Some weird bit of psychology actually made me want my final days to be rubbish. I pictured storm clouds, sideways rain, gales that would knock a lesser being off their itty-bitty feet, but stupid Nature wouldn’t even hand me that much. The weather was okay. It was mild, a bit overcast, there was a smattering of insignificant drizzle here or there. Basically, it was forgettable.

It would have been okay if the mediocrity ended there, but everything from the conversations I had to the food I ate was just so frustratingly meh. I thought I might have a big blowout with my dad. I thought maybe doors would slam. I thought perhaps Carrie would tear her hear out and beat her chest in mourning. No such satisfaction. Carrie and Tabatha visited often but said little of consequence; Dad was awkwardly encouraging, which really did not work for me; my sisters said some half-arsed but genuinely nice things; Dane helped me to pack and load everything. I thought when mum started weeping it might be the big dramatic moment that would actually make me feel better, but no. All I got was a sensible, sane amount of tears, and not some big torrents of salty justice. Nobody let me feel adequately sorry for myself!

Oh, and my last meal was chicken. Seriously? Chicken? Doesn’t mum know that some of us have been traumatised? Apart from being in poor taste, I guess it was pretty good. Could have done with a pinch more salt.

That was my farewell, through and through. Nothing spectacular. Nothing horrific. Could have done with a pinch more salt.

The day of departure itself featured a few perfunctory goodbyes. A joke or two was shared. Crappy advice was bestowed. Then, before I knew it, we’d rounded a bend that put Braxus out of sight for the foreseeable future.

Did I look back and contemplate the poignance of departing my home for the first and possibly last time ever? I did not. I was busy trying to worm chicken gristle out of my teeth using only my tongue and some light blasphemy.

There was one decent farewell surprise, at least. It was an odd but not unwelcome one. When we came to load up Hinny — yes, in a moment of creative genius I named the hinny ‘Hinny’ — I found that Mirra had brought down my bags, along with a few other supplies and necessities I hadn’t even thought of.

“Thanks, Mirra. You didn’t have to do that,” I said, making to take a satchel off her shoulder.

“I’ve got it,” she said.

“Well unless you fancy taking it all the way to Magalat, I’m going to have to take it off you at some point,” I laughed.

“S’not so far,” Mirra said around her perpetual smile.

That was when I noticed the third bedroll. “Mirra, are you coming with us?”

“Seems that way.”

There was no way of telling if this was a joke. You see, Mirra has an unbelievable Ratshank face — seriously, don’t ever try and play her at cards. This is because Mirra never seems to actually open her eyes. Whenever you try and get a read on her, all you get is that same smile, etched into a dark, wizened face, and a pair of wrinkly lid-shaped curtains over those apparent windows to the soul. I do not exaggerate when I say I could not tell you Mirra’s eye colour.

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Father came out just then, mother on his elbow, and confirmed what I was starting to suspect:

“Ah, I see she beat me here.” For some reason he waved a hand at Mirra like he were pointing out a constellation. “Mirra will be accompanying you.”

“Dad, that’s really not necessary.” Whilst Mirra is good company, she’s also older than sin. I wasn’t sure a two-week hike was a good pensioner’s activity. Under no circumstances was I going to allow dad to order my beloved nanny to her doom.

“She asked to go.” He shrugged.

I raised an eyebrow at Mirra. “Have you finally lost it?”

She chuckled. “Oh, long ago, I reckon.”

“Look, that’s really sweet of you, Mirra, but I don’t need someone to cook for me and fold my laundry.”

The previous chuckle continued straight into the next. “We’ll see about that.”

“Sweet, daft, loveable woman. Okay, why don’t you hop on Hinny? I’m sure Alicia and I—”

That’s when Mirra shut me up by grabbing an extra two bags and starting off for Magalat.

“Right,” I said to Alicia, as we both watched the short, stout lady trundle away, rocking slightly beneath the tottering mountain she bore, “I guess that’s that.”

“I guess that’s that,” Alicia agreed.

Unsurprisingly, there’s not much to be said about day one of our journey. It turns out that if you step out of your house, hook a right, and walk until your stomach grumbles the signal for lunch, you don’t exactly hit a new climate zone. We were on a roughly trodden dirt road — that looked pretty much like the road through the village — surrounded by shrubs, trees, tall grasses, flowers… that looked just like those we found in the village. That’s not to say it wasn’t beautiful. It’s great to be hemmed in by oaks, sparbergers, twistpillars and willows. That does, however, also describe my garden.

It was early spring, so we already had a decent spread of blooms and blossoms to punctuate the grass-quilted swells of loamy earth. These were predominantly white and yellow, but occasional bursts of indigo and bright orange lay like doormats at the feet of some of the larger hills. To keep myself occupied I counted the patches of orange drooping flowers we passed. It was just a silly little game that made the journey feel a bit like a race, and really served to indicate precisely how boring walking for miles and miles truly is.

Conversation was pretty sparse. Mirra hummed away tunelessly as she trudged tirelessly. Alicia made banal little bites of banter to keep our spirits up. Hinny did exactly what she was employed to do, and walked — walked with stuff on her back, more specifically. This led me to the early and uncomfortable realisation that I was no longer the quiet one in the group. On the contrary, I had become the chatterbox. This was new ground for me — around Carrie, you’ve over prepared if you brought a voice box to the party — and I frequently found myself compelled to stoke the coals of connectivity, only to watch the chit-chat gutter and fizzle under my amateur ministrations.

“How about those clouds?”

This was one of my classic aides to discussion, along with such gems as:

“Cor, all of this walking plays havoc on the knees”; “I see now why they call it going at it like rabbits. How many of the little guys and gals have we seen now?”; “Look, we’re walking in step. Isn’t that funny?”; “This has to be the greenest grass I have ever seen”.

I did a whole lot of rolling my eyes at myself, groaning in shame, and hoping that a wild mountain lion might drag off any witnesses to my appalling icebreakers.

So, there you go. Day one and I was already learning stuff about myself. I learned that I am a flipping embarrassment.