where I've been

I spent last week in Raglan, one of my two favourite places. It's the small seaside town my mother grew up in, where I went to for holidays and where I lived for a while as a child. It's where my mother's sister and brother still live, and it gave me the story I've been working on for a while. The one I'm ever hopeful might (magically?) turn into a book one day.

We looked after my Auntie's house while she was away. We ate fish and chips on the beach, we went for a drive with my Uncle, we walked everywhere. To the beach, to the shops, to the library, back home again.  We had friends come to visit, we drove out to the surf beach and the kids ran wild through the wind. 

I didn't really want to come home. I've been saying that by moving house it feels like we've moved into a job, and it's true. We really have moved into a job. One with incredible rewards, and one that brings us great joy, but a job nonetheless. So it was nice to run away for a bit, to have a few days where there wasn't much I had to do or worry about.

I know Raglan well. My girls know it too. I've been going down with them at least once a year since Isobella was born. They love it. They know the beach, the park, the string of shops, the library.

It's a gift, in this complicated and time-poor life we live, to know somewhere as well as we know Raglan. I sat in the little Union church my grandmother attended, and remembered all the times I'd sat in those pews as a child. Church has always been fairly quiet there, unlike the churches I grew up in, and it was quiet on Sunday morning. I felt peace well up within me, that feeling of being somewhere I belonged. The pastors' voice was gentle, the small congregation were silent, and every now and then I'd hear the sound of a car driving past on the main road behind me. The same sounds I'd sat listening to as a child. I remembered.