Home.

And I’m not sure I like it.

We’ve come home with a bug – I lay down at 1 as I couldn’t keep my eyes open and Tim woke me at 7. Doesn’t feel like I had 6 hours extra sleep.

I’m twitchy. Irritated. For the last two weeks, whenever I’ve passed someone by they’ve nodded, smiled, we’ve exchanged greetings at the least and sometimes gossip. Here I went to the fruiterer I’ve shopped with for five years and barely got a hello.

Kentwell is a village as villages used to be I think. There are people you get along with, people you don’t. But there’s pretty much always someone you can talk to, who’ll watch the children for a minute while you run an errand, or whose children you watch in return.

Children. There are children in evidence. And people like them. They play on the front sward of an evening, all ages together. They play actual physical games, and run and jump and shout. No scheduling required, no special arrangements. Here Tigerboy rides in the buggy because I daren’t have him walk behind me at his pace.

The whole pace of life is different and wrong here. Late nights and late mornings. No one to be with, barely a friendly face.

I miss the Manor.