The journey home

Ten minutes by bike (all downhill) from the house I grew up in was Bobbits Lane. And down Bobbits Lane was a wheat field, a meadow, some allotments and the sewage works.

To the right was Spring Wood, which was ancient and ended abruptly at the A14.

I would bike down here, on my own, to be still and quiet among the fields and the trees, watching the thrushes and noticing the ragged robin.

Then I grew up and went to live in Leeds, then London, then Birmingham, then Amsterdam, then Toronto.

I worked in a grey office by the railway, floor 22 of the Canary Wharf tower, a road with market in it, a 1060s atrium, and a university research park where the internet plugged in to the Netherlands.

And now…. now I live in the woods by a lake, where I sit on a bench and discover a still green frog and lots of daisies.

Such a long way to come back to myself.