Almost time to go home

Most days, I walk to and from work. It takes about twenty minutes, the route is flat, and now that several of the friends I work with have become friends who live near me as well - that's another story, which I'll tell sometime - there's a good chance of having a walking companion. But if it is raining, or I'm running late - pretty much every Monday morning, on both counts - I take the tram.

I live in Hillsborough, and there's a special moment on the walk home along Langsett Road. As you get level with the Barracks on your right, looking up you see Hillsborough rising up to the left ahead. And to me it looks like a village, and I get hit by nostalgia every time. Which is weird, because I've only lived there for just over two years. I'm an 'incomer' - and in the way in-comers are viewed, Hillsborough really is a village, albeit surrounded by Sheffield.

I guess in part it's because I know I'm nearly home - in my mind I can see the light coming through the kitchen window, and my girl (she's three-and-a-half) shouting "Daddy!" as I come through the door. But there's also something about the place, that makes me want to be more than a commuter who sleeps in a dormer village but works in the City; who shuts his work behind the office door at 5:00pm, and his neighbours outside the kitchen door at 5:20pm...