Home

For many people, home is a place. For me, home is where my mother is. And secondly it is the place I grew up. I was home last week for my mother's 60th birthday. We had a wonderful eleven days and I was sad to leave. I just love spending time with her.

I thought I would share some pretty fall photos from around our home there, so you can see how pretty it is, how perfectly rural and idyllic, and how I can be so nostalgic for place...

This is the view out in front of my mother's house. I never tire of this view. The river is out in front of the cliffs:

This is the old railway, where trains passed when I was a kid, between the houses and the river. It is now a wonderful walking trail where I spent my 20's and 30's running (and now walking) when I go home:

I love this view of our dear neighbours' house (they have since passed away and the house sits mostly vacant, as in many rural towns with no economies...):Another view out in front of Mom's house. This field was a hay field up until a few years ago. Now it is going wild, untended. It floods frequently in spring. As a child, I loved watching the water come in and track the progress of the ice jams with my Dad:

Some pretty Eastern fall colours. I miss those reds and oranges as we seem to only have yellow leaves out west:

This is the little country church in the nearby town where my Mom grew up. This is a favorite place of mine. The graves in the foreground (next to the leafless snowball bush) are my maternal grandmother's parents' graves:

I like this abstract shot of a tree in my mother's yard, taken from my upstairs bedroom window:

This is my mother's charming little cottage house, built around 1940. It is very pretty and welcoming inside and sits on a marvellous private property. The giant pine trees in the background (lining the driveway) have been there since long before I was born (they have always been huge to me!). The leftmost one is being removed as it is starting to die and we don't want it to fall on the house!:

And the star of the week - my Mom (in a small photo to preserve her privacy!). We went out for lunch on our shopping/antiquing day in Fredericton at our favorite hotel:

What a great trip home it was. And most of all, because of her...

What is home for you?