Foreign Perspectives

One of the slightly peculiar effects of my five year absence is that it takes a while for the name of some people to come to mind that I’ve seen in the local supermarkets.

It’s not that I didn’t recognise Colin [test to see if he’s really reading this!] pretty much instantly, but that it took me AGES to remember his name! Is it just the five year gap, or creeping senility? Funnily enough I remembered David J’s name almost the instant I saw him even though I’ve worked a whole lot more with Colin over the years. Bryan’s a lot easier to remember of course in that I seem to have been constantly bumping into him in Tescos or Sainsburys every time that I’ve been over here.

Anyway, for Colin’s benefit, yes I’m back in NI. Why we’re back right now is down to a whole bunch of reasons that meant early in 2009 was always going to be the best time logistically for us to return and although it might seem a bit of a sudden decision, in fact we’d been aiming to be here since something like two and a bit years ago.