We'd been in the air just a few hours, but our destination was already close. I glanced out the window and watched a multitude of greens - pale and dark - stretch out like a fluffy blanket beneath me. Blue rivers wove in and out and around the green, and every now and then there would be a lake carved in. The sky was a light blue, skudded with fluffy clouds, and golden sunlight hit the earth wherever it could. The whole land looked soft, and inviting. There was something serene about viewing my home land from this height - able to be there, but not quite. Time to myself before weeks of reconnecting with family and friends filled my senses and every waking thought. Time to remember, and to anticipate.
As we approached London, our female captain advised us that, due to air traffic, we would be flying for a further 20 minutes before landing. I heard a few groans and sighs around me, but I for one didn't mind a bit. More time to myself, to take it all in. After five years away I was going to be landing in my motherland. I was calm, but intensely excited.
As our time came to descend into Heathrow, I watched houses and buildings grow beneath me. Cars wind along country roads that turned into city streets. The familiar sights of a captital city unfold. I knew I was almost there.
"Welcome home," the customs officer said to me, as she handed back my burgandy passport.
"Thank you," I smiled in response. And took a long overdue step passed her and into the arrivals terminal.
*
I was back in England, but something felt slightly odd. I was back in England alright - but I was here as a visitor. This wasn't my home, any more.
*
This was the second time I had come home, since moving to New Zealand in August 2000. My first return visit was in 2004, with a one-way ticket. I had returned to work and travel the european continent, and spend time with friends until I decided if New
Zealand really was a half decent place to live in or not. After a year and a half I decided it was, and returned to Auckland, on another one-way ticket, at the end of 2005. I enrolled into university to study psychology, had a lot of fun performing with
local theatre companies, and met Karlos.
This time, 2010, my return was only ever going to be a visit. I had an arrival date. And a departure date. I had selected New Zealand between the two as my future home country - so my return to England was to be somewhat of a selfish gesture - to absorb
myself in her until I'd had my fill and would scamper back to NZ once again. I felt like I had betrayed England, and was using her. Likewise, she had turned her back on me. In the past 5 years I had not been any part of this place. So much was unfamiliar to me now. So much moved on. So much I'd forgotten about. I fell into that group of tourists who marvelled at the age of this place. Ancient remnants of the Roman Empire; Medieval churches surviving from the 1000s; Tudor houses more than 500 years old; pubs Shakespeare would have once drank in; Victorian post boxes; doctors surgerys generations old; old country lanes once travelled by horse and cart now paving the
way for modern hybrids. History and customs I had once lived amongst, been a part of, and taken for granted - history and customs which were now foreign to me. I figured my new 'visitor' status was perhaps ample punishment for leaving this place. My motherland.
So, I would spend the next two months emersing myself in British history and culture. Being back in the mighty Great Britain - specifically England, but Scotland at some point as well. I would reconnect with family and friends and find myself 'being' in this place once again. And I would feel comforted by the occasional yearning for New Zealand, justifying my abandonment.
It took a few days for me to re-adjust, to remember I was English, actually, and then I threw myself into the role of "look at this Karlos, do you know...?" The tour guide.
*
For the first couple of days we stayed with Zoe, an old friend of Karlos', in a small town called Colchester east of London. "The oldest recorded town in England." I had never been to Colchester before, so it was great to explore a new part of my own
country. We visited Colchester castle, and had a lovely meal pub meal and jug of Pimms down by a picturesque wharf. Zoe was incredibly hospitable to us, and made us feel so welcome and looked after. We promised to visit her again before we left the country, but for now we had a mission - so we hired a car and set off...
*
The windows were wound fully down in our little rental car, and locks of my blonde hair whipped around my face engulfing me. I closed my eyes and felt the cool breeze, and warm sun wherever it touched my skin. Goosebumps appeared on the bits it couldn't reach. The sky, as usual, was dotted with bunches of fluffy white clouds; we were enveloped by green, rolling hills; and, before long, a sign post for 'Somerset,' presented itself. I could smell the familiarity in the air... we were almost in Bath, and soon, so very soon, I would be seeing Vix again. Karlos would be meeting her for the first time, my best friend and my best mate. And I would be meeting James, Vicky's
other half. I was so happy I couldn't describe it.
*
We spent about 5 days in Somerset, and for me, apart from the addition of Karlos, it was like no time had passed since the last time I was there, five years earlier. We stayed with Vix' family - the wonderful Welling's - We had given the Welling's about 3 hours warning that "I'm on the motorway heading to Bath, Paul - can we stay?" And the whole family welcomed us with no troubles, turning their entire living room into our bedroom with almost no notice, filling it with a large blow-up bed for us. I grew up with Vix, and her family have always taken good care of me, treating me as another daughter, no matter how long I leave it between visits. And I will love them forever because of it. They are part of the family I have chosen for myself.
We spent a lot of time with Vix and James over those few days, having the best time. We drank good ol Somerset cider in the local 'Vobster Inn'- a place my parents would take us as kids, letting us play in the pub's playground as they drank indoors with friends. I took Karlos to some of my childhood places - Wells, to see one of the most impressive cathedrals in England; Glastonbury, to see where the famous festival is held every year, and to take in the wonderfully hippy culture; Cheddar, the place where cheddar cheese comes from originally, and where they still mature the stuff in the Cheddar caves; I took him down small, winding country lanes, where the hedgerows touched the wing mirrors on each side and left him gasping that, in actual fact, they were two-laned roads. We had a wonderful night out in Bath with Vix and James, drinking and eating at a Chinese buffet and just enjoying the good company. We took a trip into Bristol to check out cheap cars for sale, and ended up picking up a car for a steal at 600 quid. Vix and I let Karlos and James take the car for a test drive and do all that "man stuff," whilst we were happy to let them. Then We all went to a pretty pub by the river to celebrate, and then later for a picnic in Glastonbury, and another good night was spent together...
*
The four us carried a picnic and bottles of wine, labouriously, to the top of Glastonbury Tor - where we would spend the evening together, being friends and having a laugh, and watching the sun set over the Glastonbury plains. Our snacks were tasty, and the stories we shared deliciously funny, and our cheeks must have been glowing with the wine, evening breeze, and good company.
It had been 5 years since Vix and I had spent time together like this - emails and long distance phone calls have kept us in touch, but there is no exchange for quality time. James and Karlos only knew Vix and I, respectively, and were meeting each other for first time, on the common ground that their girlfriends were diehard best friends. Best friends who had grown up together and were as thick as thieves. Yet they bonded and spent time together like they too were long lost friends. Often leaving Vix and I to our own conversations, whilst we lost them to theirs. And the four of us all fell into a comfortable familiarity that doesn't happen all that often. Precious friendship - one of the most beautiful things life can offer.
And I knew then of course, that I was in fact home. No time or place involved with it - home in this moment was being with my best friend in the entire world, wherever that may be. And it just so happened to be in the place we grew up together. The beautiful county of Somerset, outside the glorious, Roman city of Bath, in a small town called Glastonbury, on top of a Tor that had been climbed by men and women for centuries before we had. To watch the sun set over the plains, just as we were, right then.
Not just a tour guide after all.
~ Comet xo
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