I CAN'T WAIT TO GO TO MY MOTHER'S GARDEN, ENGLAND

Like you, we’re restless, and eager to travel. Here’s where we want to go…

The saying goes, ‘home is where the heart is’. Physical home for me right now is Marseille, France, and most people would say “oh you lucky thing!”  

I was born in England, but have spent most of my life moving from one country to another so my heart has traveled (to New Zealand and Portland, Oregon). And now my heart wants to be in my mother’s garden, in Southampton, England.  

She lives with my stepfather, Roger, in a townhouse in Ocean Village. The house is comfy and cozy and overflowing with color and filled with things they have collected from all of their life and travels; there isn’t an empty space on the walls, which are covered with paintings, mostly Mum’s, and they are beautiful.

The garden is small, fenced and surrounded by all the other gardens and overlooked from the windows of the houses on either side; none of this invades when you are out there. Pots and tubs overflowing with flowers and plants, everywhere you look — there is growth and life. The fence is covered in creeper which has traveled to the house. At the end of the garden there are trees which hide the house opposite, the branches are always full of sparrows and blue tits sleeping or waiting to have a chance to get some peanuts from the bird feeder, which hangs on one of the branches and is kept full by my stepfather. I want to be there watching the birds as they jostle for position for a snack, or watch Roger keeping this very private world in glorious organized chaos, while Mum directs operations. Or just curl up with a book and feel the sun. 

As the sun goes down, a glass of wine for me but vodka and something for Mum and a small whiskey for the Dodger-man, before we wander down to the end of street, it isn’t a very long street, to Max’s Brasserie for dinner and more drinkies!

That’s where I want to be!