Climb every mountain

Climb every mountain, Search high and low, Follow every byway, Every path you know. Climb every mountain, Ford every stream, Follow every rainbow, ‘Till you find your dream. A dream that will need, All the love you can give, Every day of your life.        For as long as you live.

This past week, weatherwise, has been a rather hectic one, with storms Isha and Jocelyn making themselves known and I haven’t seen the sun for the two weeks I have been back in Scotland. (Thank goodness for vitamin D tablets). Feeling incredibly homesick and if I have to admit, a little sorry for myself.

Out of the blue I remembered some old movies that I loved as a child, The Sound of Music and Fiddler on the Roof. Going to the cinema – wasn’t called going to the movies back in the lates 60s’early 70’s – was an event and a treat.

So curling up under the covers with storms buffeting my little cottage, laptop and a cup of hot chocolate I indulged. Thank you Amazon Prime for having them to rent.

Even though I only ever saw each move once, I know the soundtracks by heart. My parents, though not having a lot of spare money each month, had bought the LP’s of both movies and I had listened to them over and over again, reliving the experience.

Before I started I was anticipating being disappointed with the dated cinematography – but was pleasantly surprised – these movies are classic and were ahead of their times. They were uplifting and so refreshing – no violence, foul language, gratuitous sex scenes – there was respect and decentness. Watching them however now as an adult made me realise what a naïve and sheltered upbringing I had. Not a bad thing.

The underlying tension of the small Austrian town being taken over by the Nazi’s and the need for the family to escape for wanting to stand up for their rights and beliefs and then the story reflecting the problems and realities faced by a Jewish family in Russia at that time. Makes me think why have we as humans not learnt from history – with the chaos going on in the world right now – wars, anger, hate, entitlement, power, money – are we lost – is there a way out of this seemingly downward spiral. In everyday life, it is so much easier to be nice than angry. Why is there this trait in humans to self destruct? I wish I knew the answer and the cure.

I will though, as an individual, snap out of my self pity and do a little thing every day to make the world a better place, and climb every mountain and when I am feeling down will revert to the other song that resonated with me from the Sound of Music when I am feeling down.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,                 Beautiful rainbows and warm woollen mittens,                 brown paper packages tied up with strings, these are a few of my favourite things.
Cream coloured ponies and crisp apple strudels,
door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles.
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings.
these are a few of my favourite things.
Girls in a white dresses with blue satin sashes,
snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes,
silver white winters that melt into springs,
these are a few of my favourite things.
When the dog bites, when the bee stings,
when I’m feeling sad,
I simply remember my favourite things,
and then I don’t feel so bad.

Week 3 – 2024 – Weathering the weather

Well that was an interesting week.  And an equally frustrating one.  My inner resolve tested to its limits to try and keep the positive vibes I want to carry through for the year intact.

It is a story of snow, snow and more snow and after that more snow.

Started on the Monday with me determined to conquer my ever growing concern of driving in the snow, especially along my challenging roads.  The decision was to drive behind the gritter to ensure safe passage, only to find the temporary gritter driver not happy to descend into the valley with his make shift tractor gritter (the big highland council one for this remote area is out of commission). So we both did a U turn and returned to the warmth of our homes.

Tuesday dawns with another foot of snow so not going anywhere fast. I don my running gear and head out for a run/jog – heavy going with no snow plough on the road – like running on soft beach sand. Was supposed to collect my daughter and take her to the train station for her long awaited trip back to sunny SA, but thank goodness a good friend managed to get her through in time – only for her to discover that in al the drama of finding transport on snow bound roads, she had left her passport back at home.  Step in another guardian angel who has the vehicle to drive in snow covered roads – to the rescue.  The inability of not having the freedom to come and go is now starting to register.

Wednesday – MORE OF THAT !”£$ WHITE STUFF.  Now getting concerned as the weather reports are predicting even more and my food is now starting to run low.  I am just back from being away for 7 weeks and did a small shop on my day of arrival, expecting to be able to go and fill the pantry once settled back home.

Thursday – you guessed it – I am now thoroughly snowed in – 2 feet up on the front door way – so forget about the road – still no gritter or snow plough.  With the extreme conditions they were all being kept extremely busy just keeping the main roads cleared for traffic – so this little single track back remote road is last on the list. I am getting messages from friends and family, enjoy the snow – enjoy the home time – which is what I was trying hard to do, putting my hand to my latest project – a living tree in fabric/wool and rationing my food.  I might not have wanted to go anywhere, but just the knowledge that if I wanted to I couldn’t was playing havoc with my mind.

Friday – not only are the roads still impassable, but I am now also without wifi – now really feeling isolated and alone.  I trudge up about 2km in the deep snow to try and find a mobile signal and make touch with the outside world. Even standing knee deep to do my daily wordle – heaven forbid I lose my streak.

A true winter wonderland

Saturday – ditto – but the thaw is started and the snow is not so deep. On top of all of this however, is that one of my pipes had burst during an icy spell, so my water was turned off and I had been expecting the plumber that past week – so also had no water.  Thank goodness for the little burn that flows through my back garden – fetching bucket to fill up the toilet cistern, boiling water for the basin for sponge baths and never ending cups of tea and coffee.  My neighbour also turned up at my door with some bread, butter and cheese in case I was running out of food.

Sunday – and I’m free, heavy rains, warmer weather and I can make my way to Ullapool for a Tesco shop – my big outing.  Made me  realise how much we depend on our creature comforts and the cons of living so remotely. Also made me think that this is how the Scots hundreds of years back must have survived.  It is a hard life in the highlands – just grateful I didn’t have to go out and chop wood for my fire – the electric heaters however have been working overtime – dreading my next OVO bill.

