I can’t believe it has been twenty years!

It is exactly twenty years to the day since I arrived on this island.

The memories of that day came flooding back a few weeks ago, as I headed home after dropping off my youngest sister at Gatwick Airport. It reminded me of the first journey I had made when I arrived here. I’d looked out of the coach window, while holding my sleeping seven week old daughter in my arms. Now, the same daughter, twenty years old, was quietly snoring in the front seat as I drove home.

I remembered the unfamiliar, seemingly barren, and uninviting landscape, littered with leafless trees. The land seemed to go on forever with the occasional farmhouse interrupting the nothingness. The outside still looks gloomy and grey in January, but I have become accustomed to it. I know spring is around the corner and will transform the landscape with lush vegetation and bursts of colour.

That day, I was filled with excitement, and fear, about what lay ahead in this foreign land. Today, I’m filled with gratitude and hope for the years ahead, in the place that has become my home.

I still find it amazing that it has been twenty years!