What do you think about as you return from your holidays? As we drove away from the Channel Tunnel, heading back to the Vicarage, last week I was remembering (as always) a poem by Laurie Lee that I learnt by heart when I was at school:
Home From Abroad
Far-fetched with tales of other worlds and ways,
My skin well-oiled with wines of the Levant,
I set my face into a filial smile
To greet the pale, domestic kiss of Kent.But shall I never learn? That gawky girl,
Recalled so primly in my foreign thoughts,
Becomes again the green-haired queen of love
Whose wanton form dilates as it delights.Her rolling tidal landscape floods the eye
And drowns Chianti in a dusky stream;
he flower-flecked grasses swim with simple horses,
The hedges choke with roses fat as cream.So do I breathe the hayblown airs of home,
And watch the sea-green elms drip birds and shadows,
And as the twilight nets the plunging sun
My heart’s keel slides to rest among the meadows.
Kent was certainly beautiful to look at. Our front drive not so much… (and more on this tomorrow too).
Rocky tells us this was originally left blocking the drive
The Vicar's Wife 
Sometimes I struggle to remember which house we live in – as I picture taking the cases upstairs and putting stuff back in the garage, I have the wrong image in my head! I am very happy here, just coming home from holiday, I sometimes forget which motorway takes us home…expecting to come off the M25 at J24, or off the M6 onto the homely M54. Then I remember we come off the M1 at J25 as I always did in childhood – once the M1 was built….
As we pass the power stations of the trent valley, I know I’m home. And the ‘nearly there’ song my girls used to sing when we went to stay with Grandma sometimes dances throught my memory.
I’m always looking at the fields and the houses and spotting familiar landmarks on my way home. I’m eager to see how the garden’s looking and to be back in my own bed. Sometimes I’m more excited about coming home than going on holiday!
I know exactly what you mean Ros…