Rootless.

I just came back from a great weekend in York for a friends birthday.
Although I had a lovely time, met great friends, admired the beautiful city, the trip was grueling.

A taxi, a train, a bus then another train and 8 1/2 hrs to get there.... Then, a train, another train, a bus a car and 6 hrs to get home.

Its expensive, its tiring, it's stressful (especially when the platform for your train isn't announced until 3 minutes before the train leaves and you have to sprint through an unfamiliar station to catch it... and then you realise that you've lost part of your ticket and spend the next three hours worried about getting chucked off the train...)... and it takes the shine off an otherwise great weekend.

I guess I get a little low after trips like this... After the relief of being back home has wore off and the kids stop being extra nice to me, and I realise just how far away we are from everyone.

All my friends, all my family, they're so far away and its just SO expensive to visit them....

If we had more money and time... ah... If wishes were horses....

So I do my usual thing of spending a depressing day looking at houses for sale further south and knowing, without a shadow of a doubt, that I can't afford to move and we can't risk unemployment, and the kids have fucking good schools and.... You get the picture.

I do feel alone here sometimes.

But I have to look at how much I do have here, things I'm not prepared to give up on, the work we've already done to the house, the garden. How settled the kids seem.

Could be worse.

Probably.