I’m busy writing this in the warm sun, sitting on a bench in a square of sorts in Handforth, Cheshire. Watching office workers sitting and standing here and there having the lunch, be it food or nicotine, teenage skateboarders and rollerbladers racing after each other, little boys kicking a ball to and fro, and little girls in purple clothes blowing bubbles in the air while granny watches on from the sidelines.
I get a moments respite from a couple of clouds way up there from the slightly vicious sun rays, and I think back over the last week and a bit. It’s been a week of Juxtapositions; sedate and hectic, quiet and action-packed, rainy and sunny, and ever so more importantly unpaid and paid!
The last you read, I was just back from Leigh-on-Sea. Once more I was enjoying the advances in technology by surfing the never-ending waves of the information highway. If Leigh-on-Sea taught me one thing, it was to make me aware of the advantages of a travel laptop and easy access to fast and reliable internet. Definitely something to look into when…
I spent a relatively quiet few days catching up on my washing, email, cheering up people a million mile away and recharging my hardly spent batteries. Watching the semi-finals of Britain’s Got Talent and going for lazy walks in the fields and along the waterway, looking at he views and watching canal boats go through locks. The fields were covered in long green grass and pretty little yellow flowers, while the canal was awash with miggies but also some swans and ugly ducklings…which weren’t ugly at all!
Saturday was spent sitting gin the sun, with my trouser legs and shirt rolled up trying to catch that elusive tan. My feet up, head back, watching the clouds and planes fly by at 20 000 feet with a gentle wind lower down keeping me cool, as well as bringing the softly ringing sounds of the local church bells my way. The birds were singing softly and the bumble bees were buzzing over the flowering shrubbery, and a certain someone, not me, was making daisy chains.
The deafening roar of formula one racing cars filled the air on the morning of our lord. Twenty adrenaline junkies fighting over the much cherished and coveted pole position on a circuit that winds it way through the streets in the picture perfect city of Monte Carlo. After watching Button win and Hamilton lose, spectacularly, we moved back outside for a braai. I’ve had more braais in the last 2 months than I had in the last 2 years when I was in SA. But I’m not complaining, my brother is a master braaiman, mmmhhhh…
The sun was out again and I alternated between lying in the sun on the grass and lounging on a chair in the shade. Soft music was playing from the Iphone, the memory of the church bells from the day before was in my head, and the smell of grass, flowers and cooking meat was in the air, while my veins were lethargically pumping cold peroni to my extremities. I was in heaven, on earth.
Monday was a bank holiday, spring day I think, and spring is certainly here. Again we didn’t do much, but it was definitely a more productive day, as we cleaned the flat till it sparkled. Well it would have sparkled if it had been filled of reflective surfaces, but it’s a place to live in, so it didn’t:) Later that evening, my brother drove himself and me to Heathrow airport to meet my dad. He came over for a seminar that was related to his studies, and planned to be in London for a week. My mom couldn’t come, because she was busy with exams at the school she works for.
I haven’t seen my parents since Dec-Jan two years ago, when my sister and I went with them on a traditional road trip around SA visiting family and friends. So it was really lovely to see my darling daddy dearest, or as we call him, ddd. We persuaded him to come to my brothers flat for dinner before going to his hotel in central London. It wasn’t hard, all we really had to do was mention roast pig and we had his attention.
After dinner, we drove my dad to his hotel. It took ever so slightly longer than expected because we got…um, not lost, we knew exactly where we were…just not in relation to the hotel. There he was shocked at the size of his room in his 4 star hotel…but then again, he was in central London, just a few metres from a tube station. We said goodbye and also made plans for dinner at a yummy restaurant on Wednesday evening. We then proceeded to drive home, only to get…um, take the scenic route…in the dark:)
My dad and I hadn’t planned to spend Tuesday together but it’s a good thing we did as I got unexpected work that started the very next day. It also turned out that my brother and his girlfriend were taking her nieces to a Girls Aloud concert on Wednesday night, so that evenings plans also had to be brought forward…it all worked out perfectly, for me at least!
