Holiday blog: Travel does not exist without home.

If we never return to the place we started, we would just be wandering, lost. Home is a reflecting surface, a place to measure our growth, and enrich us after being infused with the outside world.*

Yes, I know that only a few days ago I said that home is people, not a place...

Yesterday was the last full day of our trip. Today, we head for Toronto Pearson Airport and home. Overnight flight. Back Thursday morning, UK time, carrying our jet lag and memories.

I have completely loved being with my two boys and their girls and my precious grandbaby and all the extended family, but now it's time to go to that home....

...that home where there's my other lovely boy and the dogs and the horses and my friends and the bees and the rabbits and the promise of chickens and possibly even cats, because Pete can no longer claim he's allergic having spent five sneeze-free days with Hibou the Hairy Feline Grandson.

For me, home isn't just people, it's animals and caring for them and it's cooking meals for my menfolk and doing the washing and ironing and forgetting about the cobwebs and picking the runner beans and tomatoes and courgettes and making chutney...

All those things, which aren't THINGS but are acts of love which make the house a home.

*Josh Gates