The first day back after a holiday always feels slightly strange. Part of me is keen to get back into a routine and another part wonders whether I could just stretch that holiday feeling out for another week or two.
By Monday evening our house had taken on a life of its own.
Our son Indi, who arrived home this spring after three years travelling the world, had organised a reunion with friends he’d met along the way. By sunset there were around twenty young people from all over the world gathered in the garden making pizzas, opening bottles, sitting around the fire pit and talking until the early hours.
At one point I looked around and realised this was exactly what we’d always hoped this house would become.
Not a show home.
A place where people wanted to gather.
Dave and I quietly disappeared to bed at about eleven, leaving them outside listening to stories and laughter drifting across the garden long after darkness had fallen. The following morning I came downstairs expecting the aftermath of twenty-six-year-olds enjoying themselves and instead found everything tidied away so beautifully you would barely have known they’d been there.
More than anything, I found myself thinking how lovely it was to watch this generation who, only yesterday it seems, were children racing around the garden together. Now they’re thoughtful, interesting, funny adults making their own way in the world, yet somehow they all still found their way back here.
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