Africa

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Island Blog – From Gimcrack to Newbuild

Arriving back in Scotland was a right shock. From 34 degrees to minus 8, and overnight. Doesn’t seem possible. All those sleepless hours inside a huge metal bird, squashed and fighting for leg room and elbow room as we all hurtled through time and space, over countries we may never set foot in, delude us. We left in shorts, well, I didn’t, still buzzing with holiday flutter and fast departing tans, breathing in many other breaths and emissions, only to land in a cold, dark, very early, winter morning, wishing we’d chosen thermal longs instead of cotton shorts.

Outside the terminal, folk with fast departing tans, shivered, puffing steam like the Hogwarts Express and stamping. I didn’t risk the stamping thing, having only light plimsoles on my feet, one of which threatens a hole. I just stood in awe, watching the excited departees, smiling at the caved in faces of others like me who wanted nothing more than to run back to the plane demanding a return ticket. It’s winter, for goodness sake, I hissed to myself, teeth chattering something I couldn’t catch. Get over yourself. You’ve made it back, after all, no damage done.

Met, as I was, by my daughter and granddaughter and hugged warmly, my shivers abated. The car pulsed heat, the snow was stunning, I was safe. As we drove in lines of traffic, all going somewhere, I presumed, I felt many twinges of sadness at my leaving Africa, the son, the sun, the heat, the music, the warm sea, the ease with which anyone can live in a place that never gets cold at all. Of course, to live there would be a very different thing. Perhaps the heat, sometimes rising into the late 40s, might cause problems with working conditions, with comfortable sleep, with mental alertness. I didn’t have to be alert at all, had a fan blowing me almost out of bed each night, didn’t have to work. that’s not real life, however, that’s a holiday, an adventure every day with company, laughter, games, walks, moments that lifted us almost off our feet and nothing mattered, not even the threatening hole in my shoe.

Slowly I acclimatised, very slowly, and particularly so as I had managed to land with extra baggage – a novovirus bug, always a risk when travelling, when inhaling other breaths and emissions, no matter how clean the recycled air professes to be. The virus is brutal. Don’t catch it. Then I gave it to my daughter who missed her 50th birthday as a result. So unkind of me, but what control do any of us have over the invisible? I am happy to report that, it seems, nobody else in the family caught the devil, and today I begin my journey back to the island in sunshine. It’s still going to be winter for a long while, I know that, but I feel as if I have moved from gimcrack to newbuild. Plans for self-improvement, for more fun, for more adventures, all just waiting for me to press ‘play,’ and I am ready.

Whatever we go through, whatever befalls us, cannot break us if we refuse to break. We may lose confidence, bodily parts, outward beauty and all control over flesh gravity, but this olding generation is a tough cookie. And, all we have to do is to keep getting up, keep looking out like excited children, who just know they will catch a falling star. One day.

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Island Blog – Travelling in Light

Last full day, today, under an African sun, and, although I am (always) sad to leave this beautiful country, I am ready to fly back through space and time, to land in my own country, my own life. Visits to Africa heal me, help me move forward in renewed hope, and also allow me, by some magic, to let go of whatever gave me ants in my pants during the year before. This time, I had some tough shit to go through, the legacy of which rippled on through my body and affected my mind in ways that surprised me. I was, I thought, quite in order with myself. Then, when I fell very ill, and cancer was discovered, I still felt in order with myself. I am strong, a warrior, I can overcome this, or so I thought, and, to a high degree and with the assistance of an excellent surgeon and tremendous medical support and expertise, I did, or we did. But the body holds the score, as we all know, so that, even when a mind is made up to survive and thence to thrive, the body lags behind. In turn, this lagging thing affects a mind, so that, although I had moved on, I was constantly reminded of a new frailty. And a new strength. It was confusing, as if a fight was on between body and mind. No matter how clear I was on my decision to move on after such a trauma, I was often reminded that a new compromise was required.

This visit, around family, under sun, inside adventures and conversations, I rise. Not by mental force alone, but with a gentling of body and mind, as if they now move together and as one. I said I knew myself before, but was still aware of anxieties and hesitations around my new limits. Now, I work with those limitations as if they aren’t limitations at all, but just who I am now. And I have learned from this change, this rather strange pretence that I can force a collusion between mind and body, regardless of trauma, as if it was nothing much and blow it away on the winds. That doesn’t work, I know it now, even if that determination has held me up and bright in 2024. What I needed was time to heal and the patience to accept that truth, to walk with it, open and humble, until all of me finally got together again.

