The Boy and The Coconut Tree

One of the great things about living less than 3 hours away from home in a major city is the ease at which I can head home if I feel the need (finances willing). There were no direct flights from Madrid to Newcastle and Vietnam to Newcastle would have involved 14 hours of flying and at least 2 changes of plane. No thank you. Having originally planned a 5 day trip to Menorca and realising it would be beautiful but lonely I chose to visit my family instead so rather than not seeing them for  8 months, I would see them twice in 8 months. My niece is now walking and as she has just started to walk I wanted to see her toddle around rather than wait until December when she was walking normally and we all took it for granted.  So I will have a summer holiday in Tyne & Wear rather than Menorca but it is the people you surround yourself with, not the place, that are the most important? Don't you agree.  This song has been playing in my head for a while, long b...

We are already 6 days into April, it is cold outside and my big move is only 2 months away and right now I am incredibly nervous about the whole thing. I think my recent visit to my family has given me a dose of nerves. Being with my family is lovely but it often makes me feel like a slight outsider. I left my family home 25 years ago this September to go to University. I returned for a year and that was unsettling for us all as I came out to my family in those 12 months and they say moving house or the death of a relative is stressful, try coming out to your mother the week of her birthday, now that is hard!  I don't feel as if you can ever truly go back, you are there, but you are not fully the person you were before you left, and neither are they. So my visit home was lovely, it is important that I never forget where I am from and who I am but I never feel like I fully belong and if I stayed there more than 5 days I would go crazy and so would they. It is strange but I li...