I'm moving home.

In some ways, it's what I've wanted for a while. But I've been pushed into it sooner than I'd have liked for what feels like a difficult reason...

Two years ago, we packed up our house in east London, moved in with my parents for a month and prepared to re-home our family of five in the Somerset town of Frome.

It was still quite pandemic-y and I look back on that period as a pretty dark time.

I’d initially been up for an adventure but soon, it struck me that I was leaving behind family, friends and the secondary school I wanted my kids to go to.

However, by this point I was homeschooling two of my kids, the third was a toddler and my husband, Rich, felt we were too far along in the buying process to back out.

There was talk of me staying in London with the kids and Rich doing the build, returning for long weekends in London with us, but it didn’t feel right.

So we went ahead, bought a derelict house on the edge of town - and the edge of countryside - and moved in the week between Christmas and New Year.

Initially, we were renting a tiny cottage, because the house we’d bought was uninhabitable.

There were about 20 dead cats, a lot more dead rats and as it had been owned by a hoarder before being left empty for a few years, there was a lot of stuff.

Also: no running water, gas, electricity etc.

Remember, it was the end of December.

We committed to renting that (massively overpriced) cottage for three months and in that time, Rich transformed the upstairs of the house.

It was quite miraculous, what he achieved during that time - with the help of two builders he got to know.

Meanwhile, I’d decided to get stuck into this new life. I had two kids at home with me full-time and the toddler was with a childminder three half days a week.

When I decide to do something, I do it properly. I’d committed to moving, and I was going to absolutely make the most of the experience and help my kids to settle in.

I started to love this countryside life we were creating.

Running in the frosted fields, going for a Sunday roast with a view of field and meadows, dipping my toes in beautiful rivers while out on woodland walks.

It was like I’d opened the door to a magical Narnia-type land - where dainty deer leap across your path - and stepped right in.

It was new and daunting and also quite wonderful.

A few months later, I got the kids into a local school, and spent my time writing poetry, painting, coaching women and designing a new online course.

I also got a book deal to write Raise your SQ and had a heavenly six-week stint raising my own SQ (eg. massages in yurts, shamanic healing, breathwork) while writing it.

Importantly, I started to meet so many truly magnificent people.

Before leaving London, I wrote a list of qualities I’d like in any new friends I made. Quite specific; quite dreamy.

My new friends were the manifestation of that list.

I was amazed.

Soon, I was going out for drinks and dinners and to summer parties that ran late into the night, with feral children dashing about laughing.

Socially, I couldn’t have felt happier.

But every time I went back to visit London, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach because I knew that however much I was falling in love with Frome, London was still home.