I’ve been back over a week and have yet to see the sun. I leave my leaving party on the beach at 5am on the 25th. A whirl of last-minute packing and a quick shower. I am indebted to Bevan, Nikki and Georgio, the guest house owner, for bundling me into the cab in a haze of alcoholic reverie.

My connections are quick and easy and I travel via Mumbai and Muscat and arrive at a freezing Heathrow at 9 in the evening. I am still in cotton trousers, short-sleeved shirt and sandals dusted with the residue of the beach. I can’t find the key to the lock on my bag and so suffer the cold while I wait for a cab. Within an hour I am back home, the flat warm and clean and spruced by my flatmate Kim.

The first couple of days I wait for the revelations of homecoming. I am strangely unemotional. Depression sets in that nothing has changed. I feel as if I have never been away. The first overwhelming impression is how grey England is. Grey scuffed skies and . stony, colourless streets. The air seems filled with a damp cheerless fog. People with auras of grey, their faces like dirty pastry. No one in the street eems happy, all bearing the weight of these dull skies on their shoulders.

As I begin to socialise and catch up with friends, the impact of it hits me. I am distant and aloof. I watch their dramas as if I am observing from some distant planet. I am unaffected by the chaos and confusion that surrounds me. I find it difficult to talk. For many who have been following my journal my stories have unfolded over the months and there seems little to add. Yet I am content.

I walk taller and more slowly and with precise firm tread. I am focused and centred. I am a pool of calm, unhurried, unflustered. I bank the feeling in my heart. Analyse it and explore it. It is the sum total of my experiences. Not attached to any particular image or perception. An intangible yet intense feeling of balance that envelops all my senses. I want to hold onto it as long as I can, suffuse myself in it whenever I begin to get lost in the clattering roller coaster that is the urban life of London.

At work I slowly settle in. I clear my emails. Three to four thousand of them. At least 90% Spam .A thousand ways to enlarge my penis.. Engaging titles like ‘Impress your girl with a huge cumshot’. Television is even more depressing. I din’t think they could expand the reality TV repertoire but they have done. Celbrity fat club. A healthy outlook, yet it all hinges on our obsession with the superficial way we look. Papers packed with more pouting celebrities and the petty dramas and trivias which are reflected in all the conversations I hear on the streets.I refuse to be sucked in. Never before have I seen England looking so tattered and sour and clueless. Yet I have to remind myself that it is post xmas melancholy. Friday arrives and I wake with a sore throat. The inevitable result of mixing in this unhealthy plague pit. Bring out your lemsip.

On the bus home last night I overhear a man comment as he walks to the back. ‘This place is depressing. I need 6 months off man. See that? No one on the whole bus was smiling.’ I turn and say "I was smiling’. ‘Why’s that?’ he asks. ‘Because I’ve just had 6 months off’. I reply.

I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who followed my travels and logged onto my site. The emails and messages I received as feedback were an inspiration and helped me through some difficult times. Whether anything more happens with the project I am happy that my journals entertained, amused, informed and inspired at least some of you. Ant Phillips, 3/2/05

©Copyright Ant Phillips 2004