This is half-pie.

There was a moment last night when I knew I was home.

It was as we came down the long steps to our house; it was quiet and calm and dark and cool; the air was heavy with moisture and the smells of spring: flowers and earth.

Just then, from somewhere not far away, a ruru called.

And it was all good.

All of these things we’d missed without even knowing it. We’d been nine days in Australia, hot and dry and sunny, the air baked free of odor with only a flinty trace of dust and the occasional enlivening tang of eucalyptus.

And Australia was good too (pictures to follow), but trumped naturally by the virtues of HOME.