Beauty in the Journey and the Destination

We recently went to Cape Town again. We were only there for three and a half days which is no time to appreciate the city, but the drive there and back takes two days so there is plenty of time to appreciate the journey.

I most enjoyed the drive back to WHK on this trip. At first you drive through the Cape where there are mountains and endless green fields punctuated by huge flowing trees. Then you drive through the Citrusdahl area, where you are in the mountains, and the road is followed by the canal used to irrigate hundreds of dark green orange trees.

The further north you go at this time of year the more of the famous wild flowers you see. They are streaks of luminous orange and 80's-like eyeshadow blue. And every now and then a voilent purple stands out against the rock. Eventually, on the other side of the border there appear the occasional Quiver Tree, standing alone amonst the gravel plains and dolomite extrusions.

It's a drive that I love to make and have made many times. Even though it is very long, I never tire of the interests that nature and man provide along the way.

Why ya'll should be here

Winter sun

Right now it is freezing cold here. The houses are not heated and they are built for the retention of coolness. BUT every now and then you can find a windless spot in the sun and it is a small segment of heaven to feel the warming rays reach your bones.

winter sun

a uniquely Namibian experience

I had a wonderful experience at the chemist the other day. As I was standing waiting for my credit card to go through, I was listening to the 4 ladies behind the counter having a chat.

Initially they were having a wonderful gossip about someone and how to handle that someone. This conversation was between three of them. One black woman and two coloured women, they were all speaking Afrikaans. Which, in my opinion, is the best language in which to gossip. It's a gutteral language that comes from the back of the throat and is full of onomatopioa and words and phrases that cannot be translated directly into English. Even the word for gossip sounds like what it is. Skinner - pronounced 'skunner', with the R at the end rolling around like the aftertaste of a Cabernet Suavignon.

While I was waiting, they were joined by a tall blonde woman who addressed them in German. Without hesitation and without thought, they all switched to German. Then two of them broke off to speak in Afrikaans again. At which point they were interrupted by a customer speaking English, and of course they responded to him in English. My credit card went through and the Blonde lady spoke to me in English too. All this swtiching between languanges happened without comment from them, and they were all flawless in all three. The whole conversation was fluid and lyrical in a way I have never heard.

It seems as though, in Namibia, you can pick the pieces of the three languages that best express your thoughts, and because almost everyone has the same smattering of those languages, they understand you. Having the choice of languages almost adds another language, one that only a small set of people in the world speak and it gives them intimate knowledge of what you mean to say.

Mom's Birthday

Yesterday was Mom's bday and we had such a lovely day. It started with the traditional brack of dawn present opening. We were all up for coffee before school started and Mom enjoyed her presents. In the evening we watched some absolutely fabulous tennis - Senea vs Henin. Go Henin! Which made us terribly late for dinner at the Taal. The Taal is the only Indian restaurant in WHK and the food is EXCELLENT, their menu is varied and has many vegetarian options. It was absolute heaven to enjoy all that deliscious food in the company of my family. NC joined us as one of Mom's extra daughters and luckily St could stay around for an extra day and joined us too. It made a very lively crowd but not big enough to be impersonal. Once we were all disgustingly full we rolled home and ended the evening with some West Wing. Such a lovely day!

Southern African and Namlish terms

Things you may read and not understand...

Braai - barbeque but usually with more meat. ew.
Padkos - food you take with on a road trip
ummmm can't think of any more right now. I'll get back to you on that.

days when you should have just stayed in bed.

Tough day in the classroom today. I have been promising to show them the Gandhi movie for weeks now, and have also been trying to show it to them. Finally I got the keys to the cupboard and the classroom where the tv and dvd machine are. Allegedly. All the kids troop in, get themselves arranged in front of the cupboard, I open it and viola! No DVD machine... I dispatch a student and her buddy to borrow one from the Bursar... they return. No double adaptor. I dispatch her again... they return. No cord to connect the tv to the DVD player.

Now let me tell you that 20 mins of the 45 min lesson is gone already. The movie is 3 hours long. The maths is not working out in my favour. Also, the natives are getting restless. Not sure if that is a Conrad quote, but it ought to be. And I now sympathise. The volume of chatter is rising and one dear child has already threatened another with his chair, as if to tame a lion. I, in turn threaten with detention, for both of them, for good measure. Guess what... they girl returns. The cord is quite magical and has appeared to disappear. Impressive. There is now 15 minutes of the lesson left and it was at this point that getting up at 6 to be at school and spend my morning with these little muffins, these little fruitpies, these little cupcakes takes it's toll and I banish them to the field where they can be loud and energetic away from me and my detention forms.

