have drowned out the sad ones. I can’t wait to meet my larger family.