It has been two days since arriving in the country of my birth. Home it is not. I feel strangely frightened here. Places of familiarity but with total dislocation. I don't feel comfortable, don't feel secure, don't feel safe. A complete contrast to home. So what is home but these things? As I drive around the obvious things strike me. Too many people, too many cars, too fast, too everything. My senses are bombarded with too much. The light is very poor here. Even when clear skies it feels... dull. There is a sparkle lacking, a flame extinguished. It feels like an empty shell. Left behind. Poignant in it's sadness.
The huge contrasts in the have and the have nots bothers me immensely. I realise now through unblinkered eyes, that I came from huge privilege and wealth. The houses we owned, the children I played with were all from the same class background. Ivory towers and some. It's a contained, fenced in, restrained existence which is stifling. Huge houses, security gates, neat and exclusive. Fortresses against those who are not included. I hate it. I mean I really hate it. Apart from the fact that only a few are included due to their money and status, it is a fake, constructed world. And then the contrasts. Those scraping through or not at all. A depressive overworked populace beaten to submission through the daily grid. Is this England? Or just the Home Counties? I need to escape the twee and head south...