Tuesday, October 16, 2007

a decent cuppa!

Finally a decent cup of tea! This is not a slur on the tea making abilities of anyone I've stayed with since leaving Kaitaia but on the lousy tasting water. I'm now back in the Holme Valley, where I grew up, where water tastes like it ought to and has just come down off the Pennines rather than through several Thames water treatment plants. Nor does it leave a hard water scum on the inside of the cup/kettle/your internal organs! Of course it's great to see Jon & Rachel again as well as drink their tea....

So where've I been since Woodbrooke... a couple more days in Brum catching up with old F/friends then down to Oxfordshire to see family. If it wasn't for the fact that my cousin now has two children aged 6 and 4 that I've never met before I wouldn't really have noticed the passing of the years since I'd seen any of them - more years than others in some cases (um, like 6?). So far with everyone I've caught up with since being back in the UK it's been like I've never been away, they've been the friendships where time doesn't matter and we've just picked up where we left off regardless of how much, or in most cases how little, contact we've had in between. I guess the time when I'll really notice that I've been away will be when I finally reach Edinburgh - a place I saw every day rather than every so often/few years and when I see children I knew well who are now at least two years older.

It's a strange feeling - in some ways I feel very much the visitor passing through but yet it's all so familiar - even the Cotswold villages I'd never been to before that we went for a walk through on Sunday. Of course the trees are in their autumn splendor and what else would you have betwen the fields but ancient hedgerows and dry stone walls? I've got conkers in my pockets again (must remember to leave them here though!) we had ordanance survey maps to follow, Norman churches to visit and Roman roads to drive along. The train north yesterday came over several 19th century high stone viaducts and many a house I've seen has stone rooftiles, rows of terraced houses in brick or stone are commonplace and when I finally get out to find a post office I know I'll see cobbled streets. All so far removed from anything I've lived with for the last two years...

1 comment:

Pollianicus said...

Yay - you're home - at last

Come

Visit

Stay

Babysit

{{{{HUGS}}}}