Going far, coming home
- Daisy Steel
- Mar 1
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 3
If I’m honest, I didn’t book the flights just for the sunsets.
Last year, a week after his 24th birthday, we lost our son Ben. There’s no easy way to write that. The world carries on at full volume and you learn, slowly, how to keep putting one foot in front of the other again.
So part of me wanted to go somewhere far away. Somewhere hot and noisy and completely unfamiliar. Somewhere I wouldn’t turn a corner and half expect to see him.
First Sri Lanka, with my daughter and my baby granddaughter. Tea plantations rolling like green velvet. Trains with doors you can hang out of with the wind in your face.
Elephants, tuk tuks, beaches and the most incredible food. Watching a baby discover the world is unexpectedly medicinal. Every wave is astonishing. Every dog is a new best friend. Grief doesn’t vanish, but it loosens its grip when you’re required to marvel at a shell for ten minutes.
Then Thailand, with Becky, who runs this very website and is infinitely better at booking hotel accommodation than I am. We talked a lot. On boats, on beaches, under skies that turned pink in ways that felt almost theatrical. We talked about work, about ageing, about motherhood, about how quickly life can tilt on its axis.
Sometimes you need distance to see clearly. The further away I travelled, the more I was ready to come home.
I missed the conversations in the Co-op that start with “How are you?” and end ten minutes later with a full update on someone’s kitchen renovation. I missed the bustle of the Independent Market. I even missed my husband - quite a lot actually (luckily, he’s unlikely to read this otherwise he’ll get a big head).
And I missed our slightly chaotic podcast planning sessions with Sonia, which usually involve at least one of us saying, “Is this a good idea?” and the other two replying, “Probably not. Let’s do it anyway.”
February’s When in Frome podcast was a busy one. We looked at the latest developments at Saxonvale and the new community share scheme, giving local people the chance to own a piece of the town’s future. Sonia pulled on her trainers for Plod for Pastries, proving that croissants are a powerful motivational tool. We celebrated our Local Legend, the artist Violet von Riot, heard from the actor James Purefoy and Becky was out covering everything from a model railway exhibition to a Women in Business event before wrapping it all up with her monthly What’s On guide.
March marks our anniversary episode. A whole year since we started this little venture. Sonia and I found ourselves reflecting on just how much has happened while also squeezing in a packed line-up. We entered the growing conversation around smartphone-free childhoods and what that might mean for families locally. Sonia bravely stepped onto the mat to try Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and was annoyingly good at it. This month’s Local Legend, Rose HIron-Grimes, shared why she’s training for a marathon in support of We Hear You. I spoke to Alison Murdoch about the return of the Kindness Festival and Becky rounded things off with her Fabulous Frome Forecast, because thankfully someone in this operation is organised.
Recording these episodes while quietly carrying grief has been strange and grounding in equal measure. Interviewing the local legends, the volunteers and the unsung heroes has become its own kind of therapy. Hearing why they run marathons, launch share schemes, organise festivals or simply show up for one another gives me hope. It reminds me that even when life is unimaginably hard, there is still kindness to lean on.
Travel didn’t fix anything. Even a coconut on a beach has its limits. But it did give me space. Space to think about Ben. Space to feel proud of him. Space to remember that joy and sorrow are not opposites. They sit side by side, often at the same table.
So if you see me around town, slightly sun-kissed, but occasionally emotional in the cheese aisle, that will be why.
I went far. But this is where I belong.
Written by Daisy Steel. Journalist, columnist and podcaster
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