The cottage lies in an ancient village at the edge of a wide, sweeping bay in south-east Scotland and it has been home for most of my life. 

 

It has two gardens. A small one at the front, and a long, winding one at the back. These are as much a part of the cottage as the building itself.

 

The dwelling is small and simple and one of the oldest here, built from local sandstone sometime in the 1700s, possibly earlier.

 

Certainly a dwelling existed on the same site for centuries before that, probably with a thatched roof and occupied by people whose memories have long since vanished like the receding tide.

 

I grew up here with my mum and my older brother. I then flew the nest as an adult and spent most of my twenties living in the clamour of cities.

 

But the cottage was always home, even when I didn't live there. I suppose home is usually where people have their roots. Then at some point during adulthood new roots begin to grow elsewhere - a new place, new people, a new home. That never happened with me. I never stayed anywhere long enough.

 

It was in 2010, aged 29, that an invisible string began pulling me back home to the cottage. I was in London at the time.

 

I'd moved there from Edinburgh a few months earlier in 2009 when I started a job with a New Scientist magazine making videos and writing articles. It was a dream come true. 

 

Life was great. But very quickly it wasn't.

 

At the end of November, within two months of starting the job, my mum was rushed into hospital. Doctors discovered cancer. "Short months to live," they said. My reality shattered like glass.

 

Ten days later, she died. My heart imploded.

 

I sobbed into her lifeless body, unable to comprehend that she was gone forever while the wall clock in the hospital room kept ticking. The universe seemed to be broken.

 

My brother flew in from America the next morning. He'd emigrated there couple of years earlier. Our eyes met at airport arrivals. He knew. Too late. I'll never forget our tight embrace. We had each other.

 

December passed with everything the death of a loved one brings. Phone calls, condolences, and a visceral emptyness. 

 

Mum's funeral took place in the village church. It was packed to the rafters. I could barely speak. Snow fell that day. And tears. We spent Christmas in the cottage, reminiscing, appreciating, and trying to navigate our way through our loss. 

In the new year, I resumed life and work in London. Of course, nothing was the same, but I tried to muddle my way along the best I could.

 

Each day became a juggle between assignments and dealing with the surreal banalities of death. Accounts to close, documents to sign, bills to pay, solicitors to consult. I was the executor of mum's will.

 

And then there was the cottage far away in the bay. What was going to happen with that? Mum loved the cottage. It was more than just stone and mortar.

 

I spent weeks ruminating over the dilemma; essentially a fork in the road. Either sell the cottage and stay in London, or give up my job and move home. My brother was supportive of whatever decision I made.

 

The invisible string tugged harder and harder. I couldn't ignore it. I wasn't prepared to cut it. And so, quite simply, I moved back home.

 

I needed the cottage and it needed me. My refuge from the silent storm of grief; my inner hut.

 

Living back here, nestled in the wider landscape of the bay and beyond, I filled my emptyness with the world around me. I rediscovered beauty in the everyday. I began to embrace a simple life closer to nature; closer to memories; closer to meaning.

 

I have remained here ever since. And now, the passage of time has seen the cottage blossom into a new, different home to a small family of my own. New roots over old. They run deep.

 

The cottage holds a lifetime of memories. It is where all of my journeys begin and end. It is where The Inner Hut came into being. It is life after death. It is the heart of home.