Rambles from World's End

Sitting at work, waiting on the Mauritian to call me back and my mind begins to wonder, thinking about all the stuff I could be doing, if I wasn’t at work. Like, sorting out the laundry cupboard! Why do I need to do that, we’ve only been living in this house for eleven months? The truth is the cupboard is huge, it seems that the more stuff we put in there the more we can fit. I first named it the “just put it there for now” cupboard. It’s been rechristened to “The Mary Poppins” cupboard. I wonder, how many of you get the reference? But I digress, I could be sorting it out instead of chasing repairers or arguing with Claim Handlers. Doubt I would do it anyway if I wasn’t at work.   We need to shampoo our carpets and wash the curtains, the weather has been warm and dry, we could take advantage of it, if I wasn’t at work. It beats emailing status updates to Insurers! Yeah, nah! Maybe not.   The garden needs a good spring clean and spruce up, it would be good for me to...

Yesterday my email,  Facebook and smartphone were bombarded with communications about Covid19. I mean this in the most literal way! It was an electronic explosion of viral information overload! I received emails from both Lollipop's and Butterfly's schools, these schools also posted on FB and then sent info out on their school apps. Not once, but three separate updates. I received emails from online stores I had purchased from in Christmas 2018 and stores where I hold loyalty cards. These self same stores also posted on FB. Then there was the communications from HHI crews that the Butterfly is involved in, the dance school the girls dance for, the choir Butterfly and I belong to and the mass school choir both daughters belong to. Top that off with posts from the blogs that I follow, not to mention the fact that almost all of the 120 people on my FB friends list shared or posted an article or joke about the virus and I had reached maximum saturation by the end of the day. I w...

I am a "dance Mum!" It is a controlling and consuming occupation. Hours per day are swallowed indiscriminately by "training." Then the day of competition looms ever closer so normality and co. turn tail and run for the hills, screaming. Throw a birthday fortnight and school holidays into the mix and the result is an almost complete collapse of an already fragile mental state. Ensuring the eldest has water bottle, dance shoes, dance outfit and sweatshirt in her bag ready the night before can take hours of juggling, yelling and searching. The constant reminders to put the smelly sweaty dance outfits into the washing basket, so that they make it into the washing machine on time, are met with sighs and eye rolls. Fitting a budget around ensuring the food vacuum, that recently emerged from a tweens bedroom, is kept satisfied and energised with a variety of healthy food is next to impossible. The ability to be in two places at once is a requirement, having a neighbo...

In the October of 1943, in a sleepy South African capital a young newlywed woman anticipates the birth of her first child. Her husband was somewhere on the front fighting a war that perhaps he did not truly understand, but he obeyed the orders and perhaps killed someone who, in another time, he may have called friend. One hundred kilometres away in a bustling coastal South African city another young newlywed woman awaits the birth of her first child. Her husband, injured during the battle of El Alemein in 1942, made it home in the February of 1943 for their wedding, only to leave to fight again. But in the October of 1943 as these mothers awaited the birth of their first child, what was it that they were thinking? While German torpedo boats sink British destroyers off the North coast of Brittany, did they pray for those drowned sailors?   Were they aware that British Troops replaced striking London dockworkers, did it matter to them? Did they feel some emotion when they learn...

Last night as the final rays of daylight left World’s End and settled brightly over the heart of the world, you breathed your last and slipped into eternity. Four children felt a pillar of their lives crumple and a wife feels hollow. I wish I could wail and scream at the sky, purge these surging, consuming emotions that are beating against my heart with just one blood curdling soul wrenching scream and be done with it all. I want to be angry and sad and miserable, but I can’t be it doesn’t work like that, nothing is ever quite so simple. Through this haze of tears and with this heavy heart I feel only gratitude. I do not believe you deserved the suffering you endured, yet I am so grateful that to the end you were alert and dignified. I wish we all had more time, just one more phone call or SKYPE. But I am so grateful that the end came quickly.   I am grateful for the bond we share, one that neither distance nor death could sever. My children won’t get the chance to learn from...

My dearest Life Long Friend In a few days you will be heading back home for good, I have such mixed feelings about it! Silly really after all it’s not my life. I am juggling happiness, sadness, apprehension and anticipation all at the same time. We have never been "in your pocket" friends but I'm going to miss you. The SKYPEs and random thirty minutes phone calls for no reason what so ever, just having someone close that knows exactly how we feel as we make our way through the process of settling.   In some ways I disagree with your decision to return home, but I also know that you never really left, not emotionally anyway. You have been out of your comfort zone, felt alien and unsupported and were never able to settle. Immigration has to be the hardest thing for anyone to do, I know what you have been through and I am sorry I could not provide the extra support you needed. Africa it seems was willing to release only one of us, she still has your soul, it i...

In a run of generosity my eyes only opened at half past five this morning instead of half past three, an extra two hours sleep really fills the energy bar up. Usually I'll use the quiet of the early morning hours to write or read but this morning as the sun was up I thought I'd get up and use the time to do my chores and a few secret things before the girls began to stir. I got off to a good start, hung out the washing emptied the dishwasher, sorted the rubbish bags and recycling for collection, made the Mauritian's breakfast and switch on the kettle for coffee. Then it all turned to custard! With the rising of the offspring came the carnage! It was a silent attack at first, both trying to fit onto one beanbag to sit and look at the newly acquired fishes in a tank. With the growing rivalry came the whining which prompted mediation, separation and breakfast. Apparently it is not wise for the mediator to have a shower at these fragile times, on emerging clean and refreshed...