This post was written for Week 6 of the writing project The Great Cake* Experiment Topic was ‘Home’. Why not take a look?
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Home is … still where your parents’ house is, because you haven’t yet managed to decide where you want your own bricks and mortar, and nowhere will ever be completely ‘home’ until you can arrive home with a chair you found in a skip without it being binned as soon as you let it out of your sight and you have complete authority over deciding what colour to paint the ceiling.

Home is … arriving after a long, exhausting drive late on a Friday night to the warmth of a wonderful welcome … the dog. Who couldn’t feel loved?

Home is … tea with every meal, and at least one cup in between.

Home is … regressing to a teenage state of mind, but suppressing the urge to scream at your parents “you don’t understand me!” whilst simultaneously slamming the nearest door.

Home is … long chats with your mum, late into the night… realising how much she does understand you, marvelling at her quiet wisdom and wishing you could be there more often.

Home is … a somewhere you can lock yourself into your room and hide beneath the covers and cry until you can’t possibly cry any more, and not worry about anyone seeing you and trying to make you feel better. Then, when you emerge, there will be tea.

Home is …. marvelling at the full sky of stars you only ever really see when lying wrapped in a duvet, lying on the trampoline in the back garden.

Home is … being woken by the birds in the soft, damp, grey morning.

Home is … wearing pyjamas until 6pm.

Home is… a short drive from the sea… the warm, wild and wonderful sea… miles of open space and angry waves… where cold rain stings your face and mats your curls, your lungs feel clean and you feel exhilarated and alive….

Home is … truly, unashamedly letting your own self all hang out. No game face necessary.

Home is … laced with memories… that tree down the road you had a “house” in…the imaginary friends of childhood… the school up the road where you learned to read and write and grow a thick skin… the seashell necklaces… the long cycles on summer afternoons to climb the stone stairs in the derelict castle by the river… the teenage confidences shyly shared… the pain of unrequited teenage love… the agony of requited love… the blossoming of minds and missions.

Home is … no doorbell necessary… an open house. Where you know your neighbours’ names, as well as their dogs’ names.

Home is … is blissful, dark silence in the night … sheer, ink-black peace.

Home is… the one-fingered salute from the driver of every car you meet on “your road”. Whether they know you or not. In this context, “one-fingered salute” does not refer to an obscene gesture, rather a friendly acknowledgement that you exist, and are sharing the same space, and deserve to be acknowledged.

Home is … in you always …