My dad and I ended up going to the Tower of London. We both hadn’t been before and we really wanted to see the star of Africa, the Cullinan Diamond. Seeing as we were doing the touristy thing it was only proper that we do it properly, so we took a guided tour of the White Tower. The yeoman warder who took us was very good and knew his stuff but then again I expect he would as I saw him a couple of hours later taking another group of camera holding tourists around and saying the exact same stuff he told us, to them, nearly word for word. However, it was very interesting and I learnt a whole lot of history, from long ago, that I hadn’t known before. We also saw where 3 or 4 of Henry the VIII’s wives were beheaded and were told some gory stories that had some in the crowd turn away.
We then moved on to what we had really come to see, the plundered wealth from the colonies of the ‘majestic’ British Empire, the Crown Jewels. Sadly we were not allowed to take photo’s (flash or no flash) but I can tell you that they were… wow! Talk about bling, P Diddy and Paris Hilton have nothing on the Royals! Some of the jewels were sadly imitation, as the original jewels had only been rented for the occasion at the time, while quite a lot of it was real…as far as I’m aware. There was gold and silver, twinkling diamonds in a myriad of colours, fat rubies, slender emeralds and elegant sapphires, crowns, sceptres, orbs, rings, plates, spoons, golden wine bowls the size of a small wine vat, golden ladles shaped like giant conch shells, candlesticks, trumpets and swords all crafted with ingenuity and intricate detail. Then there was the Cullinan Diamond, the Star of Africa.
I was slightly disappointed with its size, the size of a 6 month old baby’s closed fist…yet a million times harder. After hearing how big it was for the last how many years, my mind had greatly exaggerated it. However thinking about it shortly afterwards, I realised that a bay’s fist is still one Motherass diamond. However I then read on, well my dad pointed it out, but the original diamond had been so big that that they had cut it into a further 9 pieces…one of which was fixed to a crown further down the display, known as the Second Star of Africa. I think my jaw dropped when I comprehended the fill size it must have originally been!
After we had filled our eyes and minds with glittering jewels, we moved onto one of the bloodiest kings of England, Henry the VIII. It’s been 500 years since his reign, so there are numerous shows, displays, historical TV documentaries and general advertising of his story here in the UK. The Tower of London is no exception, especially as he had A least 3 of his wives and some of their handmaidens executed for ‘adultery’, ‘treason’, and various other crimes punishable by death that I forget.
The display seemed to go on forever (much like this blog post), through rooms fill of artefacts. Rooms were filled with suits of armour, there was even a samurai suit of armour that had been presented to him by the king of ?Japan? There were displays of horse armour, artefacts from the Mary Rose that sank in battle against the French, spears, lances, shields, there were even a range of canon guns in the dungeon level. There was so much that I can’t remember it all and I have no photos to prompt my sieve-like memory because again we weren’t really allowed.
By the end of it, I was just walking from one room to another in a daze, cos my mind couldn’t, wouldn’t take in any more. I was also hungry because it was near to 5pm and I hadn’t had breakfast yet, let alone lunch. My bad! It’s definitely worth another trip sometime in the future.
I received a phone call while out with my dad from Christies Care, asking if I was available for a job starting the next day. The first two days would be unpaid while I shadowed the carer I was replacing and learnt the routine. I said I’d be there.
So that is how I came to be sitting on this bench. I am assisting a permanent carer look after a lady with a brain injury. The work is like a complex and intricate dance. The steps themselves are not hard to do or learn, it’s the remembering the sequence of steps and actions that is the difficult bit. Especially when your dance partner likes everything done just so!
I have to move from this bench soon, I’ve been in the sun long enough, my break is almost over and I still have to type this up on the public library computer. Besides the square is emptying as everybody’s lunch break ends and I don’t feel like sitting here lurking by myself!
I might be staying an extra few days here, paid of course. In the meantime, my head is full of dragons, elves, dwarves, magic, and epic tales of heroes and villains as I finish the second book in the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. I finished the first, Eragon, in about a day and a half (once I found it in the Carer’s room)…I’m about a chapter or two from finishing the second, Eldest.
Toodles 
Photos to follow as soon as possible…