There's No Place Like Home

It's been a year since I was home. This was a welcomed sight after a 13 flight from London to Singapore, a 16 hour stop over and another 7.5 hour flight. 

Returning home feels like having a blindfold removed and noticing all the changes since I last left. Like how much development has happened in Sydney and huge apartment blocks are being built on any space developers can get their hands on. Burwood, my old haunt has been re-zoned to allow high rise buildings. The plaza car park is now a concrete monstrosity, unrecognisable to what it once was. Now high rises sick out into the skyline like pointy sore thumbs.

Met my new niece, only a week old. She's a cute little raisin and so gurgley. I love hearing the sounds she makes. It almost makes me weep!

My other cute niece.

 

I've started taking Zumba classes locally. They are held in school halls and most of the other ladies are mums. After my last class, I waited for my bus to get home and a lady from the class pulled up in her car and asked if I needed a lift. I was gobsmacked by her kindness for that doesn't happen often in London.

Another act of kindness was when our Turkish neighbour gave us a copper water jug and shared a pudding they made as its the first month of the Islamic calendar, Muharram. She doesn't speak English and neither does my mother so her daughter and I translated between Chinese, English and Turkish. My mother then showed them her congee (rice porridge) and said that she makes a similar food herself.

I later googled the dessert, called ashure and it's given to neighbours, friends, amongst others without regard to the recipient's religion or belief system as an offering of peace and love. I'm thrilled to have witnessed this between two culturally different people.

There's no place like home.