I arrived back in my Eagleton home last night. The ferry was quite bumpy which was a bit of a surprise given that it was flat calm with no wind in Ullapool. Once out of Loch Broom however the swell did make itself known just as the Captain had warned when we left port for the 2h 40m crossing. Fortunately for me I'm a good sailor (provided I don't have to lie down).
This morning just before I started this post I replied to an email from a friend in New Zealand and ended by saying "This morning it's windy, cold and wet: weather I understand. I'm home in Scotland. Only 57 days 12 hours and 39 minutes before I leave for warmer climes. But who's counting?". Life is never that simple though and by late afternoon the sun shone out of a cloudless sky although it was still very windy and chilly. That's Lewis for you. That's Scotland for you.
I've been away for nearly three weeks and enjoyed almost every minute. I've enjoyed excellent companionship and hospitality and slept in lovely comfortable beds but there is nothing like being back in one's own space.
Most of you will know that I was born in Liverpool. Many of you will know that I regard nationalism as anathema being one of the great scourges of humanity which has caused so much misery and death throughout history. Driving north out of the great conurbations of Lancashire and through the former counties of Westmorland and Cumberland into the lowlands of Scotland I felt a real sense of being on my way home. Driving towards Ullapool from Inverness until I was safely on the ferry I felt more than ever the overwhelming sense of returning home and of belonging in the Hebrides. It's also a feeling I get when the plane crawls out of the sky over the foothills of the ranges and into Napier.
My birthplace was entirely beyond my control. Where is choose to call my home isn't. Whatever my nationality may be on my passport I am a Hebridean Kiwi in my heart.
This morning just before I started this post I replied to an email from a friend in New Zealand and ended by saying "This morning it's windy, cold and wet: weather I understand. I'm home in Scotland. Only 57 days 12 hours and 39 minutes before I leave for warmer climes. But who's counting?". Life is never that simple though and by late afternoon the sun shone out of a cloudless sky although it was still very windy and chilly. That's Lewis for you. That's Scotland for you.
I've been away for nearly three weeks and enjoyed almost every minute. I've enjoyed excellent companionship and hospitality and slept in lovely comfortable beds but there is nothing like being back in one's own space.
Most of you will know that I was born in Liverpool. Many of you will know that I regard nationalism as anathema being one of the great scourges of humanity which has caused so much misery and death throughout history. Driving north out of the great conurbations of Lancashire and through the former counties of Westmorland and Cumberland into the lowlands of Scotland I felt a real sense of being on my way home. Driving towards Ullapool from Inverness until I was safely on the ferry I felt more than ever the overwhelming sense of returning home and of belonging in the Hebrides. It's also a feeling I get when the plane crawls out of the sky over the foothills of the ranges and into Napier.
My birthplace was entirely beyond my control. Where is choose to call my home isn't. Whatever my nationality may be on my passport I am a Hebridean Kiwi in my heart.
My username reveals my stance on this I think! ;-)
ReplyDeleteWelcome home GB, wherever that home may be.
That's true Robyn and thanks.
DeleteI am so looking forward to Wednesday. Nuff said. Welcome home my friend, x
ReplyDeleteYou were up late last night Pat. I hope the cough wasn't keeping you awake. Wednesday: so am I.
DeleteIt's so good to have you back "home."
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling of which you speak, when you're on your way home after being away for a while.
I guess I will be feeling the same "going home" feeling in another three weeks when I'm on my way home after my yearly holiday.
Thanks Virginia. Enjoy your holiday. I shall catch up later today.
DeleteI'm a pretty good sailor as well, as long as I have something on my stomach. That's the trick, I think, never go out on an empty stomach.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to think about "home" for me right now. I used to think of Santa Cruz as home, for so many years. Maybe on some level I still do. But not as much these days. We're still looking for home. :)
Happy that you got that comforting feeling on your return.
I love small boats Lisa, however rough. It's the corkscrewing of some of the larger ships that gets to me if I lie down. I'm grand if I'm upright. I've never been without a permanent home and only lived in two areas in my life - if you count 20 minutes away from where I was born a different area - when I moved to the Hebrides. I wish you good hunting in finding 'home'.
DeleteI am almost the opposite. Too long in the same place and I get itchy feet. Sometimes I think it would be nice to settle somewhere I felt i could call home. I a little bit jealous.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think it would be good to travel and live that sort of life. I had planned to do it in Oz once upon a time - but I do like a base (or bases).
DeleteFood for thought in this post, going along nicely with my breakfast of muesli and blackberries I picked at my parents' allotment yesterday.
ReplyDeleteNationalism (and, to an extend, patriotism) is something I have never understood. How can one be "proud" to be of a certain nationality when where we are born (and who our parents are) is something to entirely up to coincidence and completely NOT our choice?
Although I spend comparatively little time there every year, Yorkshire - especially Ripon - feels very much like home to me. But I do feel lucky in that I live in the town where I was born, have my parents, sister and many of my friends close by, and really like my town. It is home; there are two German words for that, with a slightly different connotation, and they both fit Ludwigsburg for me: Zuhause (as in the home where you live) and Heimat (the home where you feel your heart and mind are at home).
I understand Heimat very well Meike. I learned a lot about it when I used to stay in Berlin and there was a wonderful and moving television series many years ago of the same name - helped my German a lot at the time.
DeleteWe (= my family) loved the "Heimat" series very much, and still quote from it in conversation rather often. It was one of the best done bits on and for German TV I have ever seen.
DeleteYes, Meike, it was one of the best programmes shown on UK TV at the time too. Coincidentally I put it on my Amazon Wish List recently to remind me to buy it one day when I had the time to watch it (ie when I have a winter in Scotland).
DeleteI remember that feeling of approaching home, even though in later years I've not been putting it to the test much.(Mind you, I can sometimes feel it from just having been across town, though!) I completely lost touch with the town and village where I grew up when my parents moved away from there (in the early 1990s) to come back to the area where THEY grew up, which is where I'm living now (and was already living before my parents retired here). I have since discovered that my family roots here go back 400 years or more so no wonder perhaps that I feel the pull ;) However, Karlstad where I lived 10 years at the start of my grown-up life also still holds a very special place in my heart (much more so than my childhood town).
ReplyDeleteFeelings for place is something I find so difficult to understand Monica. It is a pure emotion and not a rational thing so far as I am concerned. Being happy where one is is something for which to be grateful.
Delete400 years! How wonderful is that, that you know how far back your family goes where you live. That is fantastic, Dawn!
DeleteLisa, on my maternal grandmother's side of the family, we connect to a locally "famous" family tree which has been well researched and had a book published. The oldest anscestor known was a farmer born 1620.
DeleteWhat a nice post. I feel that somehow the secret of contentment is hidden away in it. It's made me think about what I feel to be home. And how important it is.
ReplyDeleteI think you may be right Jenny. I think there is a distinction between being happy and being content. I can be happy anywhere but when I'm at home I know that I can be content too.
DeleteI love my home. I feel safe and content. xx
ReplyDeleteThat's about as good as one can hope for Jaz and I'm very happy for you.
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