It’s late and I’ve had a couple of glasses
of Greek wine out of a plastic bottle.
It’s surprisingly good.
Grant is fast asleep but somehow sleep is not coming my way. If this is a bit soppy put it down to sculling red wine.
I went to Australia without a qualm in my
twenties leaving everyone who mattered and started afresh. Some of it was anguish and homesickness
but most of it was rich in friendships and a real love for my new hot
amazing country, which has (until
recently) always adapted itself to new people coming with their gifts to join
the evolving society. There is sometimes a brusqueness in the welcome but
nevertheless almost everyone finds a spot for themselves.
I feel enormously blessed but scared of the
point I am at, on this particular journey -just about to go back and visit England, which, had I had stayed there, would also have been good in its own
way. There are people there whom I
love and could have served better.
Nowadays love doesn’t vanish with migration and, with all the
means of communication we have, doesn’t even need to wither. I see my 18 month old grandson, Caiden,
resident in Cambodia covered in yoghurt and saying joyously “Yog” on Skype. We
are so lucky these days.
Travelling to new places is frivolous in a
way, no emotional cost and a lot of fun, but going back to where you came from
is a mixed business. I feel eager
anticipation alongside a sense of the huge minus of mum who is gone. I want
to reconfirm what it all meant during those years I belonged and I want to say goodbye and thank you to England
for whatever it was that launched me on my life as it has turned out to be.
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