Amanda, I was nearly in tears when I opened the photos.

Jeanne, beautifully put. The grass is not greener, I just miss the other view sometimes.

But then, like your daughter, I will wake up one morning and all I want to do is go home. I scowl at the relentless grey sky; I get absolutely despondent at the rude and unpleasant people on the Tube that can make or break your journey to work; I despair at my office that has no natural light at all; I curse the weather as I squelch to the station in the 5 o’clock darkness, missing my Volkswagen Golf back home.

I certainly don’t feel English (nor do I think I ever will), but I can pass almost unnoticed among them. So yes, I do feel at home here. I have made good friends and there are many things that I would miss if I leave. But England will never make my heart sing the way Africa does. I never land at Heathrow with the uncontrollable urge to laugh and hug the person next to me; I never feel exhilirated by the sound of rain on an English roof, nor terrified by a proper thunderstorm. And of course, I ache with the longing to see my two nephews growing up, and I miss the immediacy of being able to plonk myself down at my best friend’s or my sister-in-law’s kitchen table after a hard day at work for tea and sympathy. I yearn for the beaches and wide open spaces of Africa; but I know when I moved back there for 18 months in 2001, I cried every time I saw Central London on TV.

I always look with deep envy at people who seem rooted to their place in the world. The people who grew up in one place, made their friends, career, family and lives there and are happy living as the continuation of a long thread of their family and culture stretching back generations. I envy them because I no longer feel that rooted anywhere.

ps: i’ve relocated to http://lapetiteboulangette.blogspot.com

hope u’ll ammend the link! thanks!

Laurie, I often wonder why we have condemned our daughter to this split life we have chosen. Her heart blossomed in Africa, although she was born in England, and she yearns for the open skies. In her worst days she stomps around flinging words at me like: ‘I don’t know why we have to live on this stupid little island anyway’. Yet she loves it here too and has an idyllic life. Perhaps if we had encouraged the African connection less hse would not feel so bereft, yet I can’t help thinking she would be less of a person for it. Only time will tell.

Lizet, thank you for those lovely words. I’m glad you enjoyed it.

When you write about frosted blades of grass, I too feel a stab of nostalgia, though most of the time I don’t feel like I miss England. But my roots are still there, I still feel English even though my children feel South African and I resonate to books set in England.

Here is home too now, the sunsets and mountains are also enticing roots being put down and I don’t know how England will seem to me when we return to visit next year - small and crowded I expect, but also part of me. Both places are integral to who I am now, a split personality with an ache where the two lives meet.

I lived outside of my home country for two years, and even though I did visit once in the middle, it was difficult–there’s nothing quite like being ‘home.’ So I understand, I do.