After a bus (1 hour), a ferry (45 minutes), a frantic dash around Oban for the last promised souvenirs and lunch (1 hour), a train ride (3 hours), a bus (15 minutes to the other station across town), another train ride (40 minutes) and a night in a hotel that has seen better days, we resumed the trip home this morning with an airplane flight (1 hour, 40 minutes) and a car ride (3 hours).
After we landed and began driving through the sunny Swedish countryside, I found myself thinking, over and over, how great it felt to be coming home. Home to Sweden. Home.
Turning on to familiar roads, counting down the minutes to home. The house is just over that hill, then you can see it, it’s not much longer now. Pulling into the driveway, lamenting the crisp beige carpet that used to be a lawn as you shut off the engine and the doors fling open. The dirt and fatigue of traveling sloughs off as you haul the suitcases and backpacks to the door, unlock it, turn off the alarm.
Opening windows wide, though it’s apparently slightly cooler than the out-and-out sauna it’s been for weeks, as reported by the in-laws. Every window is soon pitched at a slant, it looks as though the house has exploded. All the fans are kicked on, all the fish are counted, 1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 6, all accounted for. Ander’s mom moved the trampoline over the kid’s vegetable patches and it acted like a giant greenhouse; in the beige surroundings their tomato and cucumber plants are big, verdant and bushy.
45 minutes later, because I am a freak that will not let anyone do anything else until the trip is OVER, everything is unpacked and both big laundry baskets are filled to bursting. Now the first load is drying (O! I sing sweet praise to the God of Clean Clothes) and the second load is washing. We’ve had a lovely dinner that did not involve anything deep-fried, the kids are in bed and I am halfway through catching up on my blog reading. We’ve looked at the millions of wonderful photos that Anders took the last 2 weeks and I am soon, so soon, very very soon, going to be sleeping in my own bed. And I will not be getting up in the morning to do anything or go anywhere until I am damn good and ready to.
Yay for going away and traveling and seeing new things and yay for coming home!
*Away is good but home is best