We have had many wonderful adventures, all the while sharing ideas and jokes, plans and observations. We have watched the wild Atlantic and swum in the warm Indian Ocean. We have seen humpbacks breach, dolphins burst the waves wide open, colourful birds flying overhead; we have dined and wined and picnicked and walked through Fynbos, Fleis, and across miles of white sand ,peppered with an array of spectacular shells I never see back home. We have seen the sun set the ocean on fire, stayed with friends who live between mountains so high as to disappear into cloud. We have wandered among shops in Capetown, laughed at the terrible driving whenever it rains, and stood in awed silence beneath the upside down stars. And all the while, I could feel the gentle hand of a natural healing.

I know I fly back into winter, but there will always be a winter. I know I don’t have enough warm clothing. I know I will have to drive back to the ferry through tricky weather and that the ferry may not sail through gale force winds. I also know my wee home awaits me, the wood burner, the candles, my friends, my community. I return as me, but renewed, re-jigged, at peace with my life, because I have travelled in light, one that is strong and sustainable, one that tells me who I am, and who I am is just fine with me.

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Island Blog – The Pretend and the Real

There’s a thing after a big occasion. It’s a bit of a down in the boots. The build up to something takes frickin ages, months of thought and prep and unholy panic. And, then, the day comes, as it always will, skidding in too fast, knocking those who aren’t prepared right over on their butts. We get through it, love it, hate bits of it, and then the night comes like a full stop to all that thought and prep and unholy panic. And, even though it is done for another whole year, there’s a wistfulness squirking around because for one day everyone got together, rising above the ordinary, the boredinary, the slough and chuff and scuff and dribble of the next bit, which is much longer than a bit. It’s going to work again, to school again, to facing the weather again without the lift of pretence. It’s like stepping out of fairyland and back out onto the street, wetter and colder than before.

I get it.

Oh, I know I am in Africa and Christmas was super hot and sunny, no need for a merry fire in the grate, no need for candles, which, by the way, would have melted into puddles by 8 am, but I still need to come home to the ‘street’. It wonders me, this whole shift, not just mine across timelines and a gazillion air miles, but for everyone else. Life will never stay still. Such a damn nuisance, that. But, it is how it is, and the slump after two days of festivities will affect all of us, no matter whom nor where we are. We love to celebrate, to have fun, to lift ourselves up and away from the pressures of our lives, to pretend, just for a short time. I believe this to be a strength, because I have met many, so many, who say MEH to celebratory felicitations. That saddens me. You, my friends, have lost the child in you, and that is a massive loss. We love to play, however stiff and starchy we may become, through pressures, hurts, wounds, damage and disappointments. Good news is that the child still lives in there, somewhere. And, the most playful people I have ever met, have always been the most broken.

We make resolutions. We break them. We set them too high, way above the beyond of what we can reach just now. We want to change, or we would never set these damn things, these Don’ts and Do’s that may never be us. I just decide to be more playful, to see the fun or to initiate it. To laugh more, to share smiles, to say hallo to anyone, everyone. To bring out the little girl I once was, before the pretend became a conscious decision, when it just happened because it was real.

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Island Blog – Drifting, White Teeth and a Cobra

I have been wondering, to be honest, why I sort of float through the days In Africa. Heretofore, I would not have defined myself as ‘floaty’, although I definitely can be at times, as if I have momentarily lost my way, looking about me in the hopes that my way will de-mist itself and reveal. Those times might have occurred in vast, and, as yet, unvisited, railway stations or when I walk up to the woods behind my home and can’t remember why until I do. The former is understandable. I am a very small and lost old woman in what feels like a panic zone and the only way to remain upright and in control of my luggage is to stand well back whilst I mind the gaps. The latter is considerably more pleasant. After all, I am at home (ish) and it is a simple task for me to turn, return to where I was when i chose to go up into the woods, relocate my purpose which is always on the other side of a doorway, and begin the process again.

