Being home

It felt very strange coming home. It started to feel strange at Cancun airport queued up to check in for the flight to Manchester and everybody in the queue was from England and speaking English. I felt a bit lost and confused. I got the train back to Derby and was waiting at the station to be picked up. As I was waiting I got a waft of bacon sandwiches and I couldn’t resist but have one. The man serving on the van asked me in his Derby accent ‘ Do you want tea with that duck?’ and then he asked the same to some builders and one of them replied ‘yeah with 3 sugars please’ and there it was I was back with a bang!

When I got into the house it was decorated with balloons and banners which was a really nice surprise. I walked into each room and looked around as if everything was new to me and it felt like things had changed but they hadn’t. My mum had made/was making my favourite Indian food for me. I had a sudden surge of energy and emptied my suitcase putting all my clothes for wash, showing my mum everything I had bought and then I had a shower. My mind was all over the place and when I tried to speak I felt really slow and couldn’t think of the words to use. The words in Spanish kept coming into my mind. I put the TV on and that was it, as soon as I sat down I was out like a light and only woke to the sound of the phone ringing. By the afternoon and after work time my family started coming round to see me. What I didn’t know was that they had planned a welcome home party for me. There was samosas, chicken, homemade cakes and a homemade bakewell tart. Homemade nan breads with my favourite dish mutter paneer (indian cheese, potatoes and peas) and keema (minced meat). I had missed them and it was so good to just feel relaxed, talk albeit a little slow and laugh at silly things.

When they left I couldn’t switch off. I faffed around a bit on the computer then in my room and before I knew it was 2am. I fell asleep straight away but awoke again at 5am. Then for 2 hours I couldn’t sleep but when I did sleep I didn’t wake up again until 2pm. I felt really exhausted. The next night the same happened I couldn’t switch off and went to sleep at 2am but this time awoke at 7 am and I decided to just get up. In the day I was sat at the table updating my blog when I had the urge to close my eyes. Before I knew it I had nodded off sat upright on the dining room chair and ended up with a very crooked neck! So the third night and the same happened again. I slept late to then wake up at 5am, couldn’t sleep for an hour or so and then I fell asleep and awoke at 2pm ish!

I didn’t feel like venturing out nor watch any TV. I got quite used to not watching TV. I finally left the house on today (Friday), 5 days after I arrived, only because I desperately needed to get my hair cut and coloured.

The good news is that my cousin is getting married next weekend in Crete, and as a family we had planned to go before I left for Mexico. So I’m afraid I’m about to jet off at the weekend again for a week. Actually I’m pleased it’s worked out this way because I had something to look forward to when I knew I was coming home. I will also get to spend some time with the family away from the daily grind. I have been a very lucky girl this year and feel very blessed to have met the people I did and to have an amazing family to come home to.