The Times Magazine 7SPINAL COLUMN
MELANIE REID
few weeks ago I escaped
in my car. I hope I’ll
be forgiven any
misdemeanour because
although my journey
wasn’t exactly essential
(I was dropping off a
letter), I didn’t leave my
local authority area or
exit my car. It was just me, heady with
autonomy, and I drove and drove on empty
roads for a couple of hours, liberated from
disability and dependence.
Like a naughty secret or a jail break, it felt
epic. Glorious. The equivalent of going for a
wild horse ride in the old days. I chose a crazy
long circular route, past big black lochs, under
serious mountains draped with ragged bits of
cloud, opening my window so winter blasted
my face. I took a flask with me and stopped at
a lay-by with a view, where I sipped coffee and
shivered with delight.
Travel! Escape! Holidays! It’s not just me –
everyone’s shivering. I feel the hope bubbling,
the itchy fingers on keyboards, as people start
to browse destinations and dare to dream a
little. I hear it in the new lightness in the voice
of my son, who works in aviation, and in
bouncy messages from distant friends
promising they’ll see me this year.
Despite the physical prison of my body,
somewhere inside me flickers that same
unquenchable travel lust. I hunger for new
horizons even as I wonder if I could ever face anight away from the security of home again.
An afternoon in a car is fine. The enormity of
packaging up the body and transporting it
any distance to stay the night somewhere is
something else altogether, requiring more
strength than I currently possess.
But fantasies don’t have boundaries, that’s
the best thing about them, and on and off, over
recent years, I’ve built my travel office in the
sky, drafting the itinerary that only awaits a
fairy godmother to wave a wand and say, “Your
carriage awaits.”
It’s not a bucket list. It’s just a beginning. Six
months’ travelling, like the Edwardian grand
tours, would be a good duration to start with,
bridging three seasons, lingering several weeks
in the nicest places. (Dave, granted, might take
a bit of persuading.) We’d need a private jet,
for sure, because airports and commercial
flights are too stressful for both of us. One that
could cross oceans, with beds to recline on.
And we’d need a small, physically strong
support team, my acting grown-ups, to pick me
up and take care of everything.
Head north first. Always the pull of the cold,
the allure of ice and snow and frozen places.
I’d like to start in Alaska. Do you know that in
Alaska there are 5,000 glaciers and one is the
same size as Switzerland? We’d pick up my
brother and family in Seattle and bring them
with us, gathering loved ones like the Pied
Piper. We’d meander back to Europe via Iceland
and Norway’s strangest stave churches.
Next, sunshine and a huuuge chalet in theAlps, like some fabulous Eurotrash royalty,
where I’d hold court for a couple of months so
all my beloved Frenchies, relatives and friends
could congregate for a giant holiday together,
renewing our ties. Depending on the time of
year, there might be skiing. I might even be
persuaded to try sit-skiing again, if there was
enough manpower to make it cool.
As long as we could dodge crowds, we’d do
the bits of cultural Europe I didn’t get to when
I was younger and then couldn’t reach in a
wheelchair. The great capitals, the art galleries.
Maybe we’d cross Europe languidly by riverboat
and canalboat. Heading east, we’d do the river
cruise I still kick myself for missing 30 years
ago, to up-country, tourist-free Myanmar.
And finally, the southern hemisphere,
where I’ve never been. There has to be
something with horses. I can’t ride them any
more (I asked, but the fairy godmother says
no, best not, given two catastrophes), but
I can still go to the places in my imagination,
the big free landscapes, to watch others.
Luxury hotels in South Africa, maybe. The
Australian outback. New Zealand. The
Argentinian plains or Uruguay, for the gauchos.
All these places. I’m greedy. Fantasies are free.
Maybe we need a year for this, not six months.
And maybe I need to work on Dave. He
says his fantasy holiday would be on Islay. n@Mel_ReidTimes. Melanie Reid is tetraplegic
after breaking her neck and back in a riding
MURDO MACLEOD accident in April 2010
A
‘Travel! Escape!
Holidays! I’m
planning my
post-lockdown
fantasy tour.
By private jet’