I wasn't sure quite where to put this post.

I wondered about Vintage Travel, which seems to be languishing, and hasn't seen any action for over a year now. I wondered about The Velvet Cushion, which is where general meditations on travel usually end up.

But then I thought, no, it really belongs here, the blog named after a bird with one of the longest migration paths on the planet.

Because it was 25 years ago today that we left the British Isles, and began our career as migrants (we never use the word "expatriate"). Well, strictly speaking, it was 25 years ago yesterday, if you go by the day we actually set off, but it's today if you go by our first full day as wanderers.

Not that we actually realized we were embarking on a 25-year odyssey... We were heading for Cote d'Ivoire, where I had been offered what was originally a six-month posting but was extended to nine months. And at that point, we didn't really know what was going to happen once that posting was finished.


Pre-Cote d'Ivoire, we'd been interested in New Zealand, but nothing had been fully determined. I remember feeling myself pulled in lots of different directions. But eventually, after a brief spell back in the UK (very brief on Nigel's part), New Zealand it was. We entered New Zealand as migrants, but became citizens.

New Zealand citizens have the right to live and work in Australia, so after a few years, we headed over to what the Kiwis jokingly refer to as the "West Island". Our Aussie period also bookended six months in Singapore. Eventually, it began to seem like a good idea for me to live in my primary area of academic research, and for Nigel to swap the frustrations of paid employment for a more flexible arrangement. So the next step was Malaysia. Then Indonesia, and then back to Malaysia. Then, after retirement, over to a different bit of Malaysia, Sarawak, which is where we now find ourselves.

Twenty-five years. A quarter of a century. Five sevenths of our married life.

We felt we had to mark the occasion somehow. Not "celebrate" exactly, but at least look back, and think -- wow, that's really been quite a journey.

We've become chary, however, about marking occasions: Nigel's birthday brought him a colossal migraine (if you think that months of permanent headache would spare you additional migraines, you'd be wrong); our wedding anniversary coincided with contracting covid; our recent attempt to mark the equinox was somewhat marred when I needed to check out a subconjunctival haemorrhage (apparently, these are quite common, and they're not a concern, but I'd never had one in my more-than-60 years, so it was disconcerting -- on equinox morning -- to discover that my right eye had filled up with blood).

So we resisted planning anything, in the hope of ambushing fate. Unplanned, then, we ordered in an excellent lunch from Verinice yesterday, and followed that up with a couple of beers in the evening:


Twenty-five years... Any regrets? Well, you always have regrets, I guess, whatever you do. One path taken means another path not taken. We've definitely missed out on time spent with family and old friends, and I guess that as you get older, you become more aware of that loss.

But I can't look back at any of the -- largely unplanned, product-of-circumstances -- decisions to move on, and think: "No, we shouldn't have done that," or "I wish we hadn't done that." One step always seemed to lead logically to the next.

I'm fond of, and feel a certain loyalty towards, every single country that we've lived in. I'm sad for them when they struggle; I rejoice with them when they're doing well. You can't help but feel that lots of shallow patriotism could be cured by a little more mobility... And at the end of the day, there's no better way to travel than to actually live somewhere.

I'm enormously grateful, of course, that so much movement has been possible. When I contrast our experience with the limited, obstacle-strewn paths faced by so many of the world's 280.6 million global migrants (2020 figures), I recognize that we have been extraordinarily privileged, and I definitely don't take that lightly.

And next? Well, who knows? The first phase of our current (theoretically renewable) visa expires in 2024. So at the moment, the plan is to postpone any long-term decisions until then, while still keeping a weather eye on global events. But really, who knows? Who knows anything in a world that seems particularly full of stupidity at the moment?