There is no such logic in Africa, not for me. I believe it is because I am constantly awed, by the people, the languages and their percussive melodic phrasing, by the build of summer colours, smells, sounds and the suddenness of encounters on pavements, beaches, everywhere. Let us say we are travelling somewhere to get something. A perfectly normal thing. In the passenger seat I observe that very few drivers indicate. In fact, I wonder why the car manufacturers bother with the expense of indicators, so infrequently are they employed by the driver. A car, truck, fire engine, police car, woman, man, black, white, just drift left or right as if there were’nt another 450 vehicles swapping lanes all around them. There seems to be no car rage at all, if you don’t count the swearing within the vehicle nor the swerving and a lengthy comment by the car horn.

I’m watching bougainvillea scoot by on a high wall, crisped up with very sharp, security, knife blades, hibiscus the width and breadth of a small Scottish cottage, palm trees holding fragile bird nests, black faces, white faces, sun-burned skin, half naked tourists, the flash of white teeth in black faces: pavements too sizzly for dog paws, boats floating, ocean waves rising all turquoise and white-topped to crash down on laughing swimmers. Endless big homes, gated, locked, secured, beautified with spectacular colours; dwellings of tin and plastic, bunched together, a community. A seaside town, brightly painted, quirky, vibrant, offering fabulous food so cheap, everything fresh, great service, tiny bill. Colourful clothing. Africa. We arrive to buy the thing and I drift into the Exit until called back. I was watching the people, the movement, the whatever. I’m ok with it.

It isn’t the same as it was last time, up in Kruger Park with the definite chance of meeting a giraffe on the walk to dinner, and the absolute…….no walking after dark #leopard. Do I miss that? At first I did, but then I remind myself how completely terrificated I was just taking the puppy out for a pee in the morning. I could have met snakes of all varieties, warthogs (grumpy shits with big tusks and barely a brain between them) giraffes (don’t mess with that neck of steel). But, to be honest, none of that happened. My imagination has always got me into trouble. I can make a tiny thing into the end of the world as we know it, in a nanosecond. It isn’t a gift. So when my son called out, in this Capetown garden, whilst we played a gentle game of scrabble with no rules……oh look, a Cobra! I leaped onto the stoep, my heart playing jambells and dissonance.

Then I heard the throaty roar and saw the damn thing shoot by. Told you my imagination was trouble.

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Island Blog – A Thingummy Tree, and a Surprise

Another lovely warm morning, too hot, actually, to read my book in the full sun. I look to the Thingummy tree over there, all that dancing shade and the two pigeons coo-ing on a branch. David Bowie, I think, as I take in their colourful feathers, flagrant and sparkly bright, as most creatures are in Africa. They even coo musically, more the beginnings of a melody and not irritating at all. Beneath is grass trying to grow, elephant grass, tough and fat-leaved, but failing somewhat in the growing palaver. Mostly, I notice, there are ant mounds, wee ones, not termites, little tumps of sand with an air hole I am careful not to block with careless step. I consider what to lie on that close to the ground. I’m thinking snakes, beetles, all those other crawly things, none of which I mind as long as they don’t sting or bite me. I haul out a yoga mat, towel, pillow, book, glasses and the ever necessary water bottle, and lay down. All goes well for sometime, the shade most pleasant, the David Bowies hopping around me, the flying things remaining in the air. So far so good. I had just finished The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, a fabulous read, and, becoming completely captured by Marjam Kamali’s The Stationary Shop of Tehran, I failed to notice that something was crawling up my body. It, or she, had managed quite a distance over clothing, and it wasn’t till she arrived on my shoulder, and tickled, that I snapped my head around to look. It’s always wise to look before swatting in Africa.

The sun was almost blocked out and I kid you not. This insect is huge. 2 inches long, an inch deep, scaly and brightly striped, red and black. She was, I swear, as startled to see me as I was her and, I confess, I did swipe her off, apologising as she plumped to the ground beside me. She took a minute to gather herself and then, snail-slow, no hopping, she began to wander into the bushes. She is a female African Great Grasshopper, at least seven times larger than the male and spectacular to look at. Our encounter, albeit harmless, kind of put me off lying there like bait. I read the same page twice, darting looks over my shoulder and jumping at every tickle. Ridickerluss, I know, I know, but once the thinks think me, I am done for.

