It’s Wednesday and for the first time in two months I’m thinking about feeling homesick…
How strange, here I am in a beautiful hot country surrounded by my immediate family and new friends, with all the comforts of home and I feel a bit out of place, as if I need to be back in England. I suppose this is a feeling that will come and go for the next two years, this time brought on by seeing one of our visitors off to the airport to fly back to the UK. Talk of, English harbours, train journeys and plans for weekends away have conjured up pictures of ‘our green and pleasant land’, which I know is more often grey than green, but I miss being there today and I miss my friends and my old workmates too. Strangely, I miss the routine of going into the office, making plans, solving problems, cracking jokes, dealing with stuff and even having a bad day!
I’m not without purpose here, but days seem to involve too much food shopping, cleaning and cooking and not enough stimulating dramas and pressing deadlines. I guess I’m a drama queen at heart then, and I’m reflecting that this quiet life away from it all isn’t always as perfect as it seems from the hubbub of a full-time job. It’s also puzzling me why I feel like this and what ties me to the UK and the places and people I know there.
There is a huge security in being in your own country, your ‘homeland’. Here I am, a foreigner, not speaking the language, attempting to find my way round and make life work, but differently. Life here has to be lived in the Mediterranean way, with down time in the middle of the day when the sun is too hot to bear. Meals are for sharing and evenings aren’t spent in the lounge by the TV, more likely outside chatting round the table, or playing a game of cards or backgammon where it’s cooler.
Last night we had a BBQ at the beach, we watched the sun go down, we drank some wine and ate delicious sausage and kebab filled pitta breads with salad. We put driftwood on the little BBQ to make a safe fire on the rocks beside the water and debated about the direction of the wind, the flames and any stray sparks as the waves crunched on the sand at our feet. We gazed at the stars as they appeared above us in a velvet black sky. Across the bay we could see the lights of some of the local resorts and out to sea fishing boat lights flicked on and off in the darkness.
I like this lifestyle very much, but today I’m missing ‘home’, I miss friendly Southwell and Nottinghamshire and I miss the possibility of what the weekend will hold after a busy week at work.