Today was a little trip down memory lane.
When I was a child, my parents had a holiday home in the Belgian Ardennes. From the age of ten until I was twenty-four, we spent almost every holiday there. It was sold about twenty years ago, but I still try to return every now and then. Strangely enough, I appreciate the place more now than I did back then.
This time, I went with my husband and my mum. We walked around the area where our cottage used to be and later visited Stavelot.
The forest paths are mostly still where I remember them, but the landscape around them keeps changing. Where there used to be tall trees, a young forest is now growing. And the small trees I remember from years ago have become the tall ones themselves.
There’s something slightly strange about seeing a place you know so well change like that. You recognise it, but at the same time you don’t. And of course, while the forest has been changing all those years, so have I. Going back makes you very aware of how much time has passed, and of the fact that I'm getting older too.