I had made a promise to myself on the yesterday, I remember, and when all my hearty thoughts rushed in like I knew I had to push them away and just go. I couldn’t take a bag, a house key, anything pinch worthy, particularly not on a Tuesday when dawn rises with a lot of noisy lid closing as many poor folks, knowing it is bin day, riffle through old rubbish to find whatever they can to eat, to sell, to repair, to make into something. Not a day to be leaving a bag on the beach, even if it is always in sight. Starving folk run fast. So, cozzy on, shorts and a sun top and the always bottle of water and off I set, marching down the road towards the Ocean. Skies scud skimpy clouds, the blue endless and white teeth flat welcomes and greetings from black and coloured faces. I met the fire service attemting to stem a burst water main, a massive burst of water arcing way over my head, and we joke about me getting soaked so ‘move quickquick Ma, Ayeee!’ The car guard who watches over parked vehicles wishes me a lovely swim, and on I go, ducking under the road, dodging piles of kelp, through the freshwater flow from the Flei (marshland) and onto the white hot sand. No more thinks are thinking me as I strip off and head for the waves. The water is warmly glorious, the waves lifting and lowering me, the salt delicious on my skin. I swim a length or two, then sit dripping myself dry in no time. I watch other swimmers, dogs in the water, children at play, and I smile.

I surprise myself sometimes, when the thinks don’t think me and I take action.

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Island Blog – Sun, Rain and I will Tomorrow

It may appear that, now I’m in Africa, I have less to say. Of course, it isn’t that, not at all, but more something to do with the sun, the beckoning, the light that opens up a day into a ‘let’s go’. It’s the same back home when the sun finds it in himself to show up at all, and we all respond, leaping into shorts despite the freezeback wind and the threaten of clouding somewhere over by. Kids want the beach, a picnic, play and more play, and thus everyone and anyone heads for the sea, or the river, or the pool if there is one in the vicinity. So, my musing will have it, sunshine and water are strongly linked. Very few will choose a cinema matinee or a visit to Great Aunt Granola in the nursing home. Not on a sunshine day. The film will show again, and she can wait a day or two as it is sure to rain tomorrow or the next, as it always does.

In Africa, rain is a blessing, and a challenge to drivers. I imagine it is also a challenge to those who live in townships, all those roofs fashioned from sheets of tin if you’re lucky, bits of tarp or bin bags if you’re not. But rain brings instant life to soil, fills water tanks, cools broiling bodies, eases tension. The drivers, as aforementioned, however, panic. Slippy roads stultify and confuse, it seems. Capetown, and other places, go slow, and I mean very slow, so that traffic convergence becomes traffic hesitation. Windscreen wipers swing like crazy and every other vehicle flashes emergency lights at any opportunity. It’s hilarious, unless you’re in a hurry, and a bizarre to me who knows rain in every state from slightly slippy road, through compromised vision to roadside puddles deep enough to sink my mini.

I walked again today down to the Indian Ocean. Sounds so majestic. She is warm and wild, her waves no hawking spit but rising above the horizon, backlit by sun, clutching kelp and shells in her grasp, to boom, and I mean BOOM onto the wide arc of white sand. She has a lot to say, and loudly. I felt it today as I read my book, the sonar wave shooting up the beach through me and knew I was connected, as we all are to all things, all the wild things we have, unfortunately forgotten in our rush for worldly gain. I watch dogs scuttle and dash in and out of the waves, their humans wandering besides. I see kite surfers fly above the crests, and canoeists paddle out to investigate rock formations. I hear children laughing as they tumble and shriek through the shallows.

My walk here takes me through an underpass, meaty with kelp-throw, a rush of freshwater strictured after big moon tides and very gloopy to navigate. Then I meet the ocean, flooding like she has a load of tongues, no two with the same sweep. One ankle deep, the next losing most of my legs to the swirl. I chuckle. My feet are safe, sand locked, my frock hem-soaked. I read a while, watch a train chortle by just above my head, wish I had brought my swimsuit. (is that what it’s called these days?)

I will tomorrow.

