London is where I live, but I am originally from the South West of the UK. I call that home, even though I've lived away from there longer than I've lived there. My parents now live in my grandparent's old house, in a little cul-de-sac of a quiet corner of a mid-sized city. That's where I spent my childhood weekends, it's where I ate apples straight from the huge tree my grandparents planted the year they bought the house before it was built. Both of them have their ashes scattered in the garden and I suspect my parents will choose to do that too.

I want that house to remain in my family because it isn't just a house, it is home. Childhood memories, marriages, wakes, tears and laughter. If I have hatchlings, I will make sure I take them there. I will make sure they steal apples from the tree their great-grandparents planted, people they will never meet but whose legacy will live on because they not only bought a house, but they created a home and they imbued their children and grandchildren with the confidence to leave it and the desire to always one day return.

Now, for me at least.... home is wherever I am as long as the Significant Other Penguin is nearby. I could live pretty much anywhere as I think home is probably a state of mind as much as anything else. This was truly an excellent article - and has provoked some deep thinking. It seems to have resonated well with other readers and writers too based on the number of claps and comments you have! :o)