Home Sweet Home

Sorry I've been out of action for so long. 2010 ended up not being the year I was hoping for at all. I lost several people I loved dearly, including the apparent suicide of a childhood friend in the home country in the dying days of the year. I'm not someone who deals at all well with losing people I love (who does, right?) and maybe the lesson from last year was that you have to just roll with the punches when a battery of unexpected departures happens. I keep dreaming about my friend. I just hope she has found the peace that elluded her during this life.

The result was me staring down the seconds on the clock until 2011, desperate for nothing else to go wrong within the leftover moments of the old year. I've been depressed, but I'm starting to feel better.

Finally the year did turn over, and nothing more terrible happened. I have been home for just three days in the last month or so thanks to work related trips and a holiday, and now that I have my feet firmly planted on Greek soil, I can say I have never been more grateful to be back in Athens. It's funny how you never realize how much you miss your home until you've been forcefully separated from it for several weeks. I spent most nights of the London trip crying because I missed Mr Zeus and our cosy little flat, and it was so cold, and I was scared my flight would get cancelled because of the snow, and I got flu.

But here I am, back again amongst an ever-deepening economic crisis, brows that are even more furrowed over money worries, but still, this is home, warts and all.

But there is plenty to look forward to. Winter dinners with friends, spring walks on mountains and my favourite season, the summer, which needs no further explanation. I have a feeling in my belly that 2011 won't be such a bad year.