Coming home in colour
Why returning from holiday can be just as good as going in the first place
The bittersweet nature of returning from holiday has shifted as I age. In early adulthood, there was an intense level of bitterness about leaving behind days (sometimes weeks) of boozy lunches, time spent earning myself a ‘British suntan’ (hat tip to my Aussie bestie for the term), sea swimming and the occasional museum or gallery excursion to offset the sense of having done the square root of fuck all with my time off.
As I began travelling for work, usually on trips which hardly counted as grafting (reviewing luxury hotels and going on safari isn’t quite what my grandad fought for in WW2), my perspective shifted. Travel is one of my greatest pleasures, but often I found myself pining for the simplicity of home. Saturday mornings pottering. Evenings spent chatting over the TV. Reading in bed together. The warmth and closeness of the person you love.
The sweetness levels have risen further in the years since becoming a parent. Not because I don’t love going away with my kids (Ice creams! Late nights! Staying in the pool until your hands resemble prunes!) but because I have a home and garden I love spending time in.
All of which is a long winded way of saying how buzzing I was to roll off the Rotterdam to Hull ferry last Monday morning. The kids were, naturally, bereft. But my better half and I knew something magical was waiting back in Sheffield. Namely, the front garden.
After two hours of braving Brexit induced passport controls (slow clap for everyone who wanted to ‘take their country back’, you got what you wanted) and 90 minutes crossing Yorkshire, we pulled up on our suburban cul de sac to an absolute riot of colour. In simple terms, the front had gone BERSERK.
All four of us burst out of the car. For us, it was all about the cornflowers, which had seemingly put on a foot in the space of seven days and bloomed. For the kids, it was the strawberries which had ripened to the point of explosion in our absence. The fruit was devoured within a minute, leaving just one for me to sample. It tasted great until I spotted the woodlouse that had made its home inside it. Cue gagging.
The car was left unpacked as we marvelled at it all. The cornflowers had outcompeted the salvia in terms of height, but the latter’s deep pink flowers could be seen poking through the undergrowth. The phacelia had reached another level of bonkers, its flowers unfurling into purple commas, punctuating the flowerbed and the footpath. The number of bees was astonishing, including a red tailed bumblebee that appeared to be having a doze after drowning itself in delicious nectar.
Around the pond, the cosmos waved in the breeze, while the gladioli continued their ascent towards heaven. The nemetia appeared to be glowing brighter in the strong sun. The teasel my mum planted had doubled in size and the foxglove, too, had opened out and unfurled itself for the thankful pollinators.
The baking heat of the last week of May had done its job. But so had the careful watering of my gardening obsessed neighbours. We all needed a holiday after a challenging start to 2026 from a physical perspective (leg still hurts, thanks for asking), but coming back to this was just as special as the time we spent playing on Dutch beaches, eating pancakes and drinking G&Ts while our pair of crazies danced to Freed From Desire with their grandad.
In the days since, the growth has continued unabated. The rain has given everything even more impetus. The candy tuft and corn cockle seeds have germinated. The feverfew and chamomile promise cups of homemade tea for autumn and winter. Out the back, the elder has bloomed and gifted us cordial.
There is much work to be done. But for now I want to enjoy it before bending my back to it once more, knowing that when we head off again in August, I may just return to something equally wondrous.
