After my son first went to university, I would find any old excuse to stay out till late after work, coming back home just in time for bed. I did this for a month before saying to myself, “You can’t keep running away from yourself.” After a few big cries, I found new ways of moving forward. I discovered Ikebana, long evening walks and Come Dine with Me.

Today I did the same thing. My partner is out of town tonight. So, I browsed through books at Foyles, walked along the South bank of the Thames, watched a contemporary dance recital and had dinner by myself at a nice restaurant. I read these beautiful lines about moving that deeply resonated with me – “Migration meant far more than a journey across unknown seas to strange lands. At times the desire to preserve a link with what had been left behind failed because of sheer distance. Tenacity was needed to keep alive some sense of permanence, some sense of the known. Often that devotion to remembered tradition was jolted by shifts and changes in the old home country. The passing of time and generations in the new lands brought its own inner journeys. It created its own powerful alchemy out of things half remembered or wholly rejected. Loss and gain were the materials out of which new ways of belonging both to the present and the past were crafted.”

But ultimately, for me, home is not  just a place. It’s a person.