29.7.13a - Going back to the UK made me realise moving away had its downsides....

After a long pause…the blog is back.

I’ve been away in the UK, during which time I decided not to blog as it was not really about HK. Since returning last week I have been busy, ill or hungover and hence not got around to writing…

However, when it came to starting up again, I felt that I did need to do a post about returning home. As someone insightfully wrote in an email to me after the trip: It must feel strange to be returning to a foreign place, having 'visited' the UK. Some reflections, then, in 2 parts:

A - It made realise that being away has its down sides…

Our week and a bit at home felt almost as if it was scripted as part of the Government’s Britain is GREAT campaign. It was a week that felt like it was lived through rose tinted glasses. If you want an idea of quite how sickeningly true this is, you need look no further than this jaw-droppingly clichéd picture (descriptions so far have included ‘like the cover of a dodgy folk band album’ and ‘a healthy yoghurt advert’).

We could not have picked a more heartstring-tugging time to go back to the UK. Weather so glorious it’s almost as if mother-nature is playing ‘Jerusalem’ on a loop. An hour after landing, driving in 25+degree heat through rolling green and yellow hills, reading the weekend paper. Attending a beautiful wedding in a stone church, then walking through a quaint village and hay-bale strewn field to a marquee reception with scones. Teeing off on a clear summer’s morning down a lush fairway with a steeple framed by the trees in the background. Running in 40% humidity(!), and feeling like I had wings on my feet and that I could run all day.

It was wonderful to attend two weddings in two days, but that in itself contained a quiet sadness because it reminded us of the other big life events we have missed already, and the others we will inevitably miss in months to come. The same went for time with family, knowing that we will only see them for a day or two and then nothing for months.

Discovering quite what a fantastic bunch of friends we have in the UK, in the very act of reacquainting ourselves with them. The shock of finding out that our breezy judgement that when we come home eventually everything will be as before is wrong – the friendship groups we have are shifting and morphing just a few months on and the slow drift away from London is beginning without us.