Tomorrow I am taking my own dvd player, my own double adapter and my own cords. I will also have detention forms and extra homework at the ready, just in case of power failures or unavoidable natural disasters.

PS. Gandhi was a super caloused fragile mystic plagued with halitosis. Go Mary Poppins!

Mother's day in Cape Town

We spent Mother's day driving around the Cape Peninsula, stopped at a market for treats and shopping and ended up at a fish and chip place on the harbour. It was beautiful. The best moment was wondering up and down the wharf looking at the boats and enjoying the company.

Cape Town photo's as promised

The first image is of me at a winefarm. One of the best things to do in Cape Town is to drive out to Stellenbosch and that general area and pick three or four farms to stop at, then end up at Fairview for lunch with all the cheese you can eat. It's my version of heaven!

The second is the highly recognisable Table Mountain as you drive in from the road that leads north to WHK.

School fun day

We spent the day at the school today, mostly under a marquee tent. The sun was shining and there was a lovely, chilly breeze to remind us that it is still winter. The stalls were all selling deliscious and tempting foods and sweets. We each had something different for lunch. I should pause and explain fun day for the non-St. Paulians. It is a day where each class arranges a money making scheme and the whole country is invited to participate. There is always a tea stall, a braai and beer stall and the pillow fight. More recently there have been some new additions. Stir fry, the best biltong and candy floss in Namibia (allegedly) and dodgeball!

Also C was part of a very impressive and toe tapping display of ballroom dancing. She is giving K and I lessons. So far we can half cha cha and a little bit Rumba. I want to Merengue. K wants his laptop and for us to leave him alone please.

The Internet goddess is a fickle sprawling tarantula

Yay! We have internet again after four dry and horrible weeks. So will pick up where I left off soon. but meanwhile to keep you company - here are a few photos from our cards night which is becoming more and more rowdy! In fact they have become so rowdy that we have had to institute an new rule. There is a hat that goes around, and when you have played your turn you must put the hat on the next person's head. Otherwise we alll lose track of who's turn it is and it takes us half an hour to play one round!

Cape Town in May

While I wait for more pics off K's camera - here is one of him on Atlantic Beach taking pictures of rock pools.

The Cape Town trip was all I hoped it would be, nostalgic, comfortable, surprising and all the shopping you could dream of! It is actually amazing how much cheaper everything there is compared to whk. We stayed with M, Mom stayed with Aunty T and so we spent quite a lot of time driving around. Which turned out to be a lovely way to re-familiarise ourselves with the mother city I don't think that I would ever choose to live there permanently but I could see us spending another couple of years there. The population of the city has grown ridiculously but the city hasn't and so now it really feels like it is overfull. No matter what time you are driving on the highways or when you are in the malls, on the beach, walking around downtown, there are SO many people around all the time. To the point where you are constantly asking yourself: don't these people have jobs to go to?? Having lived in DC and now in WHK where it never feels like the town is overflowing with people, it was very suffocating and oppressive to know that so many people were doing the same thing and wanting the same thing from the same small space that you are occupying. I guess we all had a little culture shock.

Of course all the good things about CT are still good. The best day I had was wondering around downtown, up and down Long street and in the Botanical gardens. We were in and out of second hand book shops where the books were piled high on the shelves, floors and and all surfaces available. We stopped in one of our old-time favourite coffee shops and had milkshakes. Although we had forgotten how much people smoke in CT and now that we have not been exposed to it, it really is obnoxious and interfered with our milkshakes to the point that we went and sat outside!

I think the best experience of the trip was catching up with old acquaintances. People have changed and yet still stayed the same, so that the visits were full of curiousity about the new parts of them and the comfort and warmth of the recognisable ones.

more photos to come.

At night

Something about the desert and the lack of cars sent H's car into spasms of loneliness and it kept setting off the alarm. Of course this was mortifying out there, because the alarm could be heard for Km's! But it did make for some amazing photography for K while he was taking his night pictures. In this one you can see the alarm flashing on the car as well as how the landscape was lit by the moon.

Spitkoppe through the Arch

Spitzkoppe photos

The first photo is of a barking gecko. We kept hearing a "kek kek kekk" noise and wondering what bird it was. It went on late into the evening and K remembered someone saying that the sound of the barking gecko drove birders crazy. So we went on a hunt and found one. Their little giggle (for it sounds more like that than like a bark) accompanied us all night.

The second photo is of a piece of bushman art that is high up in the rocks under a ledge and has a very mystical feel to it.

The third photo is of me in the famous arch at Spitzkoppe.

Our campsite and the view

Spitzkoppe

This weekend, on a whim, we decided to drive out to the Spitzkoppe and camp there for a night. The Spitzkoppe is a mountain about half an hour outside Usakos and three hours drive from WHK.

