Suburban Homesick Blues

There is a church on a hill surrounded by trees.

The church has a blue, grey spire and a red light atop that guides planes to Northolt.

As a child I could see this church on a hill from my bedroom window. Across the sports pitches and park, beyond the council flats and above the grey gasometer, it sat looking back at me as I daydreamed. Staring into space it would stare back at me.

I recall an incident from when I was eight or nine driving back from a holiday. My brother – being three and a half years older and therefore being far smugger – ripped me apart when I confidently told the whole car that I could see Harrow Hill on the horizon despite only being half an hour into a trip home from Wales. That is my only memory of that happening, but I am assured by my mother that I would often look for or claim to see the church on the hill in counties all across England and Wales. I would look for it. Hope for it, even.

St Mary’s Church on Harrow Hill was a geographic comfort blanket for me.

It was obviously something that I sought solace in. Something permanent that meant safety and home.

If you knew which window to look out of, you could just about make the church out from the flat that I have left behind me in South Harrow. The flat that is built close to the site of the old gasomter. I didn’t buy it for that view – although I fell in love with the view of Bentley Priory three miles to the North the moment I saw it – but in my heart, I was still so happy that I could see it.

St Mary’s still has a hold over me.

A Church on a Hill

And not much has changed in me since I was that nine year old kid. I still like stability. I am not a risk taker.

So homesickness was inevitable.

But I planned as best I could. I kept talking to people back home, I had my Saudi Fridge of friendship, threw myself onto Instagram and kept recording. I started this account. All actions to try and warn it off. But, it was going to happen eventually.

CLICK HERE FOR SHAMELESS PLUG TO MY INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT

The Latest Version of my Saudi Fridge of Friendship

When it came it took me surprise and it hit me hard. Last week, I would have done anything not to be in Saudi Arabia, or Bahrain or the UAE. Any of them… The other Monday, I was in all three at one point or another but I was yearning for home.

I yearned for London. I yearned for grey skies and twig trees and rain and cold.

But mostly, I yearned to be closer to my friends.

I’m hardly the first to have had this feeling. I won’t be the last but it is something that I have never ever encountered. Having lived almost exclusively in London and trips/time away has always seemed holiday like, I cannot recall a time of spending more than say three weeks away from home. As I type I am reaching close to three months. One quarter of my contract is done, I am planning my first return to the UK and home is in focus.

The catalyst, I guess, was seeing a friend for the weekend over in Dubai. Alex travelled out and linked up with me after I had been to a conference out there. We had some pints, explored, chatted life and bollocks. We laughed. All was good. But it put my isolation into perspective.

I know that I am not alone. Certainly not as isolated as I imagined that I would be. I’m lucky that I live in the same block as “Special K” my friend and occasional boss. Colleagues pass through for a few days at a time. I’ve got to know a few faces for a chat and find Al Khobar friendly and welcoming but none of this is the same as being able to pick up the phone half hour before the end of a shift and arrange to meet “whoever”.

Alex sent me a great email a few days later that explained how pleased he was to see me. That I appeared the happiest and most positive that he had seen me in years. He spoke of regret of missed opportunities and of looking at opportunities to step away from London himself. He told me of two incidents he had had in his first twenty four hours of being hassled by beggars. And still, I wanted to be nowhere else than London!

In the background, work was becoming stressful for reasons to dull to explain. I caught myself getting emotionally drawn into the issues and taking things way out of my control quite personally, rather than standing back and just “dealing” with them. I know of old, that this is a path best avoided. There be dragons and shadows over my right shoulder controlling my mood if I let that happen. All in; not a good week.

For the first time in years, though, I was fully aware of everything going on around me as it happened. I was maintaining control. And I sought my own route to get myself back in order. Time. Space. Sleep. Sunshine…

I shook myself down and sought comfort in literature, music and friends… Thanks, as ever, to Mr Dent for the chat and Helena T for the cup of tea x.

I found myself down by the sea at dusk last Sunday. The sun setting behind me. The sea, smooth and calm rippling over the rocks at my feet. As the light disappears the sea gets darker shades of grey, pink and blue. It’s warm. I’m wearing a tee shirt. It’s December.

Dusk

I’m thinking about everything that I have achieved this last year. Of heading out to the Middle East, of agreeing to live in an Islamic country where so many of my own personal beliefs have to be parked up on a daily basis to survive. Of facing up to my own unhappiness. Of changing career. Of stepping away from the dull, throbbing, soulless, thankless routine of my previous role to step outside my personal comfort zone to achieve it’s goals. Of succeeding in that change. Thinking about the stress – the ongoing, endless, hopeless stress – of renting my flat. Of leaving my parents and the fear associated…

Not too bad for someone who is risk adverse.

Above me, swifts darted, whirled and danced through the sky. Chattering.

And the sound took me back to summer evenings around dusk in Rayners Lane. Of listening to the same noise from the same birds swooping above the garden I could see from my childhood home’s bedroom window. And it made me think about the church on a hill with a grey, blue spire and a red light atop guiding planes to Northolt.

A year isn’t a long time. The World is quite a small place if you think about it. Even for a boy from the suburbs of London.

Everything will be fine.

And all is good.

Yes. All is good.