After 40 days

I just can't tell you what it's like, after 40 days of displacement, to see your children running up stairs and down hallways. 

To trip over Thomas and his friend Clarabel, tracks winding from the sitting room to the kitchen, long packed away and now breathing fresh air with the wee lad who has inherited them. 

To give an after school snack to your eldest, the sliding glass doors to the back garden framing his sturdy head as he bends over homework, the green of shrubs reflecting off the glare in his specs. 

To peek in on the girl, sick from a cold, asleep in her own room, in her own bed, cuddled up to the hippo we left behind over two years ago.

They're all here, in our new home, breathing new life into these walls. Oh, we are cleaning mildew and a little concerned about the bird living in our chimney, and the toilets are a bit - how shall we say - wanting. 

But we are putting down roots. Replanting our trees by the river. 

And now, I must wash the hippo. And the bedding. And every surface. Because now, we are home.

What's underfoot in your house today? Toys, illness, homework or mold?