Home is where things feel so familiar they are almost a part of me. Home is where memories are made, cherished and recalled. To me it means warmth and comfort, familiarity and companionship, laughter and tears. Home is a soft place to land, where I can simply be me, whatever that happens to mean on the day.

Home suggests a variety of things to me. To begin with there is the house I live in - my home, my dwelling place. My home is in a small town on the outskirts of Manchester in England. This house is like an extension of my "self", and the things I choose such as the colors, textures, furniture, and accessories are a reflection of who I am. When I have been sad, ill, or unhappy it has been reflected in my home. The neglect, the chaos, the negativity hanging in the air, even the smell is different. When I am not taking good care of myself I am usually not taking good care of my home either. Likewise when I am happy and contented my home glows with the joy I am feeling. Flowers perfume the air; candles cast a benevolent pool of light. The energy in the rooms feels lighter.

The town I live in is part of England, part of the United Kingdom. My town represents home to me and so does the UK. It is home and always will be because I was born here and have spent all of my life so far living here. I am never aware of how patriotic I am until I go to another country, and then whilst I am savoring the experience of visiting another land, I think of home and feel a sense of possessiveness and nostalgia. I love to travel, meet new people and see new things, but then I love to go back to my homeland.

My hometown isn't a place of great geographical beauty but it has heart, and its people are big hearted too. The location is handy for access to the city, and yet on the border of beautiful countryside encompassed within four counties Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire and Derbyshire. My family is here and I am blessed with many friends whose company I feel at home in. To have such people in my life is to cherish and be cherished. To leave permanently would be a terrible wrench, because this is part of what home means to me.

Home is anywhere I feel a deep sense of comfort and belonging.
Cornwall, the far southwestern tip of England is home to me, and yet I have never lived there. Not in this lifetime anyway. What memories are being evoked I have no real idea, but it feels as if I know the land, and it knows me. The gentle rolling countryside with its verdant,

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