End of holiday blues and softly falling lentils

Here we are back in England. 

It's raining and the grey sky feels very close to the ground.

Already our holiday is slipping away from us. Like brightly coloured sand it is slipping through our fingers and if we don't clench our fists, we will lose it all.

And so I hold my fingers close together and clasp onto the memories that will keep me warm.

The tail of the breathtakingly majestic blue whale disappearing noiselessly into the sea, so close you could almost touch it.

LA sparkling at our feet from Griffith Park.

The simple sorrow of a single rose placed in someone's name at the 9/11 memorial

The human tenderness of pulling a blanket over a fellow down- and -out in Central Park against the defiantly inhuman height of the New York skyline. The sense of pride that  the Statue of Liberty somehow always seems to exude.

The crashing of the foaming Pacific waves and the salty honking of the La Jolla sea lions. The natural serenity of a New England, lily-filled lake and the constant movement and colour of the decidedly man-made Universal Studios.  The beauty of a stranger's home and the rekindling of almost forgotten friendships.  

Too much delicious food and not enough good radio.

All of that is becoming the stuff that dreams are made of. 

Because it's amazing how quickly a holiday can become unreal.  

A dazzling island surrounded by mundane weeks.

But the worse thing about a holiday being over is not the ending itself so much as the knowledge that it will be a long time before you can start looking forward to your next one.

Because the weeks planning and booking and shaping a holiday are almost as much fun as being on it..

Counting days forwards and anticipating before a holiday is always much better than counting days backwards and remembering afterwards.

Coming home is never easy. 

However smooth the plane landing, floating back down to every-day life is rarely pleasurable. 

But home is safe and familiar and holidays are only exciting because they are not.

" It's good to sleep in my own bed again," says Joss, patting his Arsenal duvet happily.

" Can you make your dal dad? I've missed it."

And suddenly here we are, home. 

 And as Ninesh lets the silky, orange lentils that he uses to make dal, fall between his fingers he stares dreamily into the distance.

"Where shall we go to next year?" he asks.