RIP little bees

Mum killed her bees sometime this month :( Starved them. She found them all huddled together, dead, with their heads embedded as far as they could into the wax, so desperately trying to get enough food.

They'd eaten the sugar water she'd put out for them a month ago, but they hadnt had the energy to convert it to food :( thousands upon thousands upon thousands of tiny little lives. Half a bucket full of little lives. Shame.. Thankfully dad's hive is still going strong. That would have been truly tragic. I had put my ear to the outside of the hives around Christmas time, when we had snow and could hear the new hive buzzing away. I guess they were buzzing, trying to keep warm and find food. Shaaaaaaame! :((((
Photo: Dad, so wonderfully, excitedly, proud in his brand new bee suit - 29 February 2008.
Is that significant? ...That it was 29th?

Dad had ordered his bees on the internet. How cool is that! At 82, I reckon that is seriously cool. They arrived by Royal Mail! Even more outrageously cool!

Dad poured over every piece of literature he could find on bees as the cancer took hold of first his lungs, and then his brain. The last time I went out there to the hive with him his coordination was gone and he lifted up the wrong layer... opening up the whole hive. But I wasnt scared. He wasnt scared either. We didnt use the bee suit or a smoker. What for? My brother was with us and stood back. I just drank in the rich moment.

I'd flown straight back from South Africa when I heard that something was not right. That they feared the cancer had spread. I got out the car and found a different man. He was awkward. His face changed. Strange. His speech jumbled. He pointed to some flowers and said... "Look... my bees!!" And sure enough... there they were.

Bless him. Thats the legacy he left mum.

Last summer she harvested our first 7 jars of the most delicious, delicately elderflower-scented honey. Honey from the gods ;)

The lavender that literally oozes with bees in the summer! Suffused in the most divinely heady aroma.

p.s. If dad hadnt died, he was all set to order chickens on the internet too and had even marked the ones he wanted! It puts such a smile on my face. One in a million :)

xxx

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!

Strange feelings

I'm starting to feel sick in my stomach.

Boarding-school training. Shove the emotions to the back of my mind.

I'm supposed to return home in 10 days time. To pack up the house.
And what.
And sell it?
Rent it?
What? The copper price has crashed. Noone has any money.
And what do we do with the servants and the dog? Seriously.
Just cast them aside?!?!

Last time we were home, we already had to tell dad's oldest employee that we didnt need him any longer. 47 years. I felt like a cad. Phiri stood there, jaw clenching, writhing the sinews in his temples. An old man, steeling the tears. His whole life was working for dad.
And now dad was gone..
I went to the bottom verandah afterwards and cried my eyes out. My soul wrenched from my chest as if I didnt deserve to own one.

Oh god. I feel sick.

This has been our home for over 50 years. Built by dad just 2 years after he started his own civil engineering company.
I'm African..
and yet I'm not. But I dont know why I'm not. And I dont know why I dont feel European. My mother is English, Scottish & Irish - my dad Scottish & Dutch Jewish blood, his mother born in South Africa and him too. What does that make me?

This is the only house I've known. I know every inch of it. I've hidden deep in the garden playing hide and seek, hidden so well that noone found me, until I got bored and came to find them.

Sat on the edge of the pool, no armbands, no minder, no-one about... and defying death, taught myself how to swim. I've surfaced beside a snake and experienced walking on water.
I've pushed my pet chicken around in my dolls pram.
Been through curfews, solar eclipses, one party states and new found democracy.
Been taught how to iron by the houseboy.
Watched him polish the floor, dancing with the brush under one foot and the cloth under the other.
Collected caterpillars for the garden boy
Heard sweet African songs long faded in my memory
Crawled deep inside the bougainvillea hedge,
careered high over the trees on my blue swing, made just for me.
Lips and feet black from mulberries.
Fed dreaded pawpaw to the dogs.
Listened to straw coloured fruit bats squabbling in the fig tree.
Come home to blood all over the house when dad was beaten to an inch of his life by bandits.
And woken by the sound of gunshots or sirens, or scary sounds in the dark night;
or slept solidly as my arm rested against the burglar wire, alarm blaring away.

Heard drums playing deep into the night
laughed at my dog catching flying ants in the kitchen
and laughed again each time I returned from boarding school to find the house had shrunk.
Had power cuts, and phone cuts, and water cuts,
Heard Comrade Mr President on the news
And sat in silence whilst dad listened to the BBC.

I've lived and breathed this house. It was the only place in the world where I felt I belonged.
Before the town she was in became this horrid, polluted, dishevelled place. A place noone wanted to be in. Full of uncouth miners paid disgusting salaries which they squirreled away. We sold the company houses and the office and the horses and the plane and the farm...

and now...?

Am I the only one who's heart is screaming?
The others seem nonchalant.
It makes me sick.

