Farewell, my cherry orchard

How do I feel about having sold the first and only home that I genuinely loved?

I was not involved when my childhood home was sold, but I remember my resentment about the alterations made while I was still able to visit.

I have re-read my blog from summer 2008, and I sense my anxieties then sky-high above what I feel now. Maybe I have made myself numb subconsciously, because the pain is unbearable.

I never really loved our house in Stockholm. When we bought it, I was still new in Sweden and I was just about to have a baby. In hindsight, I realise that we should have accepted the municipal flat we had been offered and waited with house purchase until things had settled. At the same time it was important to have stability. We had only viewed two houses. I didn't know you were supposed to view dozens before making up your mind. I was awed by the idea of getting a mortgage, and generally I didn't know what we were doing. It wasn't my dream house, and it never became one. We repainted the horrible dark green and brown walls. All our furniture was second-hand or even retrieved from garbage containers. I had no job. We had five children. When we had extra money, we prioritised travel (or so we said). Every purchase of curtains or rugs was a matter of compromise. I was envious of friends who had nice homes, and I was ashamed when my Russian family and friends visited.

I wasn't particularly into gardening either. From my home country, I brought a pragmatic view of gardens: that's where you grow vegetables. But no one needed home-grown vegetables in a land of plenty. I only got interested in purposeless gardening when I was on long-term sick leave. Hortotherapy = true.

It was not until my mother-in-law died and we inherited some lovely stuff from her elegant house, that I felt motivated to do something about mine. By that time I had a job and a salary, the children had moved out, I renovated the kitchen and the bathroom. Very soon after that we moved to Cambridge. I remember that at first we thought we would rent out and return after eleven years. How naive one can be! What would we be returning to now?

Although I still didn't love my home, it broke my heart to part with it, and the first months in Cambridge until we found Woodside didn't make it easier.

I fell in love with Woodside at first sight. First the garden, then the house itself. I felt at home. When we brought our furniture and other stuff, when everything found its place, when we put up the pictures, when we lit the first fire. The house had everything I had ever dreamed of, and many things I hadn't known I had dreamed of. And I got a garden of just the right size, where things grew and thrived. And ten years went by, mostly very happy years, and many dear people came and stayed, and many more came to parties and teas. With all the doubts and uncertainties, I hoped it would be my home for the rest of my life.

So how do I feel now, with the sign “sold” outside our driveway? Maybe it is different because the home had already been lost for a while and I had grown accustomed to the idea that it was happening. Maybe it's because it wasn't my choice. Maybe because during my reluctant, but inevitable visits these past months the only way to endure them was to tell myself: This does not concern me at all. Ten mostly happy years, but it's over, and no point in looking back.

Of course I still have the whole process of packing, selling, giving away, cleaning and surrendering the keys.

I hope the people who have bought Woodside are passionate gardeners and will have a lot of joy watching my daffodils and poppies emerge, rather than cutting down the trees, filling the pond and digging up my roses. But it does not concern me. They can do whatever they want. The agent advert suggested endless potentials in knocking down walls.

The displaced hedgehog wanders on. 

Nothing happened...

“You haven't blogged for four weeks”, Staffan points out. He is right. I haven't. When I don't blog for a long time, it can be for two reasons. 1) nothing has happened. This doesn't happen often. 2) far too much has happened. This happens all the time. When it happens I don't know where to start and let still more time pass and more things happen.

With reference to my account of imminent events, the viva went well, but I was so worn out when I came back that I cancelled all travel until Christmas, except Stockholm where I had too many important commitments. The Stockholm trip went fine. Staffan took me to Stansted. I was picked up at Skavsta by my oldest son who “happened” to be in the vicinity (which he has now admitted implies that someone dear to his heart lives close by). He took me to the place where I was staying, which is the International Writers' Guesthouse, in the very centre of the city. It is a small, but comfortable flat with three rooms and shared bathroom and living room-cum kitchen. During the week I stayed there, I saw a glimpse of my neighbours twice.

In the morning, I went down to a cafe for breakfast. It felt weird. The guesthouse didn't have wi-fi, only a USB cable, while I had brought my paddy. But every cafe with self-respect has wi-fi these days. Some of them have “coffee” for password. Then I bought some stuff for future breakfasts and topped up my travelcard. I had a long, pleasurable lunch with a friend, ending in incredible luck in a thrift shop where I found some remarkable dollhouse miniatures and spent more money I would be prepared to spend “at home”. But I wasn't at home, I was travelling, and then you are allowed to spend more. In the evening I went to admire how the youngest and his girlfriend had re-recorated their flat and to taste her famous and fabulous onion soup. The next day was also full of children and grandchildren, and that night I got horrendous neck pain. I often get stiff neck and know how to deal with it, but this was unbearable, and eventually I gave up and went to Emergency. It transpired that I wasn't a resident. “It will be expensive”, said the receptionist. “How expensive?” I asked. She named the fee. “Do I have a choice?” I said. So much for having paid taxes in my own country for twenty-five years. I got painkillers, and my clever daughter made me buy a wheat pillow, which is a bag of wheat that you heat up in a micro and put on your neck. I have now become addicted to it. I sat with it on my neck throughout the conference.

It was a very strange feeling because normally you go away to a conference, and although technically I was away, I also was kind of at home, but not really, since I didn't stay at home, but in a hotel. In the middle of the conference I escaped to attend a family crayfish party which was marvelous and far too noisy. It was also weird to travel back to Cambridge with the students (back home) and with my friend Kin (going away together) who was to stay with me for a couple of days. On top of it, Staffan was going to Stockholm the day after, but I won't go into more detail.

Kin and I had fun together when I wasn't busy with examination boards and crisis team meetings. We did all the necessary sights in Cambridge and around, went to Formal Hall (where I was obliged to say grace, as I happened to be the most senior at table) and even watched a movie. Then the pre-term business hit me: meetings, business lunches, early supervisions, arriving visiting scholars, a row of formal dinners with details I wish I could write about, but I shouldn't. And the next week it finally starts for real: PhD induction on Tuesday, masters induction on Wednesday, academic assessment meetings and meetings about the new Head of Faculty, more supervisions (I have four new PhD students), more formal dinners, various committee meetings, College Council, research seminars – all this in addition to teaching which I, according to my job description, am supposed to do “every now and then”.

Home

The best definition of home: “Home is where your device automatically picks up internet”.

The other day, after a strenuous train journey I posted on Facebook: “So good to be home”. Yesterday, a student greeted me: “I thought you had gone home... to Sweden”.

After five years, people keep asking me whether I had been home over summer. Yes, I say, I stayed at home all summer, I have such a beautiful garden, and the weather in Cambridge has been perfect.

People ask me whether I plan to move home when I retire. I don't think they mean old people's home.

I am going to Sweden next week, but I am not going home. I am going away. My device will not pick up internet automatically, I'll have to get a password. People assume that we have kept a place to return to, but why would we? We don't even know whether we will return. Does this reaction imply that most people don't burn their bridges? That most people can point to a place on a map, real or imaginary, and say with confidence: this is my home. Or rather: this is where I come from, which is not the same. I envy them. I cannot even go a generation back to say: this is where I come from.

I define home egocentrically, in an embodied present tense.