For what it’s worth, I spent a nice, quiet Christmas Day with my parents., cousins and their children. I don’t really have much to report, other than it was one of those lovely family Christmas days like I had growing up. In fact since I didn’t have my Neater Eater so Mum was feeding me, it even felt slightly like I had stepped back into childhood.

I’m back at home now though, having taken the tube train across this sprawling metropolis like so many other Londoners. It’s almost like taking a tube ride between my first London and my third. Just as I find great comfort in knowing that I can always go back to that old family house if I need to, I set great strength in knowing that I am capable of getting around one of the world’s greatest cities pretty much alone. My family gave me a lot of support when I was growing up, and it still does: that support has ranged from giving me outstanding Christmas lunches to encouraging me through university. 

Without such support I doubt I would be where I am today, an accomplished blogger, writer and filmmaker living alone in south east London. I wonder how I would have reacted if someone had told my ten year old self, or even the insecure young boy who still crawled over the floors of the  old family house which I just returned from, how things were going to turn out.