Homesick here, homesick there!

It's just 24 hours since I landed back in Scotland from a 2 week visit to family and friends in Canada.

I always leave with a heavy heart as the people there mean so much to me, though email and phones are a great way to keep in touch, being with them is much more fulfilling.

This morning as I sit waiting on my train to Aberdeen I am reminded how much I love being here too.

The ruins of Arbroath Abbey look dramatically dark silhouetted against the morning sun. Seagulls and pigeons are doing their thing..hobbling along the station platform, cooing and cawing as they do in train stations up and down the country. It's a cold, crisp morning and I have that familiar realisation that, despite my 42 years of Scottish autumns I'm not wearing enough layers.

As I sit on the train now I'm looking out on the north sea, vast and beautiful feeling glad to be back home.

I feel homesick for my friends in Canada, and grateful for my family, friends and life in Scotland.

I wonder if things were simpler, hearts less heavy, before world wide travel become so easy? We couldn't yearn for family and friends we'd never met, or a land we'd never seen.

Right now my heart feels full of happiness and gratitude for all that I have in my life. I have great memories of my trip which will tide me over until my next visit - gratitude too for my life in Scotland.

"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." - Maya Angelou