Week 16 – 2024 – Red Tape

I am slowly losing my patience with all the hoops we are forced to jump through on a daily basis, designed by people in power.

In South Africa when dealing with the various bureaucracies you resign yourself to a seemingly lack of interest and at times pure incompetence of the civil servants, make allowances and as we say ‘Gaan maar aan!’

When I arrived in the UK nearly 5 years ago I was amazed a the postal system (still am), especially living so remote and getting a parcel delivered within 1 day. The NHS sending me a letter within 2 week of my arrival inviting me to make an appointment for various medical tests as I was over a certain age. 🙂 The NHS however is now failing dismally. Post Covid, trying to see a doctor is well nigh impossible. You have to call and then make an appointment for a telephone call. Only once you have had the telephone call will the doctor decide if a physical appointment is necessary, otherwise they diagnose you over the phone. Mel had to get her foot x-rayed – it took them 3 weeks to send the results ??? I still haven’t had any feedback to what could be the cause the total lack of taste – been three years now – I know it is from the vaccine, but they will not acknowledge this. I will be seeing my friendly GP as soon as I get back.

I am also trying to sort out pension payouts from the private pension I have been contributing to since I have been here. To get a straight answer is impossible. They cannot advise me over the phone and I have to do it all online for verification purposes. I have queries about their regulations and I get a reply stating that they will get back to me in 5 working days!!!!!

Then there is the Council tax – I advised the Highland Council at the beginning of March that I was moving out and to please send me a bill of what might be owing. Still nothing but I got a letter this week, demanding payment, even though I have been paying regularly every month. Again communication on line and via email. Reply I got is that they are currently under staffed and are working through all their correspondence in date order and they will reply when it is my turn!!!!!

And don’t get me started on the electricity bill – I have steam spewing from my brain here!! Counting the days till I am back in the rainbow nation, where I just inherently know how to deal with the clumsy way of dealing with issues. A lot less rules, regulations and red tape.

Week 15 – 2024 – Not sure if I should be concerned?

Have to admit to having seriously selfish thoughts at the moment.

Obviously following the news about the horrific Israeli/Palestinian war and the atrocities being meted out by both sides and despair at humanity finding excuses for this behaviour and taking sides. It just needs to stop.

And now with Iran getting into the mix, and travel advisories from the UK advising against travel to the middle east. This morning I found myself googling Emirates flight paths.

I am due to fly home in three weeks, via Dubai. All my plans have been carefully made and I am literally counting the hours till I get home. What happens if the USA now get involved, what happens if this is the start of WWIII !!!!!!! I want to get home. Hoping that the wheels of war will be slow and take longer than the three weeks. Would Emirates cancel their flights? Can they afford to whilst still recouping their losses from Covid? Am I worrying unnecessarily?

And then I feel guilty about these selfish thoughts, when thousands of peoples lives have been destroyed by this ongoing devastating bloodshed. Stop the bombs. Stop the fighting. Just stop!!!

Week 14 – 2024 – Letting go……

It has been a long, hard, stressful week and one that has made me take a long hard look at myself and acknowledge that I have control issues.

I like to be in control of my life and the happenings that take place around me, and most times I can adjust to the changes and curve balls that life throws at me, but this past week I have found difficult.

I am counting the days till I head off back home and it is my decision to leave. The lodge is going to be handed over to new staff to run and that is what I am having trouble letting go of. Mel and I have worked so hard to make it what it is and are rightfully proud. The new staff arrived this week and I find myself biting my tongue and having to change my narrative from ‘This is how it is done’ to ‘This is how I do it’.

I know that change can be a good thing and just because it is different, doesn’t mean that it is wrong. At the same time I am still working here and in charge of managing the lodge, so change can take place once I leave, not during. Mel’s advice is ‘Mom, smile and wave’. We are both moving onto new beginnings and adventures and I have to allow myself to let go. But it is hard.

Week 13 – Entitled … much!!

Definition of entitled ~ believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.

