Home?

Home for me has never really been a solid hold in any point in my life. A lot of people have either a hometown or at least a general area to call home, but situation has not been the same for me.

Over my 21 years of life I have lived in 5 different houses between Cape Town, South Africa (my home town) and Bristol in the UK.

In this publication I talk about my story of living in those different houses and how those locations have affected my view on what I call home.

I feel this needs to be written because homes are like ultimate place of comfort. A home is a place where one can feel endlessly safe as well as being closer to family than anywhere else.

I was born in Cape Town, South africa on April 26th 1991. My mother and father bought me home to a very small 3 bedroom apartment on the 6th floor of the Bordeaux complex on 239 Beach Road, Sea Point. This is where we would live for the next 6 years.

The apartment overlooked the beautiful atlantic ocean. There was fresh salty air about the place. We would often go for walks and picnics on the beach. The place had a long oak bar where my parents would entertain guests. My mother would never let me play on the balcony alone for fear that I would jump over the side.

I remember very little of this lovely place.

239 The Bordeaux, Beach Road, Cape Town

The coastline along Blouberg beach.

TABLE VIEW

26 Fairway Close, Cape Town, Table view, Western Cape 7 years later, we moved to a newly built

housing development in Table View, still in Cape Town.26 Fairways Close is a small 3 bedroom bungalow in the suburbs of the Western Cape. This is the house my family still own, at the moment is it being rented out while we live here in the UK. The street we lived in was rather distinct as all the houses were painted the same brilliant bright white. some of the only colour came from the trees dotted around the area.

As a child this was an idea place to grow up. I remember walking barefoot on the hot hot tarmac. Spending my time climbing on top of the roof and looking at the stars. I learned how to ride a bike on the road right outside. Most of all, for some reason I remember the square attice window with it’s X shape.

This is where i’d like to consider my really home, but as time passes I feel this is simply not the case.

Me and father digging in the new garden

This image reminds me of trips we used to take to the Botanical gardens in Stellenbosh.One of many reasons to return home.

Nostolgia gone-wild.

We moved to Bristol, England in 2001. My mother had just started her new job and we were living in a shared 5 bedroom house in fishponds. 3 months later we rented a small 2 bedroom semidetached house in Frenchay. We would live here for the next 10 years.

The house was very small, but cosy. It overlooked a small green right next to the Frenchay common which sloped down and round to the river and surrounding woods. This is where I remember spending most of my teenage years. The common always felt like a calm and still place, perhaps due to the elderly homes around the area, but me and friends still managed to find things to do, like setting things on fire in the park or rope swinging into the river.

15 Scott Lawrence Close, Frenchay,

Bristol

Spending most of my life in that house has made me realise that the memories created in and around that place are the ones that will stick with me forever. There is still a piece of me that wants to think of Cape Town as my real home and in a way it still is, I still visit and have most of family there. But for now my home is here in Bristol with my friends and work.

View from my bedroom in frenchay, during winter.

Curated and designed by Adrian Smith