Well I have decided to publish this. After days of being a bit disgruntled that we don’t have internet access I had a brain wave! I could join the library and take my laptop over and publish things like that. Duh!!
Apart from there is this thing in the corner of my screen that says “WifiSpark”, obviously telling me I’m on the library’s wifi, but it’s in the way of where I have to click to get pictures up. Oh well, blog post without pictures!!
(We are without internet as I write this. So this was written on Wednesday 17th February 2016 whilst I wait at home for our new fridge freezer to be delivered. The lovely people at Knowhow have given me a 4 hours window for delivery – between 9.10-13.10! So I sit and wait and write and watch the rain!)
It’s interesting how a place feels, or it to me. I know when I feel happy, safe, out of sorts, when a place is where it wants me. Being here, both our temporary stay in Gaerwen, Anglesey and now here in Abergele feels like coming home. It’s hard to put into words unless the person you’re telling has felt it too. My mum has always said there have only been two places she’s ever felt at home in; one the house she was born in and spent the first approximately 25 years of her life in, and then this house she’s in now which it looks like she’ll live her last years in. She’s been there over 35 years now. She lived in 4 places in between and says she never felt at home in those places, always feeling uncomfortable.
I’ve been amazed at the places I’ve felt at home in. Being here in North Wales reminds me of when I went to Belfast to live. I was only there 18 months and what went on around me was pretty traumatic but I still always felt it was a place that I was at home in. I felt the same when I lived in Greece. Again there were things that happened there that weren’t great but there was something in the heart of the country that made me feel like this was a place I belonged. I am feeling it here already. In fact as soon as we stepped out the car nearly two weeks ago at the chalet in Gaerwen, even though the rain was coming down in sideways sheets, it felt like we’d come home. In fact we both said it. There was something in the land which connected to our hearts. It feels like this land is welcoming us in.
Two unconnected friends both said they felt we were having to be like Moses when he crossed the Red Sea, willing to give it our all and not look back not knowing what was going to happen; the whole thing with being willing to sell our house in Wiltshire without knowing for sure if we would get this house here, and then the completion dates coming in together anyway. We had to be willing to commit to this place and this land and to the whole moving things. We had to be willing to go into temporary accommodation as part of our committing.
Aspirational Adventures 