As I flew in to Montevideo this morning, I was taken back twenty years, when we arrived in Barbados for a four-year posting. The youngest of my three, then aged just over two, said, as we got to the hotel where we would spend five weeks until we found a house, 'I want to go home.' I asked: 'Where's home?' and she answered 'I don't know, but it's far, far away.' (Hey, why isn't the !M button working? I'd better be brief.)

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Anyway, I have spent the last week or so in Brussels, trying to 'get a feel for' the place, as that's where we'll be moving to in a year. I have already lived there for two six-and-a-half year periods, but always way out in the suburbs, whereas this time we've decided we'll go right into the centre.

What I like about Brussels is that it's so cosmopolitan ... in a year, it will be home, but just now, it's 'far,far away'.

This is home, for now. Green, very green, the size of England and Wales, three and a half million people, nine million cows, and about the least cosmopolitan place I've ever been in. It's just one big family. And this, the last year of a four-year posting, is to be my 'gap year', I've decided, and i'll tell you lots more about it when someone tells me what's happened to the 'read more' button...

Yay, the button is working now, but I'm jetlagged, so more tomorrow.

Just one thing about my gap year : it being my last in Uruguay, i have to make the most of each day, which means I have to tackle my bloggoholism, and have decided I'm only allowed two hours a day between here and writelink and Facebook...of course if i get inspiration for serious writing, that's different...