Dulce domum

The first time I saw these words was when I was reading The Wind in the Willows for the first time, and I remember with strange clarity how melancholy this bit of the book made me feel - so much so that I missed it out altogether on subsequent revisiting the book. (I was always a great one for re-reading favourites when I was a child, devouring books at a greater pace than the weekly trip to the library could sustain.) Now that I check the summary of that chapter, I realise why in a way I couldn't at age seven: "Dulce Domum" is the title of chapter five of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. The chapter is about Mole and Rat returning home from a winter walk and reconnecting with Mole's childhood home. The phrase "Dulce Domum" is Latin for "Sweetly Homeward". 


The reason behind all this is, of course, because we're back home again, and I've run out of ideas for saying so. I was still in bed when the boys went to school - though Alan did shout "'bye, Grandma" as he left - and Mary too goes out too early for me. We had a leisurely breakfast, did the strangely interminable packing up - you wouldn't think two days would leave such a mess - stripped the bed, because we'll not be back for a bit, piled stuff into the car, had coffee. Neil came back from a meeting in time to see us off, and Po, who had been looking increasingly sad with all our comings and goings, came for a final stroke. It was 1pm before we got away, driving straight into the low sun in a trying sort of fashion (we were sitting like meerkats again) until we turned west and found the cloudy sky just outside the city.

The journey was speedy and glitch-free, and culminated in the satisfaction of being able to drive straight onto a ferry which then cast off with us smugly settled on the car deck. We had some tea and chocolate cake (I know) and then went out to stretch our legs and go to a couple of shops. It was as we reached the southern end of Argyll Street that we saw the delicate pink of the sky over the Firth and decided to walk along the West Bay and watch it as it stretched southwards, changing from pink to flame as the sky darkened behind it. I chose to put the final photo here, because it looks like a lino-cut - I took it just as we turned away from the sea to come home.

And now, absurdly, it's just struck 1am and I'm sitting here blipping. Enough.