Mary Medlicott, Storyteller and Author - Storyworks

Storytelling Starters ~ Home and Away

So far as subject is concerned, today’s blog has arisen purely because, in bed this morning (and we’re still in Pembrokeshire), Paul showed me a couple of photos on his phone of the lifebuoy down at Whitesands beach. Had I been thinking about lifebuoys as something to write about today? Well not lifebuoys, not at all. Yet, come to think of it, it’s not an unproductive subject.

For instance, I think of the friends who are and have been lifebuoys in the past. I remember how one of the best pronounced that, the minute I’d finished the treatment for the cancer I had at the time, I must go and stay in her home and for as long as I wanted. I would have nothing to do, I could just rest. What a lifebuoy that proved to be!Another lifebuoy over the course of the years has been Pembrokeshire itself. What did Samuel Johnson say? The man who is tired of London is tired of life. Well, though I speak as a woman and a London-lover,  I think I can also say that it’s nice to have a break from it from time to time. It’s probably the hustle and bustle of it, the number of people, the fact that although one may live in a quiet area, there is always that bit of a hum that arises from traffic, talk, people, machinery.

But then, I grew up in Pembrokeshire, not London, and I suppose that, though this certainly won’t be true for everyone, returning to where you grew up can in itself provide a sense of rest. You’re at home with the voices around you, the places around you, your sense of the sky above. And for me that’s been one of the restful pleasures of the last week or so.

Not that the sky above is providing much joy today. It’s grey, grey, grey without a hint that there may be any change.  Endless rain is falling from it. So what with one thing and another, at home feels like the best place to be.

What’s the adage? Home, sweet home. So I hope that, if you’re at home today, or indeed wherever you are (for you may well be somewhere entirely else), wherever you are provides you sweet haven today.

PS: So the pictures rather speak for themselves. Both at Whitesands, two shots of the same sunset!

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