Oh child

I wish I could do more...what can I do? I don't believe that I can just sit in England knowing that there's a little girl hurting so much and I can't do a thing about it. If roles were reversed, what would she have done? 

I just want to give that child the biggest cuddle, tell her how special she is and let her be whoever the hell she wants to be. I'd let her cry, I'd let her shout and scream and be angry at all she's lost. I can empathise, I've raged and shouted and cried and wailed and I'm supposedly an adult woman. 

No one has beat me for doing all these things...

No one has forbid me from mourning. No one has punished me for it. 

So why do we expect children to adapt quickly and without scars? If someone woke me up tomorrow and in my parents place was a stranger and they said "hi, we're your parents now", I'd have questions, and be angry. Why do we expect a child to just accept that, without any fall out? 

I'm scared for that little girl and I'm scared I won't be able to do anything about it and I don't know where to begin.

http://youtu.be/j0tYkk_B-Cg

 

Shoes blues

Girls who walk in high heels like they have a carrot or three up their bottoms:

Didn't your mama ever tell you that a lady never walks like that in heels? You glide, you never stomp and you smile, you don't show the agony. And quite frankly, feet should not hurt at 8pm. 11 is a more suitable time. 

But I suspect your feet are on fire and In danger of losing toes to poor circulation, because you have stuffed those poor piggies into shoes FAR too small. They look like a fat chick in a size 8 g-string. 

L'pool

It's pretty official, I have liked every city I've been to in the last 24 months. And I've been to a few. 

But Liverpool is just something else. So friendly, so clean, so full of life, so good. 

I would like TB to see it, I think we do city breaks very well together and if we came here, we'd find it hard to leave. I haven't done anything remotely touristy and I haven't seen half of it. Yet I'm sad to leave. 

I think we must come back. 

Novembrrrrrrrrr

I hate being cold. It is most uncomfortable. I appreciate that in order for the world to turn, we need a mixture of heat and the other stuff. But wow! I do not like it. I prefer my chill factor to be the breeze coming off a tropical beach. 

I realised at about 4.30am that I probably should have worn gloves. Scraping the car from its icy covering of frost will impart this revelation. It's now 6.08am and I'm questioning the thickness of my socks....I'm fearful I'm about to lose three toes to frostbite. 

I'm on a train and the heating is at a trickle. I have half of one arm which is just above luke warm, the rest of me is ice cream. Frozen gelato. Of a fruity variety I would say. 

Not sure if I'm slightly manic because no good person should start their day at this time. Maybe milk people, but I work in a place with desks and printers and stuff. Maybe I'm manic because I'm gelato.  

Gloves, I need at least one. 

21-11-2006

I was sitting in an Italian restaurant this week thinking of my nana and how much she influenced me in my conduct. How when she told me I was a lovely young lady, it was like I had been given the moon on a stick. How she conducted herself set a bench stone. 

In a era where women were judged so completely if they didn't have a man, she taught me that ladies can do it all, and still be womanly.  She was a beautiful woman who was so full of smarts. She enriched herself, learning all the time up to the point dementia took hold. She has inspired me. There is no question of that. 9 years today, my legs buckled under me as I heard she had passed....it just doesn't seem that long ago but life has changed so much since then. I still look to her for how I should behave, using her as that bench mark. I can hear her saying my name in her voice. She said it very different to how anyone else did.

Yes, she indulged me. In completely different ways to how I was indulged by everyone else. She challenged me. On our long drives to wherever, she played advocate and we had debates about everything. She truly was a modern woman before they became on trend. 

I wish I had known her better as the adult I am now. I wish she could have known CG as the adult he is becoming. 

My beautiful nana, still missed after all these years but never forgotten. 

Cashino 3

And I'm at another casino. It's pretty. The carpet isn't sticky and it's really busy. But where are my characters? Where are my crying gamblers with their chips of shame? Where are the lecherous old men with their deplorable winks? This is my 3rd casino of the year and by far the most gentle. 

Reading was my favourite, it was glam and loud and sparkly but it had the people who were able to be watched, and while I'm honest, have a little giggle about. 

Tonight I will not gamble and the reason is simple, this is the place I could get drawn into. This particular casino would give me a gambling problem. I'd start with a mere little cheeky bet....i would end up living in Brighton, being 75 and wearing glitter on my eyelids, just putting "one more tenner" of my pension on the table. Because the people around me are people I don't deride, they are dressed well, talk decently. I can't judge these people, for they look like they don't live in a gambling house of fun all day and night. As pretty as Reading was, it had the people, the shrieking women, the stereotypes I abhor. The other Brighton one has the intense emotion of the poor who shouldn't be putting their dole-clad feet within 10 metres of a casino - they should rather stick to the amusements. 

As ever these places fascinate me. The money that runs through them is phenomenal. I should have fulfilled my dad's ambition for me to be a welder by day, croupier by night, ballet dancer on weekends. They could have made a movie about me, they'd have called it "Flashdealt". *grin* 

What a great night it's been. Date night? I am wearing a nice dress, although I left my shoes at home (my feet are probably very grateful). I've had wine, pizza, olives, (alas no dough balls)...and the company of TB. Purrrrfect. 