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Island Blog – The Now People

November 11th and the Christmas Tree is up in the shopping centre. I know that Africa runs two hours ahead of the UK, currently, but this big-ass glitzy tree did stop me in my tracks. I am no sour grapes on this or on any other marketing decision, swallowing them and allowing a timeline settlement, plus the subsequent period of indigestion. In my day, this. In Nowday a very different this. Old people did it one way. The Now People do the same thing very differently. But do they, I wonder, in their hearts? Is this what the Now People want, this massive pressure on purse strings and expectations; the ghastly thought of all those hideous relations determined to arrive for the feast, with a suitcase full of grumbles and judgements? I sometimes/often hear folks my own age, teeth long gone, arches sunk, bewhiskered and still hoping their yesterdays will get better talking about the Now People as if they hadn’t a single scooby about how to live, work, raise children, break boundaries. None of us did, by the way, not one. We all fell at the first hurdle, and the second, and some of us, I included, fell at most. They got higher, that’s why.

Materialism used to mean, just saying, the gathering of cloth for a sewing class. I remember the feel of cloth, the weight of it in my palms, the soft ticklefinger of backthreads, the clogs and shawls saga depicted in the pattern. I thought of the initial design work, the dreaming and thinking, the thin lines spidering between one truth and another’s; the lift of a paintbrush or pen, the subsequent push of a needle point through virgin cloth. I saw the dying process, the scrape of lichen off magma rocks, salted and blasted by story winds from pole to pole. The beginning of mythos. I wonder about stories now, hoping, and I do hope, that the Now People ask about our time and the time before and before and before, because how life is for them in all that really matters, is not so different.

It is people who matter, not things, although things, and their acquisition, do seem to have topped the charts these days. On our yesterday wine cruise, through beautiful vineyards way up in the sharp-stoned mountains in an old tram with wooden seats, an open bus, also vintage, and ending on a trailer pulled by a more than vintage tractor (just like the one we used in the days of Tapselteerie), we met people. Guides, sommeliers, tram, bus and tractor drivers, waiters, other wine tasters……oh we laughed and talked and learned and said farewell. The dynamic day was done. We had tasted the best of South African wines, learned how one wine-grower amalgamates grapes, how another whose land stretches from sea to high peaks, plants vines to work with salt, with clay, with wind, with sun, with shade. But, the memories sugar spun into those encounters are what remains, because they are animiate, animated, alive, and inspiring. I watched black faces, white, coloured, bejewelled, simply dressed, awkward and easy, all smiling in the vine-world sunshine. I will forget the wines long before I forget that laugh, that smile, that little conversation with two women on the bench in front of me.

In my perfect world, life would slow down, marketing would calm its britches and those who demand complete ownership of workers in the workplace would be required to swap shoes with those souls for one year. Just one should do it.

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Island Blog – Denim Skin, and Off I Go

It’s weird, this feeling, as I literally plonk through the day, you know that plonk thing……..a one fingered kid before a keyboard, no clue of how to play. I had packed, unpacked, packed, unpacked, remembered, forgotten, remembered again, added, removed, placed, argued with space, all of it. My case rests now. I rest my case. My frocks are few, and tatty (never clocked that till folding them for packing) two pairs of shorts, a few tees (they were tee-shirts in my day) various other things like a cardy, the obvious underpinnings, not that they would dare risk underpinning me, and an old dress. Ah, my favourite. She is frail, long, beautiful and always commented on. I can see the sun damage on her denim skin, the loosening of seams, the hole which reminds me of that time, I leapt a fence in the dark, in a moment of wild, not wanting to be left behind, which I wasn’t. I patched that tear, tare, and love the story in this dress. I remember her as she remembers me, showing up again and again, and, the sassy minx, always inviting recognition.

The plonk thing. Back to that. I have to be prepared for this big travel, the flight thing, the squash of people all scared and stressed and fussing and taking up all the room. We are reduced to a serious invasion of personal space and for over 8 hours, in the dark, breathing recycled air. I get the fear. So, I was packed and unpacked etcetera, and then there was breakfast, lunch and a wood delivery and gifts from two friends, well-wishing, and then what? The mist out there is beautiful. I focus on the mist, on the tearlet glisten on nasturtium leaves, on the barely-there maple, on everything in the garden that is standing still. I look at those rigid stalks, actually, we had a chat as I went out barefoot just now, and I ask them how they feel after Wind Ashley or Whoever, when they were blown right over, wheeched from their roots, blinded, stripped and, basically, denied any chance of a ticket to the Species Survival Ball. They chuckled. No, seriously, they did! I heard it through my bare feet on the sniggering grass. It’s safe down there. They, the Long Tall Sallys know that this is how it is, that it may be again, may not, but, trust them, they will work a way, and will not just survive, but will flower magnificent next time Father Sun bothers his butt out of bed.

