Home is where your heart is happiest

 Happiness is a shining sun, the view from the top of Brockwell park and a good pair of shoes.

Today I headed back to London after a week of rest at home in Dorset (as demanded by glandular fever and my mum).

It obviously didn't take me long to start missing home and all its fields, as I was barely inside my door before I was out again and heading to Brockwell Park. I sat quietly and happily at the top of the hill, enjoying the weather and the view and feeling like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

Living in a student house will never really feel quite like home. My room may be covered with my fingerprints: colourful bunting, posters, photographs and Clive my flamingo standing by my wardrobe, but it doesn't really feel like it is mine. I don't think anything really will until the day (here's hoping it arrives...) that I am living somewhere I have worked for, that isn't paid for by a student loan, and that (as much as I love my housemates) I don't share with 5 other people.


In the mean time, I have lots of other places that I think of as home instead; places that I love and that feel somehow like mine, even if they belong to me even less than my Brixton bedroom.

You may not know it just from looking at it, but the bench at the top of the hill in Brockwell Park has Libby Page's name on it. So does a table in a cosy café in Brixton Market. In the Breakfast Club in Hoxton there is always a table waiting for me like an old friend. The Primrose Bakery in Covent Garden has cupcakes especially set aside for me. Columbia Road greets me each time I visit with floral kisses that say: "You're back! You're home."



In reality I know that I share these places with hundreds, thousands, millions of other  people. But actually, that's what I love so much about London. It is anyone's, and everyone's.

And mine.

Libby