The muddled head

I'm alive still guys ;) Sucked into blissful English summer evenings, unrequited love (once more just for good measure) and my scarey scarey big job... Kind of happy - but actually, in truth, keeping myself too busy, stopping meant facing my fears. I needed to stop, I needed the catharsis of writing, but I just couldnt.

Then winter came... Oh dear.
And with it... each day painfull memories of my dad...
And suffocating cold greyness. Suffocating. Suffocating.

Beautiful mesmerising patterns of ice on the INSIDE of my windows!!!

I rattle around in my freezing apartment listening to the silence... Detached from the outside world. Strange thoughts come into my head - the call of a black-eyed bulbul, tall green grass, puddles in the road covered in green algae, black tadpoles. ... the familiar squeaky floor in the passageway at home - each footstep etched in patterns on my brain. Dad, purposeful and quick, mum - slower and more squeaky... my most squeakiness instilling rabid excitement from the dogs meaning "walking shoes", the houseboy - almost silent, Chutney tipping her elegant jack russell toenails before pausing a fraction of a second, then click-click, click-click, click-click down the steps.Chutney

But hey, I'm blogging again!!....

This, my friends... is what happens when you have a horrid job hanging over you. ;) Every excuse under the sun to avoid the task, EVEN forcing me back into blogging life after aeons of silence... !

The task - I'm supposed to have written up my handover "report" on my last trip home 3 months ago. Who pays what, when. How much to pay. Is Zesco (the electricity board) paid by cheque or cash, when is the fitness due on the cars, how much sugar do the servants get and when, who to contact if the pool pump blows up again... how much money is in the bank and what the heck do we do now the Kwacha is almost all run out.

Bugger. I didnt do it right away. And now its a mammoth monster glaring at me - consuming my time off week after week. And now it really IS due and STILL I cant get myself to even look at it. God I wish dad was here to sort all this out. I wish we didnt have to sell the house. I wish that life wasnt gone. I wish even... that I didnt have those memories - they are too painfull. Bits of my soul flow out in streams over my cheeks.

What catharsis can heal all of this. Perhaps not in this life... that waits for another life.

Time for a rip-roaring Africa party. England is so politely accommodating, but Africa keeps firm hold of our souls. Sounds rather like my love-life!