Just bring dad back. Thats the solution. Change time. Change it all.

The hidden side

Oh yes. Its been a long time. Its been a black time. Filled with demons.

Today, I acknowledged to myself that I am in deep grieving for my dad and its ok. Its ok to have pain deep inside my soul. Poor sad soul.

Now I feel better.

I had the most profound meditation during my yoga on Thursday. I was reaching up to heaven. Giving myself to my dad. He was reaching down. Light. The veil parted between reality and the place beyond. And then the moment was shattered by someone beside me snoring and the yoga teacher putting on some music. But the words were amazing - the song was all about little Angels surrounding me. I lay there, silent tears rolling down my cheeks. Man I miss him.

I've been revolting lately. Revolting to everyone. Revolting to my mother, revolting to myself. Looking out on the grey February days. Not winter. Not summer. Just blankness. Like my soul. The trees bare with tiny buds appearing..
But its not that great anticipation ... waiting for the rains.. waiting for the stark grey forests of Mopane to burst to life like magic one special morning, twinkling like tiny jewels. The colour of gold. Just fleetingly gone in a day when the leaves begin to turn green.
Or the harsh suffocating hiss of the cicadas invading your brain, consuming your thoughts. Intense. Unnatural.
Or the first short 2 noted call of the Paradise Flycatcher. You hear him before you see him. But you know he's outside there somewehre in the trees flicking his gorgeous flowing chestnut tail. Mango Madness time.
The rains. The rains.. They're coming!
That intense heat. Numbing. Everybody. Everything. Waits.

The change in the seasons here is so gentle by comparison, so unsurprising. So bloody boring. Where are your balls man!!!!

Its got to change. Me, not the seasons. My aura is affecting my interaction with people at work. Hah - at work - i work from home - but you know what i mean. Emails and phonecalls and meetings and stuff. Crankiness, insecurity doesnt equal success girl! I need to work at 120% not 80%.

But I've been trying hard. My dear poor soul needs tenderness. And since I'm not getting it from a lover it has to be self made.
Friday was blissful lesson number 4.
Made myself known by asking the owner of the Dance School if she worked there! Good one girl! I had got the hell in with my dance shoes and my long hunt to find a pair that fit. I'd even ordered two pairs on the web. Been to the opposing dance school and squeezed my toes into all sorts of shoes rather like the Ugly Sister. Walked out of the shop as the girl was disinterested and unhelpful. So finally - Friday came around, again, and again i had no dance shoes and now I was desperate.
Asking Sue (aka the woman who works there) to help me, I tried on the first pair and it fitted like a glove! Hooraaay! Finnnnnallleeeeee!

Note to self. Take photo of dance shoe. I will, I promise I will - I'm just feeling slack right now.... ok.. done :)

They have suede soles to stop you from slipping.. Ever knew that?! I didnt! Fancy pancy! I cant believe I can do the Jive in something with 2 1/2 inch heels and not break my neck! Having spent most of my life either barefoot or in "sensible" heels. Theres a hidden side to me indeed!

Ah. Time to end this blog before I ramble on too much. Man in Australia has stood me up on Skype or got the time wrong, again. So I'm off to bed. No doubt there will be some excuse ... though I'm tiring of it. He needs a wakeup. I'm sick of my biological clock ticking, telling me to hitch up with a mate asap. Why cant it just bugger off. Why cant I just have more time to choose, to decide. Then I wouldnt give a damn about some Aussie guy standing me up. Destiny. Life's strange and mysterious ways.

Twinkley twinkley dreamland

Oh my word! I am Obsessed... with a ginormous, capital O.

Completely, utterly. From inner core to out. Jump up and down. Giggly. Dreamily. Fantasmically. Over the moooon.

I had it. My first one on one...

And it was the best thing in a hundred years! Oh wow! I cant stop thinking about it. Day, night - three in the morning, five to five... (when my stupid new phone woke me up to tell me that my next lesson was about to start!! Bloody thing!... The phone was only 6 days and 12 hours too early - go figure that one out! But then... guess what...... I was ALREADY awake anyway, thinking about dancing! At that time in the morning! Tossing and turning and trying to sleep... and failing abysmally with just one thing in my mind)

So - as I said in my last blog.. I started group dance classes 3 lessons ago. In a crummy school hall with an odd assortment of english people. The women outnumbering the men. The men rather nerdy looking. But I was absolutely determined. Odd people aside. On a one way mission to achieve my life long dream of learning how to dance. And blissfully free of the shackles of a disinterested boyfriend who refused to join me despite years of begging (perhaps that was just my pathetic excuse for being a scaredy cat).

For years I had been put off ever going to another class after my first experience in the sweaty tropical city of Darwin, Australia. I got some guy who thought I was after a pickup and wouldnt let go of my hand, even long after the music stopped. Eugh. Sis.