November time

It's the time of year when I can feel myself getting sad. However, this year, it's not going to happen (says the woman who drove today with puddles of tears in her ears desperately missing her best friend). No I'm being serious, this year I'm not getting sad. Today was a little lapse.... a little bit of I'm feeling sorry for myself - I was thinking 'shit... I haven't got any proper close local friends' and this caused me a bit of sadness for a moment, until I realised that I don't like anyone enough. Then I was fine. I do kind of miss having a super close friend like LB was - but in retrospect, how good was she for me - not much as it turns out. And then I got to thinking 'aaah you're protecting yourself, you don't seek out new friends in case it buggers up'. That's rubbish, I just haven't found a kindred spirit yet... I'm excluding TB in this for although he is immense with the giggles and the being able to empty my mind with him (JUST like you'd do with an awesome friend), in this instance, I mean a girl.... but I've said local because actually I have far away close friends who share history and love me for the idiot I am. Maybe I'm too tired to go through the rigmarole of looking for a confidante? And seriously, they all come with their own friends built in - sooo essentially, I'm looking for another me and that's just tiresome!

The big truth is, it's coming up for 11 November and I'm remembering my Nhandi. So I start looking into myself for what I think I need again and the reality is, I don't.

THIS 11th November is going to be awesome however and something she should have done but obviously didn't. No matter, I'm doing it. Another road trip - nope not a road trip...there shall be no roads!! This is an air adventure and shall be memory making of that I'm sure. Trés excitement.. which is not a clue... if I had said Shamrock excitement then maybe that would have been a clue...

Rugby Hangover

Lost my blog in a draft somewhere about the Rugby World Cup...but I'll give it another go.

Rugby Hangover, I'm sure it's an official term sitting in a dictionary down south. I believe I have one. Currently, I'm watching a bit of Rugby League just to get a little fix - but it's not the same.

The Rugby Union World Cup is over for another 4 years and it's been great. Maybe I should have made more of an effort to get to a game/fanzone but I don't feel I missed out by not going.

I met the Springboks - I met the guys who cause me to jump up and down and shriek so loudly (that CG tells me to shhh), I met the guys who have brought me to tears with their prowess, their skill, their utter commitment, the guys who have given me so much entertainment and happiness. I have shared their elation when winning and sadness when not. And yes, I'm chuffed to bits that I did meet them. It made my tournament and certainly ticked off a box or two. That I saw the men who have entered my living room for years on end. The ones we'll never see again.

And NZ won the whole thing yesterday - pretty much never in doubt that they would but Boks came close. In my humble and clearly very biased opinion, the final was last week, the SA vs NZ game, it was a pure game of rugby, fast from start to finish, on a knife-edge the whole time - not knowing which side of the coin we were going to come out. It was in short, bloody brilliant. I got to watch it in a place called Sutton, watching TB play some awesome tennis. I ended up in the reception of this sports centre with about 3 other male folk - jumping (but not jumping, just raising up to the balls of my feet) and trying to contain my wails of glee/despair while also watching tennis and punching the air over that. It was a great day. Got to go somewhere new, got to see TB play really well and got to see 'my' Boks play amazing rugby. It ranks up there as a super day really. Lets do it again.

I'm going to miss the RWC - until 2019 in Japan. I really do like this sport so much. So much a part of my life I guess, school rugby on a Saturday (sometimes provincial, rarely international), football on a Sunday - both with my dad (even through high school) - that was the Winter for me (Summer we did baseball and cycling). I wonder if that's why I like international more than club - because schoolboy rugby was always fast and action packed - and you followed your school (or brother school) like you do your country? With huge amounts of passion and banter with other schools - I guess in Westering, it really did bring the community together, my dad didnt' even have a son but joined the Supporters club since he figured he may as well support the hordes who came to visit all the time. Supporters club - yup they raised tons for the school but it was a social thing. They'd start on the Friday night with a jam session or some darts and on Saturday bright and early, they'd be up there cheering on the little ones, right on to the afternoon until the First Team played. MANY a time, I had to run home to get another bottle of sherry - I guess us teens weren't the only ones who drunk illicitly on the school fields. And the moms would be buttering the rolls for the boerewors and it was just a great vibe. If there was a provincial match, the men would all pile off there... for more drinking and eating and singing and even rugby watching.
I suppose you could say that was the 'typical' white south african male role. But it worked for when we lived in PE. It was nice. I saw a side of my parents, that I had only seen glimpses of in Cape Town - I was older so that might be why. Our house was always full, there was always something going on, there was always a party somewhere. I'm not going to bleat the only child thing but that sense of family/community we got from Westering, was pretty awesome.
That might be why I love rugby - it might be, the connotations of a good vibe...  and maybe because rugby has been good to me and forms the basis of some fantastic memories.

Bring on Japan (2019)!