The term ‘life experience’ is often used inappropriately. But I do not hesitate to use it to describe the time I spent at Italian Horse Protection. It didn’t just make me feel more alive and happy than any other place, it is more than an association, it is a family which you meet by chance and then get to know slowly, growing little by little fonder of its members. It makes me feel useful, it puts me in contact with people who are different from me but with whom I share this boundless passion for animals in general and horses in particular. Every time I have to leave I promise myself I will be back again as soon as possible, and when I do get back nothing is ever tedious or boringly the same: there is always something new and different and it is a joy to start learning this wonderful world all over again. Yet not quite everything changes: the pleasure of finding old friends is always there, indeed it grows ever stronger. And that is when I know I really have “come home”.