So - 3 group classes later, persevering through the line ups - men, "honorary men" (i.e. me as I had to partner with another woman), opposite women; the painfully slow explanation of the footseps; and a female partner who was rather uncoordinated... I then saw an article in the local paper about a couple who had just won some national competition and had trained at a rival dance school.

My cue... :) :)

Hoop-la! Have you ever spent a whole hour beaming from ear to ear? ME me me!! I did! I felt like I was floating in a twinkley dreamland.

My teacher was this ordinary slobby looking kind of guy in an old t-shirt and very sweaty and smelly!! Euuww! so English!! (No wonder - he'd been on the dance floor for the past 8+hours!) But he was gorgeously sweet and wonderful. He waved his magic wand - I shimmied up close to him... body touching right up close! Sweat and all. And we sailed across the floor, backwards and forwards for an hour. Past the 5 or 6 other one-on-ones, the teachers asking us if we needed more room. "My" man mumbling something about, am I SURE i've never done any other lessons before? I promise, never!! Mumbling more about "you do that really naturally"... say what ... am I a natural?! And then... to cap it off I was moaning about my stupid shoes that kept slipping their heel and saying I cant do that properly because of my shoes... He took me into their little store-room... no.. not what you are thinking! .. he took me into their steamy hot storeroom and showed me the rows of shoes for sale but said... these are for Ballroom and these are for Latin... But if you want to Compete, you need these ones, so its best you wait until you decide which you prefer, Latin or Ballroom........ Say what again!? Competing! No way!!! Cool! Never thought about that. What fun!! I want the shoes now!!! Puleeeeez! I want it ALL! Every single dance imaginable - Argentinian Tango, the Waltz, the Salsa, the Quickstep - everything! I want to come to your class tomorrow and the next day and the next... but now I have to wait a whole week! Impossible! I cant!

I feel like my soul is bursting, overflowing. This incredible release of energy. Oh my word. Honey on my wounds. I want to talk about it non-stop. Tell everyone I see. "Do you know what I did on Friday..." the hairdresser, the bank teller... Everyone. :)

:) ... :) ... :) ... :)

Slow to catch on

I realised with a tinge of grimness that I was "daddy's girl"... only... daddy is now on the other side with all the Angels..

Bugger. What a loss to realise such a thing once he is gone. Thanks dad!!! Million times over.

No more paid flights, no more little surprise gifts. Now just one of the other siblings. He spoilt me rotten even though i often shunned his spoiling, feeling guilty about accepting his gifts. Silly me! So English!

Well, one things good out of your death dad - I'm no longer that scared of death anymore.

********

Today we had fleeting moments of blizzard conditions - its dark now and i'm fingers crossing it will be thick snow in the morning as predicted :) Once and always will be a little girl.

*********

Friday I go for my first one on one dance lesson - YESSssss!! Life long dream. Yay yay yay! So what better year to achieve that than my FORTIETHHhhh... (did I mention that word?) Well I've been to two classes already (had to partner with a woman as there werent enough men... and in any case, those that were there werent worth partnering with! Gees some wierrrd people!). but decided I'd take the bull by the horns and launch myself full speed into one on ones.. No messing around here now!

Ballroom/Latin Champion here I come!

See ya

Twinkley toes :)

Amazon Energy

Two weeks today of NOOOO coffeee!!

Impressed?!

I am!

And you know what - I think its making me lose weight? Pleasantly shockingly! What a great surprise reward! Incredible.

Free CD in the newspaper this morning, so I'm sitting listening to Amazon frogs and rain falling... and ... oh dear... its making me homesick :(.

I'm on a journey right now, not quite sure what that journey is yet. I'm just waiting to see where it takes me, but so far it has taken me a very long way from long grass, red earth, mangoes and rain. The buzz of mosquitoes and deafening frog symphonies. Smells and sounds. Heuglins Robin in the evening, Wood Owls at night.. Hmm.

I say to myself "What the....!!!?" InSANE girl? Living a desk job in rural England. But... its part of life's rich tapestry. I'm on a journey of discovery.

***********

ooopsss... I never finished this blog. Was in a wierd space. So what the hell. will post it anyway - finished or not. But now its THREE weeks of no coffee!!! And still getting damned "I'dkillforacoffeeee" symptoms. When will they go away!!! Gees... and they say alcoholism is a tough nut to crack!! I'm so BORED of herbal teas!!! So so bored! How much Rooibos; cranberry this; lemon that; ginger whatsits can I take!!! Might have to try Nettle tea just for something different. Anyway - My hair and my skin and perhaps ... just a teeny perhaps... my moods, are healtheir. And my hips are miraculously youthful... no more constant groaning from them :) Look on the positive side girl and stop wingeing!