I am wistful about leaving here, the mist twisty and soft, the rain, a skin treatment. I leave my best friends, moments I will miss, in the street, in homes, in the village, on the island. I will not miss, wheelie bins flying like missiles, ferries cancelled, roads skid risks, the sharp coldsnatch of everything you touch outside of heating. I won’t miss the materialism of Christmas, the sales that elevate at this time of year, a begging, a siren, You Need This. I will miss the warm loving go of people here, the ready to help, the offering, the turning up. This is my place, my home, and I know it. When I set off, tomorrow, for the drive away,the beginning, I will feel elated, excited, and scared. I will check in, find my airport way, find my seat, say hallo, and then, if I could see it, which I won’t this time, over three hours of desert, more, of Africa coming in to say hallo, eventually. And I remember the sounds, the trill, the shrill the thrill of a sudden encounter with a very big wild creature who wasn’t backing down. I remember.

I won’t see them this visit. Different location. Different fun. Off I go.

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Island Blog – About Packing

I’m packing, unpacking, packing, unpacking. What is this insecurity when it comes to packing? I know #sensiblehead that I always travel light, cannot be lugging a heavy suitcase, just will not. All I need for this trip are the basics, but which of the basics should I take? What ‘frock’ mood will I be in? Will I feel chilly away from home pre hospital consultation, thus requiring a warm jumper, and which warm jumper? Needless to say this is a ridiculous load of valdaree. My sister will lend. I am away for a few days, not for months. The space between consultation, and whatever surgery is agreed upon, is likely to be weeks, if not months. I can borrow a warm jumper. It thinks me. When I pack for Africa, I barely bother about what to take. This, I decide, is because I am going to a wonderful hot place and for a holiday. Perhaps that’s it, the nail hit on the head. My insecurity may well be more related to the reason for this island parting than it is to the articles of clothing I eventually decide to put into my small suitcase. I decide to walk.

Nature has a way about her, a sort of head clearing re-jig into perspective. She laughs at me, or the trees do as they sway and dance in this big wind. It’s from the South East, I think, and yet warm. The heavy rains of the morning have lowered the boughs and I need to duck my way along the narrow track. I listen to the swish of movement, tut as I notice some fool has hacked off a living branch that bows overhead. Not, obviously, over their head. Hack it off! Why? Just bend your knees and do your body a big favour instead. That’s what I say. The whole shape of this beautiful beech tree is now out of shape, those flowing limbs, the skirt of her frock, perfectly formed like a brilliant green ball gown, now damaged. I harrumph. She, however, still dances on to the melody of the wind and it thinks me, again.

The fairy woods are quiet in between the showers, and the woodland floor, a carpet of needles and fallen leaves, is almost dry, such is the protection of the canopy. Three oak seedlings nestle at the foot of a huge fir tree, over two hundred years of huge fir tree, its girth one I am happy not to have myself. I doubt the oaks will grow much, not in that shade, not without some life-giving light. I look up through the boughs to see speckles of sky, a bit of blue, yes, but mostly careening clouds that don’t stay long enough to give me their shape. The oaks will have passed through a Jay. I didn’t know that until I did. A Jay will bury an acorn in a safe place, aka, in the lap of a huge fir tree, and inside the fairy woods, and then forget where it hid said acorn. Thus, the acorn grows in quite the wrong place. I decide that I am allowing the insecurity in me to grow in quite the wrong place. I move it to the light on the other side of the woods and watch it whipped away by the wind.

All the trees are waving, shedding leaves already, for Autumn begins early on the island. I crush sycamore leaves underfoot and think of seasons, how they keep coming, and going, allowing each other to take the stage, sometimes after strong resistance. Winter is the best at resistance, the grumpy sh*t, holding tight with an icy grip, thwacking us with the blast of a wind that obviously got expelled for bad behaviour and which now sells its strength to the highest bidder, like a vigilante. But we are not there yet and Winter is asleep so don’t make a noise in case you stir it from slumber. For now, it is tempest and calm, suddenly hot and suddenly cold, soaking wet or burning dry, an island usual. And there is something so real about it, the changes we humans need to adapt to, and quickquick, because our world is changing faster than many of us are prepared to accept. Turbulence is to be expected.

