Home is a Feeling

I watched a film this weekend and in the film was a quote which really resonated with me:

"A house is just a place, but home is a feeling." 

It seems rather fitting to reflect on this today, as I've spent the weekend in my 'second home' in Exeter and, although I am very much  a Guernsey girl at heart (don't you worry about that), I am realising just how much I feel equally at home here.

Mum, I know you'll be reading this and you'll start getting all soppy on me. Hold the tears for a sec, please.

It's funny how life turns out sometimes. How connections form that you once would never imagine. Today, for example, I spent the day with my dear friend Laurel, who I met on our first day of secondary school. I still see us as gawky year sevens who would sit in lessons practising different handwriting styles and sneakily eating skittles from our burgundy blazer pockets when the teachers weren't looking (that's about as rebellious as we got, though). After deserting me in Guernsey and moving abroad for her sixth form years (I forgive you now Laurel - just), she's now at uni in Exeter, and we now have a house there. How very convenient!

In the past 24 hours, I think I've heard Laurel say the words, "I feel like I'm home" and "I feel like we're in Guernsey" more times than I can possibly tell you. But how great is that?! It just goes to show that home isn't necessarily where you grew up, or where you've spent the most time. Home is simply where you feel   home.

For me, that's Guernsey. For me right at this very moment, it's Exeter.
It's my aunty's house, and my other other aunty's house. It's on a cliff overlooking Saints Bay. It's walking (rather, stopping every five seconds and whipping out the selfie stick) by the river Exe. It's in Hyde Park. It's on a rollercoaster in Florida. It's in front of the fire watching back-to-back episodes of Coronation Street.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that home is wherever you feel safe, loved, inspired. It's where you'd go to in a heartbeat.

I'm so very blessed to have two houses that feel like home, to have wonderful family who I can visit and be cooked for and fussed over. To feel at home in so many places.

That's the stuff happiness is made of :)