I have just spent a beautiful evening with Italian friends who are staying including two boys - now 16 and 17 - whom i saw in the first hours of their births. They arrive home, we cook together, we laugh together.

We share a small village in Tuscany - about 150 people. The first time i went to Tuscany with a lover who was familiar with the place and the language - i remember standing looking at the hills saying 'I feel like i have come home'.

In over 20 years a small village has become the home of my soul. I could eat in a different house for two weeks and still not exhaust the friendships i have there - profound ones. Wherever i go in that small valley i meet people i know - who run bars. empty bins, cook in restaurants, clean houses, look after children, work in factories, build, paint works of art, teach - and each meeting is a coffee or a drink or a long conversation on a street. It is a place full of generosity and kindness and warmth. It takes an hour to fetch a loaf of bread from the bakery - as each step is a connection.

I was born in rural England but it does not attract me - far from - yet Tuscany - that valley, the village, its people - touch the very depths of my heart.

That is where i wish to be yet have not been able to return for nearly a year - will find that time - know it is not yet. Have a field to build on or just sit on until i can afford to build. Yet whenever i return it will be as if i never left - and of course i do not leave - i just continue to live elsewhere from time to time.