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| Playing with sticks and stones in the rain |
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| We don't see many sheep where we live |
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| Love this city - Wellington |
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| One of my favourite places in the world and my three favourite people - Queenstown |
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| Our day in the snow |
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| Boysenberry choc dipped icecream at Arrowtown. Enough said. |
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| Slam down favourite image of my home town |
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| Don't judge me |
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| There was a lot of skimming stones on this trip |
I think often I have my emotions on autorotate and when going to write this post I remember that I've written something like this before - sure enough
here it is...and do have a read because it sums up how I feel.
We've just been back in New Zealand for just over a fortnight. It was a last minute, much needed trip with the weeks preceding fraught with deadlines, school concerts and illness...still we got there. We left New Zealand almost 7 years ago and although we've been back often, this was the first time in a long while. We all had long lists of people we wanted to see, food we wanted to eat, sights we wanted to see and we managed to tick all these off and more (although the 7 hour night time visit to A&E with one of the boys wasn't on anyones Must Do list - nope.)
It felt easy, it felt like home and it felt very unsettling. There is something so comforting in the familiar. It just draws you in like a greek siren whispering promises of how good life was and can be until you start to consider the "what ifs". This was an unapologetic memory tour. We visited the hospitals our babies were born, we pointed out the sites of their first (insert) walk/swing/haircut/library visits/place Mum and Dad met/place Mum and Dad lived... we drove up driveways of old houses we lived in, we walked into the yard of the stunning house we got married in. We walked through my old university and I told tales of life there and of a me my boys (nor husband) will never know. And we saw family, friends, nieces, nephews, new babies. We snuck quick rendezvous's (hi Kate), we languished in longer ones (hi Alex, hi Becs) and we cherished every minute. I kept saying to my husband "I'm feeling unsettled", he humoured me, but we both knew what this was.
Now back home, I'm bursting with the life I live here. And I am forever grateful how I can feel so much joy from the many different places that are my homes.
Where is home to you? Where you live now, where you once lived or where you want to live?
