Home Sweet Home

I'm home again. Or at my parents at any rate. In the house I grew up in. In my childhood bedroom. Except that it's not the same any more. In some ways it is. We've got the open fire going, Dad's got something great cooking in the kitchen, there's lots of jokes and mucking about. Me and mum watch TV together and we went shopping yesterday (a very serious enterprise - I treated myself to a few things and we made serious inroads into the Christmas shopping). But there's also odd notes. My old room has a double bed in it - very nice, but not my bed. There's a linen press* in there now and my skanky old wardrobe has been repainted. Mum's dressing gown is in there now - she sometimes uses it so as not to disturb Dad when she's got a cold. Steve's not around, not uncommon these days but still, it feels odd. I keep thinking that he's just in his room, tinkering with his computer, but no. He's up in Stafford. And I find myself mixing my words. I talk about coming home but now that I'm here, I'm thinking about going home. Back to Oxford. Where things are moving on with me, not past me. Where Alex is.

* To my surprise, this is a kind of dresser/cupboard, not a medieval trouser press