Week 2 – 2024 – Bitter sweet

This has been a real emotional roller coaster of a week. Loving have extra time to spend with the family, but at the same time stressing as I had to get back to the UK for work. Took the chance and booked my return flight to Scotland even though my South African passport wasn’t ready, hoping against all odds that that the 0.0001% cause for the delay in my passport would be resolved in time to guarantee a stress free departure from my country of birth.

This was not to be, so it was with my heart in my mouth, heart beating and adrenalin pumping through my system that I approached passport control at OR Tambo airport. Others had said it was easy, others not. As someone who obeys the law, I tried to be nonchalant – I had done nothing wrong, but it is against the law as a South African with dual citizenship to arrive or leave the country on a foreign passport and here I was needing to leave on my British passport, an expired South African passport and proof of application.

I had been having sleepless nights with all different scenarios running through my mind.

The queue was long which added to my anxiety I just wanted this over with, hoping not to be denied exit. I approached the desk when it was my turn, tried to be friendly and apologised that my interaction wasn’t be a quick and easy one with a stamp and an enjoy your day. I explained my predicament and she responded that she would need to talk to her supervisor. A really stern official looking lady arrived – no softening here!!!!! The passport agent told her I was trying to leave on my foreign passport, she tuned and demanded to me how dare I try and travel with a valid foreign passport, but allow my South African passport to expire. I started to tell her about the issue with their IT glitch and my application, got cut short with a curt ‘When did you apply?’ On telling her in November I could see her mind working out how many weeks it had been and got a brief nod of the head and said she will let me leave, but I must understand that it is illegal and that they will flag my passport so that I will never be able to use this passport to enter or exit South Africa again. And I can have my South African citizenship taken away. I just nodded agreement and acknowledged my understanding of this rule. 

My UK passport was duly stamped and a had written notation made.

I was through – free to go on with my life. I made my way in that early hour to a coffee shop for a strong coffee, when all I needed was a stiff drink. Waiting for my heart rate to drop and the adrenalin to leave my system and hands to stop shaking. Sitting looking at my now flagged passport and thought. This passport was not scanned so there is no record on the ‘system’ that I left on this passport, apart from the exit stamp. It also expires in a year and I will need a new one, which will have no record of my departure! My expired South African passport, also was not scanned or stamped – so there is nothing on the ‘system’ that I was ever home for Christmas this year.

Travel is fun and liberating and thrilling – but there is also an element of stress – the energy of airports is not a relaxed one and a lot of the authorities seem to thrive on the power that they have over the keen travellers. Going through security is like running the gauntlet. And when 9 times out of 10 as a solo female traveller, I get profiled and get pulled out of the queue to be personally searched – can be quite daunting. The most intrusive search I have ever had was this trip coming through Frankfurt – she stopped just short of asking me to remove all my clothing! Do I really look that guilty.

Maybe one day we will be able to travel freely from one country to another, but that won’t happen in my lifetime – so will continue running the gauntlet, because I am a travel addict.

Week 1 – 2024 – New Year – proud South African

Things just seemed to be going pear shaped towards the end of 2023 and my son in law commented that it could be because mercury was in retrograde. 

“Mercury retrograde is an optical illusion which means it looks as if the planet is moving backward from our view here on earth. Astrologers believe that during this perceived backward motion, technology, travel and communication could get disrupted, putting a damper on anyone’s summer mood.” In other words things just seem to go wrong.

This could be true with the disruption of my travel plans to return back to Scotland after my summer holiday back home in South Africa.

I have been worrying and stressing about the delay in the reissue of my SA passport and have been feeling helpless, frustrated, angry and stressed. My family have been happy as it meant I got to spend more time with them, but at the same time I need to leave the country to get back to work. Since the start of the new year – which the 1 January marked the date where Mercury started to behave again, I have managed to get the name of one of the bosses at Home affairs and he has escalated the issue with the passport to their IT department as it is a technical problem – but still no time frame given, so I have decided to do it the South African way – fly by my seat of my pants – talk my way through customs and leave on my British passport. Cannot wait sitting twiddling my thumbs indefinitely. Take back control. Although one of the reasons that could be the explanation of the delay is the universe teaching me that I cannot also be in control – which I am now understanding is one of my flaws – wanting …. no needing to be in control of everything.

Being back home has been very therapeutic and cemented in me even more so – the importance of family. I have missed out so much on my grandchildren’s lives for the past four magical years in Scotland.

South Africa is in my blood. Apart from my family – it is the people that are the draw – the vibrancy of the South African people – the likes of which cannot be found anywhere else in the world. The petrol attendants singing and dancing in the forecourts – how good it is to not have to fill up my own tank of petrol, to have that human interaction – that humble thank you when you give a bigger tip for the service than expected. The smiles. The lady talking to you in the check out queue explaining why she is buying a new suitcase padlock. She is flying to Cape Town to see her first grandchild. The good morning greeting when out running in the morning – by everyone. The friendliness – South Africans have to be the friendliest people I know.

Sitting in suburbia – listening to the sound of a crested barbet singing about his love of being alive, the raucous call of the very present hadada, the chirping of the crickets and the distinctive summer sound of the cicadas, in the background the sound of a lawnmower doing its summer duty, and even further away a police siren (a sound that I have to say has not been as often as previous visits). The soft smell of the wet african earth after an afternoon rainstorm. The unmistakable aroma wafting of the braai on a lazy hot Sunday afternoon. The taste of cold slices of watermelon, hot buttered miellies, biltong (I am a fallen vegetarian) and a god south african wine, cold savannahs with the slice of lemon. I can go on and on. South Africa is and will always be home – warts and all!