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Sunday 20 April 2014

Wide Open Spaces

See, I promised I'd be back!

In my last post, I alluded to the fact that I had just recently been in my hometown. We actually arrived back in London early this morning, and, immediately after disembarking from the plane, I was hit for the first real time since moving here almost 8 years ago with a real sense of claustrophobia. Having just spent two weeks in North Carolina, including a few days in the sprawling countryside outside Mt Airy (a.k.a., Mayberry), I can think of no other word to describe the way I felt this morning as we drove home from Heathrow other than "smushed."

Space is one of the things I miss dearly about the U.S. I miss being able to get to the middle of nowhere within ten minutes. I miss driving for miles without passing a soul. I miss a backyard. (The fact that outdoor space here in the U.K. is referred to as a "garden" should give you some clue as to the average size of such space.) I just miss space.

So while I battle the homesickness I always suffer from when I return from one of our visits, I will conjure up pictures like this in my mind:

View of the Yadkin Valley and Blue Ridge Mountains from our cabin deck

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