Hometown Too: Ellon

While I was born in Wallsend, just outside Newcastle, we moved when I was four. And so despite my football heritage declaring myself a Geordie, 'home' is really Ellon in Aberdeenshire, where I would spend the next 16 years of my life (before taking the monumental step of moving out of home to go and live in France for a year). A year in Aberdeen on return, then one more year each back in Ellon, then Aberdeen, and ow 12 and a half years in Edinburgh.

Newcastle is my heritage; Ellon my formation; Lyon a wonderful memory to return to; Aberdeen just a stag really; and Edinburgh is now home. You take a little from everywhere you live, and I'm a product of Ellon, even if I don't sound like I'm from there, and have no real desire to move back. Visits, however, are always nostalgic fun.

The reason I'm back is to tend to my mum after an op on her foot on Friday. Picked her up from the hospital, then home to make a late breakfast, and an evening of mum's telly - being a 'good son' for once.

Oh, and this is the River Ythan (eye-th-an), much, much higher than normal. There used to be an annual raft race (which I took part in twice) on the river. More nostalgia.