I have decided to put together an amalgamation of false starts and catch you up on what I have been up too in the UK. This will leave me free and uncluttered to describe my holiday in SA in more detail in a few weeks. I’ll leave my previous attempts unedited and updated so that you can see that I did try…just not hard enough. My excuse? The last few months have all been pretty much the same and therefore I’d just be repeating myself…again.
A collection of happenings…
It’s that time again, almost a month to the day since I last put pen to paper or in this case fingers to the keyboard. I have as usual procrastinated and missed many opportunities to write, and therefore there are numerous small incidents that were noted for future posts at the time but now I can’t recall. I reckon this is a good screening process, now you only get the more memorable moments. Such as sleepwalking encounters of a truly strange kind and inquisitive heart-attack-giving squirrels.
The last time I wrote I was still at the youth hostel, I was reminded by a friendly dutch girl just after I posted the lost blog that I had slept walked the night before. Apparently I went over to her bed and just stood over her and then after awhile I moved on to another bed. There I attempted to, I can only describe it as try and tuck her in. I was convinced my client from the week before was in the room and I need to turn and cover him. When she woke she looked up at me with wide eyes and just stared at me for awhile before asking me what I was doing. All I could say was “I’m sorry, so sorry…” and try and figure out what on earth I had been doing! We had a good laugh over it, the Dutch girl and I. I hoped it wouldn’t happen again that night…it did, but this time I stopped myself almost immediately, I don’t even think she woke up this time, or if she did I was already backing off and sitting on my bed. I sat there confused, and disorientated, convinced that my client was in the room. I almost went to another bed before I finally realised it wasn’t possible, it wasn’t real and to just go to bed. I can quite easily say that conscious sleepwalking is the one of the most disorientating, confusing, scary things to happen to me.
I have no idea how long after this the next incident happened, but it definitely happened before Christmas! I’m thinking September period.
I was at a new client for a week in Leicester…it has two cathedrals! Small city and two cathedrals…right next door to each other! It’s a university town, my client was at uni but thankfully the year hadn’t started yet so I didn’t have too much work to do…and I had a sky box in my room so I was really happy! One night I was sleeping like a baby when I was awoken by a starching noise by the window. It sounded like a tree branch on the window glass yet there weren’t any trees nearby so I was a tad confused…the sleep didn’t help so I went to investigate. I opened the curtain and in flew a squirrel from the open top window! At least I think it was a squirrel…luckily my door was closed cos otherwise I would have had to chase it all round the house but instead I was limited to running around in increasingly small circles in my room while I chased the damn horror back out the window. Stupid rodent:) Needless to say, I slept with the window closed from then on.
Oh, you’ll be so proud- I said no to more work and cancelled already confirmed weeks with run-me-ragged! After a second week with him I realised I was crazy..crazy for saying yes to going back:)
The night before Christmas…I was with a client’s family for the Christmas period and heavy snowfall, thankfully no travelling when all the roads were blocked…
Having yet again allowed myself to fall behind in writing I am haunted by stalking Santa’s and clowns with megaphones and so I finally put pen to paper or in this case fingers to the keyboard.
It’s the night before Christmas and all through the land, little golden islands of light shine through the cold snow covered darkness. While mist rolls over the hills and settles in the valleys, these golden islands radiate warmth and the barrier between light and dark, warmth and cold, family and stranger start to melt and blur. Thinking of all the people I’d rather be spending this time with, sitting in deep comfy chairs in front of a softly blazing fire tucked up underneath a thick old blanket talking and laughing about the past, starts a small stream of memories and before I know it the stream has become a flood and I’m lost in the past.
…
Getting back to reality is not hard but I am reluctant; happiness is back there, sadness too but mostly happiness – well I’m concentrating on the happy warm thoughts such as family roadtrips to the Drakensburg to hike and cape to visit family, swimming, friends & family, climbing, the thousand different colours of the desert , my first snowfall, snow covered countryside. Friends and family dominate.
- - - 2010 - - -
I have finally had enough of caring, not cos it’s hard or anything just because I’m just so darn bored. What little learning curve there was has long since been reached, I’ve had my fill of watching tv all day!!! Hold on, did I just say that??? I must be crazier than I thought, let’s just say that weeks on weeks of watching tv all day gets to you! That’s also one of the reasons I’ve not updated for so long, just haven’t had the energy and will etc.
So as of 2 weeks ago I am officially finished caring and have been…doing nothing much! Typical! Granted I did have to sort my passport out. Oh, have I not mentioned that? I sent my passport through the post to apply for an UK provisional driver’s licence. Apparently it’s quite safe to do that sort of thing here. Yes, it got misplaced!
That was in August. It has taken this long to get everything sorted. Do you know it takes 2 months for DVLA and Royal Mail to check there systems for a lost passport? Do you know that it takes 8 or more weeks to get a new SA passport in London? That it takes roughly 6 weeks to get an appointment to transfer your old visa conditions into your new passport and then a further week for it to be delivered once it’s been approved? That might not sound too bad when you add it up and you must be thinking I’ve been lazy again and that’s why it took so long…but actually, I think I was pretty much on top of it, especially as I wasn’t always in the London area for weeks on end. I worked for 9 weeks straight over Christmas, might as well make the most of my situation and get the triple pay that was being offered – I would need it to pay for all this. Everything finally got sorted last week!
Granted this is not an all inclusive itinerary of what I’ve done in the last few months, just the more memorable. Knowing my mind, as soon as I post this something will come screaming to the front of mind yelling “what about me!!!”. This is just to give you a very rough idea of what I’ve been doing since September.
So yeah, the last week has been relaxed and sunny. I’ve been walking to Hyde Park nearly every day this week and just sitting in the sun. Detouring to the Natural History Museum and the V & A museum and being flabbergasted by some of the stuff they have collected. Walking through London is definitely better than catching the tube. You miss so much by …um, going underground:) It’s definitely worth the sore and tingling feet at the end of the day, and the sun on my face has hopefully removed any English pastiness I might have gained before I come to sunny, hot SA…can’t wait…less than 24 hours till I’m sitting under the blazing African sun wishing that I owned a pair of shorts:)
See most of you soon,
toodles:)