It is a granite extrusion into the bedrock, where the bedrock has been eroded away leaving this massive formation standing alone in a flat gravel plain. The rock is orange from oxidised iron in the rock, which makes it even more obvious on the white, brown and grey gravel plains. Driving towards it, Spitzkoppe turns from a shadow, slowly into a magnificent monolith, completely dominating the skyline.

The campsites are very rustic, there is no running water and essentially you know it is a campsite only because there is a metal drum acting as a dustbin. This does add to the atmosphere of heat and emptiness. Camping there, it is possible to feel entirely alone in that landscape. All that is visible is the Spitzkoppe and the plains dotted with acacia's and dry grass. At night there were other campfires visible, which gave us a feeling of safety, knowing that there were other people nearby. We really do have such a strong herd-instinct as humans. It is an intense experience thinking you are alone, and hearing nothing but the wind and the blood in your ears.

In the evening, after we had had our braai, the moon slowly rose, and as you will see from the photos, it lit up the landscape almost like daybreak. We were amazed at how powerful the moonlight was and how it changed the lanscape and made it eerie. I imagined that the landscape that the river Styx runs through must look like the Spitzkpoppe did on Saturday night.

In other news

We are getting ready to go to Cape Town for ten days. K has set up various appointments with clever people who can help him with his project and I have made a VERY long and complex shopping list which gets added to every day. Thank goodness for our spacious Hank the Tank.

Otherwise, school is out and I should be updating my CV and learning all about Ghandi, which is our gr. 8 topic for the next semester. Instead I am availing myself of my mother's bookclub books which are all in a large box under her desk. Ooh, they have such good books. I highly recommend: "The time travellers wife". fascinating idea, quite bizarre and so interesting.

I am spending the day at home waiting for our new bed! Which was a bday present from K's folks, it's going to be So great!

In sad news, Henry's gallivanting has got him into trouble with our neighbours. SIGH. Apparently he thinks he should replace their two month old baby and has been caught a number of times sleeping in the baby's cot. The family are naturally irate, but actually being very sweet about it. As a result though, Henry and Oleo have had their garden priviledges intirely revoked and we are once again cleaning litterboxes. SIGH. We are going to try putting lion poop around our garden wall in the hope that that will keep Henry in, but I don't hold out much hope. Also - where on EARTH does one get lion poop????? I am sure they have plenty of it in Etosha, but how does one actually lay one's hands on it. And also - how badly does it smell???

Beware the Ostrich!

Before we arrived at the Galloway farm we had been warned about the Ostriches there. We passed on the message to the Bronze group that should any ostrich approach them, they were to immediately lie down on the ground and not look up. The kids seemed suitably impressed, and understood that the breeding pair were naturally protective of their newly hatched chicks.

We set out at a blistering pace early on Sunday morning and hadn’t been walking 45 minutes when an Ostrich appeared on the horizon. It was on the horizon and so we tried not to worry about it or think about it. But the problem with something being on the horizon is that the horizon gets closer, it also doesn’t help if the thing on the horizon is a curious bird and decides to come take a look. So very quickly the Ostrich became something we needed to worry and think about!

Luckily our head leader is someone whose head is very capable. She got the students to slow down and group together. By this time the Ostrich was extremely close to us, and becoming a little agitated. He indicated his agitation by fluffing his wings at us and setting his chin in an aggressive manner. By the time the Ostrich was close enough to see his very large middle toe, which can rip a man from chin to groin in one powerful kick, we had the kids standing in a huddle, with their backs facing out and Their eyes very determinedly down.

If you have ever seen an Ostrich up close you will understand why we were all freaked out. The thing was taller than K. And wide, and does actually quite closely resemble those things from Jurassic park that chased the kid around the kitchen. Pterodactylpolysaurus something or other.

Ostriches will peck at anything shiny, and for that reason we told the kids not to show the Ostrich their eyes. They all had to look down at the ground, but what was funny was that they immediately become obsessed with the concept. They were worried about their earrings, their watches and the zippers on their backpacks. After about 15 minutes of this huddle we started to move the whole group away. Some of the kids were so worried that they were walking backwards and of course there is a tree here called “wagnbietjie” – in English: Wait a little. The thorns of the tree hook into any fabric or skin that comes past and at least one child had to wait while we untangled them.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we did eventually manage to move everyone far enough away that the Ostrich forgot about us. They do after all have brain’s not larger than a walnut. Of course when we got back to parents and the school later in the day, there were grand stories of being attacked by an ostrich and rescuing each other mightily. If you look closely at the previous photo you will see in the distance the mighty beast that terrified us so.

