Decisions...
Topic: The Beginning
July 2005 seems like a long time ago now. Nearly a year, but it seems longer. That was when I decided to come to China.

It was around two in the morning and I was walking back down Fleet Street towards St Pauls. My friend Vanessa had just gotten married the previous day and I'd just left the happily married couple at the Savoy hotel. Vanessa's husband, Raz, is a barrister, and the wedding reception had been held at the Middle Temple.

We'd all dined in the Medieval hall, (something like the hall in the Harry Potter movies), and listened to speeches by various friends and family, including the late Lord Stratford, Tony Banks. Looking around at the assembled guests, as well as the surroundings, it seemed that there was more to life than what I was currently experiencing.

I was living in Manchester and working for a telecoms company. While being one of the better jobs I'd done since leaving university, in the ten years since graduating I'd managed to tick off a number of jobs from my youth constructed list of 'jobs I would never do'. Life can have a sick sense of humour at times, and the saying 'don't tempt fate' is a good one to remember.

While being good at the job, I wasn't going anywhere fast and I certainly wasn't getting rich. In fact, I was pretty much left in the dust behind everyone I knew. Good jobs, houses and many of them children as well. Me? A rented room in Moss Side.

London is an interesting place to walk around late at night. You can get a feel for the place, something that is near impossible during the day while pushing your way through the crowds. You can move at your own pace, stop to read the plaques and appreciate the architecture.

I stopped to read a sign outside the first Irish pub in London. The name of it I can't recall. If I remember correctly it was two or three hundred years old. The border was red, I think. While reading I hummed a few bars of the folk song, 'The Mountains of the Mourne'.

The song is the tale of a young mans time in London as he recalls it in a letter to his beloved back in Ireland. He has sought his fortune in London but found that the streets are not lined with gold and he yearns for a return to his homeland.

The words resonated within me as I continued to walk. I'd left my own home in search of fortune and meaning. The fortune hadn't come, though some hard earned meaning had.

It was time for a change again. I knew it. It was the right decision, the only decision.

Before I reached my hotel in St Pauls I knew I was going to China.