The Importance of Home

Home – Home is somewhere special.

It’s a place you don’t really consider as your favourite, because you live there.

It’s a place you don’t always appreciate, because you spend all your time there.

It’s a place you wouldn’t consider to blog about, because it’s not travel, it’s not interesting; it’s not an adventure…

Well that is a trap I don’t want to fall into, as home provides a huge amount of comfort, security, warmth, consistency, love and most importantly memories… With that in mind here is my blog on Edlesborough, a place I called home for nearly 20 years.

Edlesborough is a small country village in Buckinghamshire England, thirty five miles from London with a fewer than 4,000 inhabitants. It’s surrounded by lush green pastures, working farm fields and the beautiful Chiltern Hills. It’s not somewhere I expect you have ever heard of, as why would you have? It has very few claims to fame, and internationally it’s probably as relevant as a Hitchita Oklahoma!

We moved to Edlesborough when I was eight years old, both mum and dad commuted to nearby cities for work, and my sister and I went to the local schools.  I spent the next fifteen years of my life complaining about the village, I mean it was ‘in the middle of nowhere’; it was ‘boring’, nothing ever happened! Ha… how much of an emotional teenager do I sound? But I vividly remember having those thoughts. My options were limited; I could either catch the hourly bus to a neighboring town or pretty much cycle. All of this was just so much effort, and even when I was older, getting to local pubs and clubs meant significant effort and planning. I just wanted to leave it and then one day I did… I traveled the world for a year, living in Australia and having countless adventures in Asia, Oceania, the Pacific Islands and North America… Many of these adventures are included within this blog.

I returned and it suddenly stuck me, Edlesborough is beautiful. It hadn’t changed in my absence, not one bit but it suddenly I realised what I had been missing for those years. Edlesborough is extremely picturesque; with a beautiful thirteenth century church its focal point, still standing proud on the small mound. The village has a central park area, small rustic primary school, a single restaurant, a small line of local shops, a beautiful hidden lake/connecting streams and hundreds upon hundreds of fields which contain beautiful walking areas.

I suddenly realised that Edlesborough was a great place to bring up a family, with everything you could possibly want within walking distance.  WOW it all makes sense, that’s why we moved here all these years ago… In essence it had everything I now wanted. Funny, how that happens…

What also suddenly occurred to me was that Edlesborough had become an integral part of me, a real home. It was where an incredible amount of iconic stories and Wandering Memories happened, not just for me, but my family and friends. It was a focal part of my life…

I had my first kiss here, I had my first house party here, I had my first drink here, I learnt to drive here, I graduated here, I opened my first paycheck here, I witnessed world changing events here, I cried here, I fell in love here, I learnt the meaning of family here, I grew up here, I imagined, dreamt and became me here. What a powerful realization…

So my advice… really take a look around, the place you call home – is it really that bad? It will be location of a lot of Wandering Memories in the future.

As for Edlesborough, why not see for yourself? We have bought a number of visitors from Europe, Australia, Canada and USA there, and honestly if you want to see a real countryside English village this is the place for you! Thank you Mum and Dad for knowing what was the best for me before I did…