“Home is ultimately not about a place to live but about the people with whom you are most fully alive. Home is about love, relationship, community, and belonging, and we are all searching for home.”

I really like this quote from Erwin McManus as it reinforces my contention that home is not simply where you were born, where you grew up or where you currently live. Nor is it necessarily in one place forever.

I’m lucky enough to have called many places home over the years including Glasgow, Hertfordshire, London and Ibiza. They all have a special place in my heart and I’ve enjoyed the time I spent there… but none of them feel like home now.

One of the questions I’m most frequently asked is, “Do you miss Ibiza?”, and my answer is always no. I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I lived there longer than I’ve lived anywhere and was fortunate enough to have a very close group of amazing friends with whom I made memories I’ll carry forever. I’ve moved on and almost all of them have done the same. Ibiza is a lovely island but, for me, it’s just one of thousands of places in the world that are beautiful to look at. It was special to me, it was home, but now the conditions that created that feeling have gone and can’t be replaced… at least not there.

Home, now, is Yorkshire and I’ll happily live here for the rest of my life or I’ll move somewhere else. I find it easy to move on for, as Erwin says, home is where you feel most alive at any given time.

All that said, I do love going back to Glasgow and I’ll be going to visit the ‘dear green place’ as soon as travel restrictions allow. A wee bit of my heart is still there, I guess.

But I suppose my real ‘home’ is wherever I am when I’m with family and friends, as that’s when I feel truly alive and connected, and that’s what I’ve really missed during lockdown.

That’s all way too serious for a Saturday night so I’m going to crack open a Guinness, put some music on and possibly make a start on some Easter eggs!