I caught the end of the news the other morning, where the headlines read ‘Pet owners feel that they should have the same benefits and privileges as those of a parent of a child’. And a woman was being interviewed as to why she was wanting a bill passed in parliament. Thew news anchors were trying very hard to be diplomatic and understanding of her stance.

Her argument is that her dog was like her child, she chose not to have children, but to have a dog instead and she wanted to be able to take days off if her pet was ill, just as a parent may need to. Or time off work to take him/her to the vet. And compensation!

She was questioned – how many days would you need to take off to care for your dog and her reply as long as it takes for him/her to feel better, but maybe not longer than a week. They said, but she chose to have the dog and her argument is that people choose to have children. She had a bond with her pet the same as the way a parent has a bond with their child. Which is true for I would say of 90% of pet owners.

Pablo – my daughters dog

Then the question was given to her – ‘What about people who have a cat?’ – Yes they also are entitled to days off to care for their animal. The debate went on for a while until the question, ‘And what about a budgie or a goldfish?’ Oh no – that is just being stupid – the privileges/benefits are only for people with dogs or cats! That is when the interviewers really battled not to start laughing. So if someone has a budgie, or a goldfish, or a hamster as a pet – a pet which they have bonded with – they are not entitled to the same privileges as you who has decided to have a dog as a pet? So choose your pet wisely!!!!

I sat there listening to this – flabbergasted – this was on headline news? Surely, surely they were taking the mickey. If it had taken place tomorrow – 1 April I would have understood – cannot believe that there are people out there who feel so entitled. The world is a crazy place right now and I wonder and worry about where it all might end.

Week 12 – 2024 -Things that go bump in the night

I wake up with a start, Cleo hasn’t moved a whisker, so she didn’t hear anything. I lie there deathly still, trying to calm my breathing, was I dreaming it? The soft tap tap tap!

Nothing, so I start to doze off again, when it happens again tap tap tappity tap, almost like morse code. Cleo wakes up this time, or maybe I disturbed her. My brave guard cat.

My heart is now pounding. What is it? It is pitch black and freezing cold outside, it can’t be human – also living so far from the maddening crowd highly unlikely. My imagination starts to run a little wild. If it is an animal, maybe it is a deer close to a window, nuzzling on the old grapes I left out for them and his antlers are knocking on the glass as he chews.

I remember when I first arrived in the highlands I thought there was someone walking around on the stones outside my bedroom door only to find it was a curious deer.

Tap tap tap – again. It is coming from the kitchen. Cleo stretches and curls back up under the covers, she isn’t concerned at all. I venture out of the warmth of my bed, find my slippers and shuffle quietly through to the kitchen, the tapping gets louder and then stops. And then I remember. I had recently installed humane mouse traps in the kitchen as Cleo has a penchant for bringing field mice into the house and letting them free as soon as she is inside and then ignores them, leaving them to roam free in the warmth of the cottage. I had recently found one making a nest in my boots with a storage of cat pellets neatly stacked in the toe.

And here it was, the trap had worked perfectly. A plastic tube like contraption, with spring loaded doors on each end. You put some tasty treat in the middle of the tube and when the mouse steps on the spring next to the food, the doors close shut. It even has little air holes at the top so they don’t suffocate. The tap tapping was this little mouse knocking on the trap door hoping to escape. A very humane mouse trap. I can now release him back to where he belongs.

And this is when the fun part starts. The design is very clever to get the little creature into the tube, getting him out was another matter. I am now crouching outside in the freezing cold darkness, doing my best to push the trap door open without flattening the mouse. So have to tilt the tube up to get him to move away from the door, but then he can’t get out. Long story short – you cannot be unnerved about having a desperate mouse run across your hand to make his escape, which he eventually did. Mission accomplished – back to bed to a cat that looks on unconcerned.

Week 11 – 2024 -Family photos

Anyone would think that the world was coming to an end. Heaven forbid, the Royal Family posted a picture of the Princess with her children for mothers day. The vitriol that is pouring out on social media is truly scary. Those that have nothing better to do but than to go in and super analyse photos and come up with ‘proof’ that the picture was photoshopped slightly are tearing them apart. What difference does it make in anyone’s life?

