The Journal Mojo
One prompt to complete my Christmas journal was there on my desk. As I reached for the lovely new notebook, a Christmas gift from Amy, a little wrap of the string was tucked inside it, with the gift tag still attached.
Of course, the tag and the string were destined for a page in my journal and the reason for reaching for the lovely notebook had to be put on hold for the time being.
The clue is in the title. Voyages.
Yes, it’s that time again and in a couple of weeks we will be off on our travels again.
In exactly the same way as I did with my Christmas journals, I looked along the row of travel memories and any thought of not creating another one was dismissed.
Even though I have another couple of them “in kit form”* on my workbench, awaiting construction!
(*that’s a pile of ephemera and a notebook of stories)
Because in just the same way as my journal mojo escaped me at Christmas, when we returned from our Summer travels last year, there were more pressing commitments than cutting and sticking, even though that activity would have been very therapeutic at the time.
It was time to get into the travel mindset however, which I did by getting hold of the small concertina file I take with me on such trips and perusing the contents.
First thing to note is that I need some new tabs! Copenhagen, Oslo and none of the other places feature on our next trip. We have new places to look forward to.
Some of the rest of the contents would still be useful, including these general tags I printed and scribble on from time to time to “capture the moment”. Memories written down there and then are always more “real” than those remembered later, I find and tags like these are easy to tie into the right place in the journal later.
I looked through the other cards in the pockets and sorted out those which were worth keeping. Cards like the one with “Fun Onboard” will be good for days on the ship, for example.
We’ll have a few of those, so I trawled through my photographs and found a couple I could use to make some more of them.
I also made a few of these “place cards” which get slotted into my Project Life album once we’re home. They’re a simple record of each place and one or two key points that prompt further memories afterwards. Occasonally I persuade someone else to write down their observations but on this page from last Summer’s trip, it looks like my powers of persuasion were on holiday too.
Putting those together involved finding a few flags and the odd airport code, all very effective ways of whetting my appetite for our upcoming trip.
Maybe whilst my journal mojo is here, I might think about working on one of the “kits” on my bench too?
