The Bitter-Sweet Of Family Visits.

Annual holidays spent together.

You do get more and more families who are rather fragmented all over the world. They call it progress and expanding your horizon, but when you get down to it, it means you live separate lives.

Gone are the days were you marry into another family in your village / town. A simple visit to your family would then only require you to swing onto your bicycle and pedal for a few minutes. Nirvana for those who live on different continents to their family...Even though I suspect that those who have married near by, sometimes wish they could live a bit further away. Oh you know, the grass being greener and so forth...

But anyway, I fall into the " fragmented family location " category. By now my horizon is expanded, yet spending time with some of my family involves a plane trip.

We have just had one of those magical family visits. A month of fun, exploration ( geographical & biographical ), eating out and catching up on lost family time. We tend to squeeze so much into those few weeks. A condensed trip !

The bitter part of it, is of course when you have to say ' goodbye '. That is when you get reminded of the long distance between you. You can't just drive over to tell them about the " this & that " of your daily life. You need to save that up for the annual condensed time or nowadays you can tell it via Skype.

Those of you who live a long way from your family, will know how " bitter " the end of a holiday is. Doesn't it take a few days to re-adjust ? Suddenly the house is quiet and strangely empty. Even when you make a pot of coffee you wonder for a second, if they are awake yet and if you have made it strong enough...

But with time seemingly riding on the wings of birds, it won't be long before we start the countdown towards their next visit. Yippee.

Biggi