Safely Home

Yes, I'm back in the bosom of Wiltshire. My house is warm and welcoming (once I've lit the woodburner). Snowdrops gather in hopeful clumps in the garden. The man at the market remembered me.

It's always disorientating, coming home. Everything seems the same, and it's easy to slot into the same old ways. Yet each trip I do is enriching, and I come home with questions and memories that I want to cling on to. It is a privilege to travel as I do, and would be wasteful to cast it aside as I slip on the coat of normality back home.

I will, in time, put photos here on the blog. Just sorting them out will help cement memories. But give me time - I've only been home a couple of days. I'm still recovering from the journey.

It was a bit of a marathon, from Singapore to Bangkok (woops, I forgot to check that both airlines used the same airport ...), from Bangkok to Abu Dhabi, from Abu Dhabi to London - and then home.

The route taken by that last flight was the most tortuous. We headed straight up the Red Sea (keeping well away from Yemen), then north of Basra and south of Baghdad, then a significant detour to avoid Syria and parts of northern Iran, turning west to make sure we stayed out of Ukrainian airspace ... I know it was necessary. But what a dreadful reality it reflected. It underlined, for me, how the world feels increasingly dangerous.

While I am settling back into my market town, where the biggest grumble is about the road works making children late for school, more and more people must live in war zones. I sit and read by my fire. While others run in terror from the guns and the bombing. There is food in my markets. I have shoes on my feet and clothes to keep me warm. If I am ill I can go to the doctor. My grandchildren go safely to school. And millions of people - as innocent as you and I - are swept into conflicts that are not of their making. Their homes suddenly under rubble and who knows when, or if, there will be food in their markets.

Surely, if there were more women in positions of power, we'd not allow such bloodshed? We might sit up all night over endless cups of tea (or glasses of wine) but we'd not see people go hungry. We'd not see children murdered. We'd not see women raped in the name of war. If our menfolk carried guns we'd withhold the conjugals till they came to their senses. (Oh I do not it's not as easy as that, but it does feel as if everyone has stopped listening to each other and reaches for weapons without thinking.)

And so, as I gather my corner of the world together after my weeks away, I can't help thinking of those whose world is forever in pieces.

Coming home

Two days ago I was whizzing through the streets of Kathmandu on the back of a motorbike. And now I'm back in Wiltshire. It takes a while to make sense of such transitions.

Kathmandu - it sounds exotic, doesn't it? It is, in truth, a smog-ridden city - and I love it. The narrow streets are littered with potholes, lined with stalls and tiny shops selling everything from incense to saris to plastic buckets. Dogs sniff in corners. There's the occasional cow. People, taxis, rickshaws, bicycles, even buses - as well as animals - compete for all available space. Horns toot incessantly - as if anyone needs a reminder of the traffic behind them. The air smells of fumes from countless chugging generators (power cuts are endless at this time of year) and passing pongs from the river. Thank goodness for temples and the whiffs of incense. Secrets lurk in every corner.

No temples in my little market town. With its elegant shops selling tailored dresses, its bookshop (books are priced out of the reach of most Nepalis), and respectable supermarket. The busker playing 'Moon River' - easily heard above the drone of traffic. Crossing the road is simple - traffic generally stays on the left. We have the occasional pothole, but nothing that might unseat an unwary cyclist. I do not need to swerve into the road to avoid a cow, nor a stall that spills its wares hopefully all over the pavement. The air is sweetly clean after the rain.

I have jetlag, of course. But the transition is more than just jetlag. It is the struggle to accommodate the reality of both places, to find a way of understand them both without putting them in boxes - Kathmandu is There, and now I am Here. It is a strange misplacement - part of the process of coming home.

I'll get back into my blogging stride soon. Meanwhile - please bear with me. And if anyone has ideas on how to accommodate transitions, I'd love to hear them.