A new land, a strange land: our home.

River Witham (near Boston)This was a reflection on our first year in Boston, Lincolnshire. For some reason, I failed to publish it, back when I wrote it, so its almost a year out of date already!

When we first arrived in Boston, we found ourselves in a wonderfully fresh situation: a new start, a new home, a new career direction, new friends; a new horizon.

Obviously, it was also a little terrifying. Just substituting “new” for “strange” makes that clear: strange home, strange career direction, strange friends; everything that made a feel secure, all the familiarity, gone!

  • We lost our home, that we had lived in for 5 years, to have it replaced with a tatty, abused detached house surrounded with a tangled green jungle.
  • After 8 years doing Medicine in South Yorkshire, I suddenly found myself in a very different patient population, with different services, on a General Practice training course.
  • Whilst many of our friends here are strange (Tammy especially), at first they were strange by the nature of being strangers.

Of course, the strangeness fades fairly quickly. Returning to Sheffield now feels very odd, whereas Boston feels more like home than Yorkshire ever did. Our new life has made us realise that we were unhappy, and a little lonely in Sheffield: we had many friends that we connected with intellectually, but the city never really clicked with us emotionally.

I really believe I can sense God’s hand in the move: I would never have expected us to “up sticks” and disappear off to Lincolnshire. Yet we did, with only 48 hours to make the decision, and it was definitely the right call.

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