How dare anyone alter a picture before it is posted. I am sure there are many of us who would have loved a family portrait be altered before the world saw it. I would like to see one photo that any ‘celebrity’ posts that hasn’t had a filter added or altered to make them look more acceptable.

I try very hard not to get sucked down the rabbit hole on social media now with regard to the British Royal Family. It is evil and hateful. The conspiracies are terrifying, if that is how peoples minds work and they feel brazen enough to publicise them for the world to see.

Why do people hate others so much, people that they have never met and who they almost 100% will never meet and will have no impact on their lives what so ever. To sit and spew such vileness. Imagine being these people with all that brewing inside of them. What right have they to say these things – they justify it by saying the Royal Family are paid by the people, so the public have the right to know every tiny personal detail. I say bullshit!

To all these nasty people, turn around and look at your own lives. None of us are perfect, every family has its skeletons, every person has a human right to privacy regardless of who they are and your entitled imaginings.

My favourite family photo – drawn by my late son

Week 10 – 2024 – Sleep zzz

I was reading a post on twitter just the other day, where someone asked the question.

‘Do you wake up feeling refreshed each morning?’ and was amazed at the replies. About 90% of people responded to the negative and it got me thinking.

When did I last wake up feeling really refreshed after a nights sleep. Even though I have a lot currently churning through my brain, I do fall asleep quite quickly and often feel like I haven’t moved the entire night, so must be sleeping quite soundly. Checking the fitbit sleep app, it also appears that I have pretty undisturbed nights. Even Cleo doesn’t move until I wake up. But am I refreshed? I have to say no!

Albeit – it has been bitterly cold and I have to drag myself up from under the covers (heating is seriously expensive), but I always feel that I need a few more hours sleep, regardless of how many hours I have had. Even now – at lunchtime writing this, I feel I could quite easily have a little nap.

Is this a symptom of the fast pace lives that we live, the never ending bombardment of stimuli from morning to night, the stresses of everyday life. Are we eating less wholesomely?

Why am I, and it seems about 90% of the population, always tired?

Week 9 – 2024 – Water Baby

This past week my daughter and I went and did a little bit of wild swimming and when I say a little bit, I mean a little bit – the water was so cold it was painful so it was a timid walk in, a quick dive in the wave and a rush to get back out.

As a child growing up, I was in the water from taking my first steps and remember my swimming teacher vividly – her name was Mrs Waters – quite ironic – she wore the biggest broad hat and had skin like tanned leather. The smell of her little wooden change rooms, together the smell of chlorine will be forever in my memories. And therein started my passion for being in the water. Growing up in hot and humid Durban, my sisters and I would pester our mom to take us to the local swimming baths on every possible occasion (it was only the very rich that pools in their back gardens in those days). She would patiently come along, settle herself onto the stands with her knitting or whatever and we would remain in the pool for hours.

Then the competitive side of me kicked in and it was joining the swimming club (called Cygnus) and making the swim team at school, where it kicked up a level. Up until my first ever full training session at the swimming club, I had never experienced a headache and can remember the pounding of my head to this day, walking back to the change rooms after the session, but I was hooked.

Then followed years of laps – must have swum millions of them, galas, early morning training, after school training and then club night training. I remember being permanently hungry and getting home from school and devouring 8 slices of peanut butter toast before dinner. My hair at times turning green and sticky from being submerged in chlorine for a good few hours a day. Being part of the first swimming of the Midmar mile in 1974 was my first ever open water swim.

My love for the sport never waned. It took a back seat for a while after I had children, but I then discovered triathlons and iron man, so it was back into the pool, with lots of open water swims. Nothing beats that sound of your breathing with your head under water, hand slicing through the water and the feeling of strength.

During lockdown up here in cold Scotland, I got myself a wet suit and took to the cold loch and would swim from fishing jetty to slip way, trying not to think what lay in the deep dark water below. I was then invited by a local group of ladies to join them one cold winters morning for some wild swimming. I arrived, wet suit in tow only to find this hardy bunch did not wear wet suits, but just swimming costumes and woolly caps. This was alien to me – I thought we were going to ‘swim’. Seems it is to get into the freezing water (keeping your head dry) and embrace the cold – a new experience and one that I am slowly coming to terms with.

