Make yourself at 'home'

I'm off to London and Madrid at the end of next week to catch up with friends and family - drink from the fountain of familiarity and friendship - and as always I put myself under enormous pressure to squeeze as much or I should say, many (people) into my time there as possible. So much so, I might have to contact Stephen Hawkins and ask if there is such a thing as a space-time shoehorn. At this rate I won't need a place to stay because I haven't actually factored sleeping into the equation.

It's always a bitter sweet experience returning somewhere where you used to own property but now rely either on the kindness of friends or horror of all horrors - hotels; a stranger in the only land I know (and love). I feel this most in London - the connection is too deep for this set up to to feel anything but...odd. My mum used to have a little holiday home on the east coast of Spain where many a crazy rite of passage and fun fun holiday was had but that house is no more and I feel it there too on occasion.

Generally though, Spain is a different kettle of fish - never having lived there (within recent memory - I know I was there for a couple of years before the age of 5) I don't mind hotels and in fact have a special fondness for a family run inn near the train staition Atocha. But there will be no need for hotels in Madrid this year. The family is falling over itself to accommodate. My cousins are moving out of their flat for the week we're there so that I, the other half and the nipper feel properly at home. I'm eternally grateful that despite the miles of separation - there is nothing to fake in Spain.

It's a wonderful feeling.

London, well, that's a different head case altogether. My friends have mostly escaped to the country and those that remain live in tidy little flats - hardly the place for a gargantuan Canadian and vivacious 3 year old...not to mention the slattern of a wife (that's me). So this time, it's a hotel for us - in Camden - my old stomping ground. It's not all bad and yet...as Coldplay says: "Home is where I wanted to go....home." Ah, one day.

For now, I have pubs landlords to check in with who will wonder why sales have been down for the last 18 months, streets and parks of my youth to saunter through & up & down, shop windows to peer longingly into, markets to float about in and a strong craving to visit The Natural History Museum to satiate. Been reading The Secret Life of the Natural History Museum and HAVE to take a closer look now - despite visiting it weekly for most of my teens - mostly to gawp at the exchange student from Sweden. http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2008/january/the-secret-life-of-the-natural-history-museum.html

Cheerio for now my little blogettes. Will send a postcard.