Bonjour, tristesse

8th January loomed, and it was time to go. I tried to explain to Hobbs that I'd be back, and she'd be well loved by Chris and Ellie, but she fought to get away and didn't want to know. I was making a rice salad to take with me and talking to Chris and Ellie when Hobbs appeared with a mouse - making a point - and ate it on the kitchen floor. She then hopped on to a chair and looked me in the eye, held my gaze for ages. I took it to mean she understood and was okay; I felt I'd been given her blessing. [I know some of you will think I'm cuckoo but some of you will know what I'm talking about.] Then she disappeared, and didn't come to see me off, thank god. One goodbye was enough. I cry at goodbyes - am shedding tears now just thinking about it. Chris and Ellie helped me pack the car, and we went up to Roxana so she could witness the signing of the housesitting agreement. Nothing left but to go. Hugs and farewells made the tears brim and fall, however hard I tried to contain them. Then it was Maria and Alina, and this time I didn't bother fighting it, which made Alina cry too.

Driving out of the village was a bit dodgy as I could hardly see for the tears, and I chickened out of saying goodbye to Bogdan, Luminita and Dan. The road to Britain meant driving round Piatra Craiului and along its northern flank, so it was well over an hour before I could put it behind me and turn my face and focus to the west.

Looming goodbyes

A week into January, and much of the snow had gone. My housesitters arrived in Brasov on time (miracle) after a three-day journey from Newport, South Wales. Chris, Ellie and dog Bramble were waiting for me as I drove into the station car park. Travelling fantastically light, with only a change of clothes (seemingly) and a sack of lentils, they had come to look after the house and Hobbs while I went back to Britain for three months. Hobbs galloped up the hill to meet me and was perplexed by the arrival of two strangers. Indignant about the dog, and livid when the dog was invited into HER house, without even a prior consultation.

She spent three days ambushing the dog and getting her retaliation in first, but Bramble took it well and made allies of Furnica and Albine next door. Chris and Ellie were made very welcome by my neighbours - they're the same age as Roxana and Rodica up the hill. They took over my teaching role, so we introduced them to the children on the first teaching day of the new term, and I had to say goodbye, knowing I'd miss them.

What is 'home'?

Joanna Penn posed a good question in her blog (the Creative Penn) this morning - what does home mean to each of us? When I thought about it, it got complicated. West Sussex, where I was born, is always home - the deepest roots left undisturbed for the first ten years; when they were yanked up in August 1968 the uprooting left enough in the earth to keep me tied to the place. But when I go back now, I'm both deep-down happy to be there, and utterly bereft to have no place to be. I belong, but I don't. It also revives all the emotions of those years - good and bad. If I had the spare cash I'd buy a few square yards of land where I could put a shed: somewhere to call my own. A spot big enough to be buried in. My mother's ashes are there, and we planted a tree over them, with another tree for my father alongside. Some of my ashes will go there in due course, but not all.

London was where I lived for eleven years, but never home, not really. I love going back there because I know it, and enjoy driving in the city because I know I will leave before long.

Liverpool became home for two decades, and I loved it with a passion. Still do, and am writing this in the city on Grand National Day. It's the best of English spring mornings, cloudless sky, warm sun, not a breath of wind, birds shouting their heads off and the city full of visitors for the great Aintree spectacle this afternoon. But it's the one place I can feel lonely; since I sold my house here I have no base except with friends; because I love the city and know a lot of people here, I can feel isolated and disconnected when I'm footloose.

Transylvania - it's 1,500 miles away from Sussex, but it's the closest I've come to finding that deep-rooted connection with a place. Every time I reach the village - turn the last corner and emerge from the forest to that glorious view, there's that same feeling of being planted, the fundamental security of being held firm in the earth. It's the geology - from South Downs chalk to Carpathian limestone. Calcium carbonate, that grows beech forests and snowdrops, blackthorn and marsh orchids. Elements I absorbed from the veg and fruit my father grew in River echo in the food grown on the foothills of Piatra Craiului.

So this is where the rest of my ashes will be planted, under the same tree that blossoms in Sussex soil for my parents.

And you?

First footing

My friends have worked me out. They know that if they offer me an option when trying to smoke me out of my hole, I will find a reason to stay hermetically sealed in. So on New Year's morning at about 10am, there was a knock on my kitchen door. Alina had come to get me. 'Put your shoes on. You're coming to breakfast!'

I had no excuses, and anyway breakfast sounded good... so we went back up the hill to find Alina's mum Maria making sarmale and dispensing alcohol, hot milk, coffee, anything that was required. In the room already were a family from Bucharest staying for the holiday. Adrian, Mihaela and their daughter Alexandra were in the New Year spirit - especially Adrian, for whom the adjective 'irrespressible' had been coined.

After breakfast the Niculescus asked for a guided tour of my house, which I gave them gladly, and they announced as they left that everyone would be down later. This had my cleaning, tidying and cooking like Nigella on speed; the Niculescus and the Cotingius rolled up just after dark and injected life, laughter and noise into my house as good omens for the year to come. They left some hours later, leaving me and the cat limp but happy; how could I be anything else with such neighbours and friends?

Mountain fire

The boundary between 2010 and 2011 was on fire. On every hill top around the horizon the pyrotechnics were lighting the darkness with brilliance and colour, shells exploding for miles around, just up the hill and miles away in Bran and Fundata. The Banus and I stood and watched, glasses in hand, while Hobbs zapped back and forth across the snow, excited but unfazed by the noise. A dog flew past us, racing at lightspeed down the hill, terrified and desperate for home, while the cat cavorted in the midnight snow, happy to have humans out playing in the freezing night.

Ding dong - sarmale on high

Christmas. Usually I'm not a fan of the flimflam and overspending, but that's urban living and TV. In Magura, the build-up to Christmas was flimflam free, but very white. Snow up to our uxters and the scarlet knickers of Woody Redkecks (Greater Spotted Woodpecker) flashing against the icy background of the mountains.

I had thought I'd got away with Christmas and was planning on a bowl of pasta, a few DVDs and curling up with the cat - but my lovely neighbours weren't going to let THAT happen. I could easily have been given six Christmas dinners on the trot had I not been flinty-hearted and refused all but the smallest glass of palinca or visinata at each house as I went up the hill with my bag of tiny gifts. By the time I got to the car I was pie-eyed, facing the perilous drive over packed snow and ice, down the steep hill via eleven hairpin bends, in the dark. I arrived - late but in one piece - in Zarnesti for Christmas celebrations with Luminita, Dan and family. Charcuterie and appetizers followed by sarmale and mamaliga, then cozonac - all with more delicious alcohol, and I was facing an even woozier drive back up the hill. Luckily there weren't many cars on the road (ie none) and no wildlife, so I slithered my way home unscathed. Grateful for my friends' generosity, I saw the rest of the evening out with Hobbs snoozing in my arms. A good Christmas. Very good.