Makes me feel a whole lot better about packing.

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Island Blog – Homecoming

Oh I did not want to come home! The heat, the sunshine (dodging it a lot) at upwards of 30 degrees from sun up, the red sand, the bush, the Africa of Africa, the music, rhythm, even the mosquitos, all of it had become my familiar. After two months, that is understandable if you’re loving every minute. Washing dried in minutes, the dog was too hot to walk after 9 am, and my bare feet on the wooden stoep burned like there was a fire beneath them as I oiled, sanded, varnished and painted. I wanted to help. Don’t tell me to sit down. I can do ‘sit down’ for a while, and longer than a while indoors with the aircon blasting, but I will always choose to be involved and that whole involved thingy thinks me. I knew I was coming back to just me.

The life out there, three long long flights away, plus a train and a ferry, is a whole different life. It has its disadvantages, for sure, the usual irritations, the added falafel of dodgy drivers, slow responses, (a lot of shoulder shrugging at any confrontation, plus a wide toothy smile), the heat day after day, the impossibility of finding parts for your car, the lack of Helmans Mayonnaise. I was a visitor. Visitors have no say at all in a place of lives being lived. They, we, I, have no clue as to the reality of the it of it. Just saying. I know, for example, how visitors here on the island for a sunshine week #rare, wax lyrical on the benefits I enjoy living here. I have no right to complain. My eyeballs roll every time. And it thinks me. On the way we perceive what we see, the snapshot of it, the processing, the decision made. Fumph. T’is thus. No. T’isn’t.

Anyroad, I take three flights, the first most pleasant, a slight rise in a half empty plane with comfortable seats, an old girl for sure but sassy and just for an hour. I am still in slight clothing. Then I get lost in Jo’burg airport. Possibly not easy to do but I manage it, finding myself in Baggage Collection when I should be (and soon) in Connections. I right myself, and speed up. It is only a short about turn and march and then another 3 miles to the gate. Which gate? The signs are now and then and mostly then so I, not worried at all, ask someone. He, an official with a badge, is super kind and walks with me to the appropriate corridor. he smiles, all black and wonderful and really cares. My strength of spirit returns. I arrive at Gate 10. I sit. Gradually, a lot more passengers arrive, all muslim robed. Because it is now 5 pm, they lay out their mats and bow to Mecca. I watch them praying, their devotion. It warms me. Not my thing but I still admire anyone with deep faith. More arrive, and more and suddenly I am unsure about my choice of gate. I rise and ask a sharpshooting black woman, official. She tells me, smiling, this is Emirates Gate. Oops.

I set off again. Good heavens this airport is huge, but I am not stupid. These muslims are heading the same way as I am, to London, so I must be in the right zone. I totter, yes, I am weary now, to Gate 14 and I find my people, I can hear the Glasgow accent, the banter, the tired voices, the helping of each other. I sit once more. We are called and because I am seat 20, I am almost first on. But as we queue and queue and queue on the ramp, I realise we are not the first. No, First is first, then Business Class, then us, lower case.

We walk by Business, seeing the beds, knowing they can stretch out for the 11 hours in the air, will have the taster menu, champagne et lala. And we take our seats. I am at the emergency exit. I ask the little lady near the window if she knows how to work it. She says she hasn’t a clue. Nor do I. And then he arrives, built like a cathedral, a professional golfer with tree trunks for legs and muscles that might challenge his flankers. She at the window sleeps the whole night. He, fitfully but so polite with his body. Me, not a minute. However, we didn’t have to employ his strength as we arrived safely in Heathrow. An unsteady walk to the next gate for Glasgow and into oh my goodness, the cold. From over 30 degrees to 6? However, there was a warm daughter to hug me warm again, a hot bath and a warm sleep. Home now on the island and so very thankful for the whole shebang. All of it. I learned so much, and I am thankful and curious and, do you know what, if you do nothing else to shape up a change in your life, just be curious. She, Curiosity, is a wonderful leader.