Mid-century Crisis or exercising my right to say F**k IT

A great friend of mine when she heard of this trip accused me of having a mid-century crisis ..... I strongly disagreed!

Over the past few years, I have felt like I was in a kind of prison, not one with barbed wire and snarling hounds but a metaphorical one where I was tied down by the responsibilities of work, generating filthy lucre (with no real aim of what to do with it); I felt trapped and it was impacting my mental health (and making me a miserable bugger at the same time).  I had huge support from colleagues at Leeds Beckett where I worked and from my family and friends and the outcome of a really difficult year was a great one, one where I saw real possibilities and where I had a much better appreciation of where we were as a family and how much we really had achieved.  

This lead me to the point where I said F**K IT (the capitals are intentional), I took the opportunity to retire early from the University started working in charcuterie with Chris Wildman together with the fantastically eclectic mix of odd balls and misfits who work at the TownEnd Farm Shop and started to engage a bit more with the people and places I had taken for granted for too long.  I also started thinking about doing something to mark the start of this latest phase of my meandering life journey to date.

The only thing that came to mind that ticked all the boxes was an epicurean trip to the Sahara to find the perfect Merguez sausage.

I also count myself fortunate in that Viv, the long-suffering love of my life, was happy to see the back of me for a couple of months as she was still working from home and I have a long standing love of food, North African/Islamic culture, Landrover's and the desert.  

(p.s.  My accuser might have been right of course in which case F**k IT 😵‍💫)