Quilon

Continuing along today with the April A-Z Blog Challenge. Our family moved to England when I was just shy of 13 and spent the next 6 years across the pond. This month, I am reflecting on the time I spent overseas during my teens.

 Q is for Quilon    

I'm not sure I'll really be able to put all the words I want in this post but I'll try.

Our home.

Quilon. 

I love that homes have names in England. When our family moved overseas it was a very quick timeline. I believe from the time we listed our house in the U.S. to us being wheels up on an airplane across the pond was 29 days. So when our parents went over to look for homes sister and I didn't accompany them. We saw pictures but the first time we stepped foot in that space was the day we moved. 

A car had picked us up from the airport and driven us to this new home, where we groggily got out of the car, looked at our new home and promptly realized we didn't have keys and the realtor was nowhere in sight. So back into the car we went to a local hotel while we waited for the realtor, who was quite a ways away. We napped, sister and I both thoroughly unaccustomed to jet lag and the emotional turmoil that comes from being young teens moving across an ocean. And then a little while later finally got to see what would become by favorite home I've ever lived in. 

I loved my room. My cozy little room, with a twin sized bed and a tiny little window nook. A nook where I'd sit and read or write in my journal over the years. A room that had 2 major slants in the ceiling that I hit my head on pretty regularly despite knowing exactly where they were and how much I would need to duck. Everything in the home felt "old" in the most charming way. It had radiators that I would put my coat on before heading out the door so they'd be nice and toasty. There was a "secret" door from our front room the hall that blended into the wood paneled walls. It had the tiniest bathrooms with pedestal sinks. And the world's most spectacular backyard, complete with small pond, greenhouse and "tea house". 

We once had a dead hedgehog end up in that pond and that story has woven itself so deeply into our family that my mom, sister and I all have a collection of hedgehog related knick knacks that we keep buying one another. A friend of mine also fell in that pond. And a tiny cousin. So maybe not the safest of ponds? But it was also for catching tadpoles and frogs with my friend. And for relaxing out back listening to the bubbling water. 

So much life was lived in this house. Homework done at the kitchen table. Birthday sleepovers in the living room. Waiting in the front room for the bus to stop out front. Croquet in the yard...because that's what you do with that kind of yard right? Young Life bible study every Thursday for years, piano practice in the dining room, picnics in the backyard. A thousand visitors from our old home to our new home to take around and explore. 

Well my initial thoughts were right. It just can't all go in this post. I wanted this to be all things London. But there is so much, just in this house that my brain can't wrap it all up with the other London things. So that will have to be saved for another day. I'll leave it with this picture. 

This is the last time I was at this house. Taken the morning we headed for the airport to fly back to university after spending my freshman spring break at home. My last time at home. This picture tugs at my heart for a time that has now LONG passed (this picture is 12 years old). But the picture also makes me smile. The 4 of us together in our favorite place.

Quilon.