Wild swimming is not about endurance and speed but tenacity and perseverance and get out there and enjoy the natural waters – be one with the world. And boy does it take willpower and determination – much harder than being told to swim 1000m in a balmy pool as a warm up for a training session.

Ambitions!

As any child knows, one of the all round most favourite questions from adults is ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ Way back in the 50’s Art Linkletter even had a TV show called ‘Kids say the darndest things’, where this question was almost the opening line. The invariable answer was a fireman, policeman, teacher, doctor etc etc.

Watching a quiz show this past week ‘The Chase’, one of the questions that came up for a contestant was.

In a recent survey carried out on children in the UK asking them about what they wanted to be when they grew up, which one was the most common answer. A – Teacher, B- Astronaut or C- Youtuber and Vlogger.

Bradley Walsh made a comment before the answer was revealed that if the answer was C, it is a very sad day.

It turned out that kids today aspire to be just that – Youtubers and Vloggers.

(Just as an aside when I type, I have an auto spell checker which highlights misspelt words and ‘youtuber’ does not get tagged as an incorrect word so is now part of the English dictionary?)

I have to agree with Brad and find this statistic a sad one. At the same time, the answer I gave to that question as a child, was to be a doctor or a vet, without any knowledge of what it exactly entailed. My grandfather was a doctor and I loved animals. But it was a profession that was admired, thought highly of. It was an ambition, which might not have come to fruition, but leads to path to adding something to the world. It is a sad reflection in today’s society that the youth of today aspire to be ‘liked’ on social media, to admire someone on tiktok getting their 15 minutes of fame. A fleeting instantaneous recognition before the masses scroll on to their next fix. Got me thinking though – is this any different to wanting to be an actor or actress? I think yes it is. Acting is an art form – a form of creativity. Some may argue that the youtubers are doing the same thing, being creative.

But will we still get our doctors and teachers, or rather a generation of 15min clip actors who want to make money the easy way, with a thumbs up on a screen.

(Happy to see ‘tiktok’ comes up as an error word!)

Week 7 – 2024 -Independence or ego?

Independent – definition: not depending on another for livelihood or subsistence. Similes – self sufficient or self reliant

Ego – definition: a person’s sense of self-esteem. Similes – self worth or self respect.

It has recently been suggested that I ask for help with sorting out some aspects of my move back to South Africa. On chatting to my youngest daughter about it, I said I can’t do that and her reply was ‘Mom that’s just your ego talking’.

Which got me thinking – I think of myself as an independent woman. When you hear someone say its your ego – I immediately get defensive as I do not consider myself egotistical. But is it my ego, my pride, my stubbornness – what am I trying to prove and to who?

A while back I was at a dinner party where a ‘kind’ gentleman stated that I came across as too independent to some men! At the time I didn’t know whether to take it as a compliment or a criticism. My ego told me to take it as a compliment. I tried to think back to when this resolve to be so independent kicked in – possibly when I was a single mom with 4 children and then again with 5 children – I had to cope. I was determined not to have to ask for help – my pride wouldn’t let me. And I did cope. I didn’t have to have someone there to help.

With this in mind I had always baulked at going to a therapist, jokingly saying that I was scared to let them have access to my mind as they would run for the hills, but it was the asking for help aspect – I don’t need help – I can do this. But I did need to turn to a therapist when life threw serious curved balls in my direction. At one session we discussed the analogy of needing someone. He said to look at my life as a cupcake. The cupcake as a whole, with all the ingredients needed to keep it together. The cupcake shouldn’t have to have anything else to be a cupcake. If anything was added, the icing or the cherry it would be a nice to have – not a necessity. It would not need anything else. So I prided myself in being that cupcake not needing anything else.

I do enjoy my independence, but there are times when I would like/need someone else to take the load a bit – to make that final decision – to be the icing. So maybe time to bury that pride and ask for some help.

Is it independence, ego, pride or even insecurity?