A weekend visit "home"

Just before I left the midlands for home, I realised I had no pictures form the weekend. So I made John and Patty take a self portrait with me!

Home is such a ambiguous word when you you're a nomad like me: I live in London (thus I suppose my home is there), I grew up in Texas so some might say that was my "home", but my parents sold my childhood home and moved to Kansas (for those of you who have told me "home is where you're mama is", I suppose my home is now in Kansas?), but I moved to London from the Midlands and when I go back for a visit, I always feel like I'm visiting home.

Not last weekend, but the weekend before I went to the midlands for a quick visit as I hadn't been up since Thanksgiving (sheesh! I can't bul-eeve that it was so long in between my visits!). With the timing of my arrival I ended up getting to the midlands just as Ken was coming into the airport, so I got to play taxi for him which meant we got a good visit in. (With the few minutes I had to kill before Ken arrived I went and had a drink at the Italian restaurant I used to work at - it was good to chat & catch up with the owner.) By the time we arrived at Ken's house Patty and Susan had arrived to replenish Ken's basics (bread and milk) so we all had a quick catch up on Ken's trip and a cuppa tea before heading off. Susan, Patty & I then went home via a local Chinese take away before crashing for the evening.

Saturday morning I had an appointment with the hair dresser (a trim was in need) before meeting Nadia for lunch. Nadia hadn't really seen each other since I'd moved to London so it was really good to finally spend some time with her! Before I met Sam, Nick and James (friends and old colleagues) for dinner, I managed to do a bit of shopping - I was in need of some black work trousers and jeans. I'm still in need of a pair of jeans, but at lest I sorted out some black trousers! Sam Nick and I all converged on Old Orleans, and American restaurant in Derby, for an evening of chatting, debating, laughing and fun. It was fun till I had to roll out to the car - I was super stuffed!

Sunday was church ... wait no. Instead of Sunday Bible class I got to witness Ashley (Susan's husband) baptized at Ilkeston church, so very special! Then I headed to the church in Stapleford as I'd not seen them since last August. It was so very good to see my church family at Stapleford, I do miss them! After church Simon, Pam and their 2 girlies treated me to lunch before I headed back down to London. My drive to London was significantly better than most my journeys as I got the pleasure of John's company! John was flying to the States from London the next day, so hitched a ride with me instead of training it down. The company was brilliant, the traffic was atrocious when we got to London. It turned out that on the opposite side of the motorway had a 13 vehicle accident. We were in around an hour and a half of backed up traffic which stressed me out ... until we passed the accident and the 15 miles of backed up traffic on the other side of the road - perspective is a wonderful stress reliever I guess!

Dropped John off, headed home and crashed. Only to get up Monday and start my work week. Busy and full weekend, but loved getting to catch up with everyone!