Home is where the heart is

I was neither born nor brought up in the Hampshire town of Romsey, but reckon I can justify a claim to be a Romsonian by heart. After all I have lived in or nearby the town for the greater part of my life.
Home has been at successive times in various parts of the county as well as in Southampton, and I still have a hankering after my city of birth at Winchester.
But here I am after more than 25 years living in the same place, and a good few years before that in the immediate area. Curious really, because when we moved into the present place, we were convinced that it would be for no more than four years or so before we moved on. 
At that time we were seriously considering moving overseas, but that was more of an idyllic dream and when you  get down to the nitty gritty of making the decision to up sticks and move abroad you find the heartstrings pull hard and take command.
So we never did quite get round to it. We dreamt of the thought of living in warmer climes in the sunshine — but the actual destination varied over the years. And with daughters already living in Italy and France respectively, the choice became even more difficult.
Languages were not perceived to be a problem, nor was the prospect of settling in a different community, even a complete change of culture perhaps.
What we hadn’t reckoned on was that the longer we lived in the area the more attached to the place we became.  We still hold a distant dream of a place in the sun for our old age.

But for the moment this image of Romsey town centre is difficult to leave.