Bushmen making fire and a temporary bushmen hut

IYA information

Here is the website that explains the IYA - International Youth Award. http://www.intaward.org/IAA/index.aspx

It started from the Duke of Edinburgh Award which some of you may have heard of and even participated in. It is a fantastic program and I recommend it to any young person who can get involved in it!

IYA and the Bushmen

This past weekend we went on another trip with the IYA – have I explained the IYA? Mmm, don’t think so, will do so in another post. Anyway, we packed 21 teens into a number of cars and headed north on the Okahandja road. WHAT? You ask, Are we doing going on ANOTHER trip with teenagers? Did we not learn from the last one?? But I have signed up for being and IYA leader and so must go, and therefore K must go too!

This trip was for the bronze award youngsters to have their expedition. Bronze is really all about training to do silver and gold level IYA. They learn how to put up a tent, how to hike silently so that they see interesting things, how to work together as a group and how to skip bathing.

The first leg of the trip was out to Abaadi where we were led on a walk by a pair of bushmen. They were dressed traditionally and showed us fascinating things like how to store water in ostrich eggs, how to identify uses of indigenous plants and how to make fire with two sticks. The students had so much fun doing the last! One must call the fire at the same time as rubbing vigorously. The way to call fire is with an eerie combination of clicks and eees, something like “tchai tchai eeeeeee”.

We also learned how to bake bread using an old anthill as an oven, the bread was mixed in a bucket and then placed under the anthill and covered with coals. I have rarely tasted anything so delicious!

After Abaadi we drove back to the Galloway farm where we set up our campsite in a riverbed. The kids made potjies while the adults chilled with a bottle of wine and appreciated the view. It was fascinating to watch the youngsters figure out who knew how to make a fire, who knew which stick went where on their tent and who was the most afraid of snakes! It was lovely to see that the people who are not the popular ones in school suddenly were everyone’s best friend because they had been camping before.

After sunset, dinner and marshmallows the students self-regulated and went to bed early. We woke them at 5, when it was still dark and felt like night, and headed off on a stiff walk around the farm. By the time we came home in the bus there was not a young voice to be heard, only snores!

Bronze IYA expedition

Hank the Tank

Here is a piccy of us and Hank the Tank. Named for the blue politician in X-men. I know, so far off the geek radar it hurts. But he’s blue and huge and when he gives us trouble we can call him Beast. It’s been quite a feat to get the dealership to sort him out – and I’ll name names… General Motors are a total pain in the arse. We are driving to Cape Town in a couple of weeks and the dealership has promised to have him sorted out by then, so hold thumbs etc for us! Meanwhile feast your eyes on the fabulousness that is a ’95 Volvo in almost mint condition, or rather, heading towards mint condition!

You say Tomato

I have now been back long enough to notice some essential differences between the two places I call home. The first and most noticeable is the lack of plastic spoons in Namibia. Or maybe it’s just Whk that insists on only eating off only the finest cutlery.

We used to use our thousands of plastic spoons to dish our cat’s food. That way we could feel like we were recycling the wretched things. Here, we have been reduced to using our own cutlery and then two precious plastic forks, one of which has lost all but one tine. In DC, plastic spoons were practically thrown at you! Coffee shops, Chinese takeout, lying around on the streets, magically appearing in the back of your spatula drawer. Here I have had to BEG the local chicken joint to share their spoons with me and I am becoming know as the crazy spoon lady.

I have one spoon now, but it has taken me three months to get it and I am still guarding my two plastic forks (named Winnie and Minnie) like they are a matching pair of diamond earrings!

mad skillz

In this pic you can see my sis doing a very complex manouvre called trapezing. The essential idea is that you strap yourself into a harness and then trust that harness with all your body weight and drop off the side of the boat. This makes the boat go MUCH faster and also tilt. For some reason, this is thought to be fun. For me, it mostly meant that I wouldn't pee on the boat out of fear, cos my rear end was hanging over deep blue sea and goodness knows what IN that sea! Clearly, my sis has an over-developed sense of adventure and should share just a little of it with me.

mmmmmm

Whoah - I reallllllly am craving Chipotle. The creamy guacomole spread all over the black beans, with the crunchy green peppers and the strong onions. All laid on a bed of fluffy, warm rice. Mmmmm, and if you're not on diet - the contrast of the cold sour cream in between, and the cheese to hold it all together. mmmm

Oh dear.

Walvis Bay

Here are a few photos - full story to come later once I have finished my history homework!

There was a resident seal at the yacht club who came up on shore and barked to be fed at 4 every day. He was very cute and did tricks for his fish! Actually, it may have been a she. Mum went over to talk to her/him and it rolled over in the water like it wanted it's belly scratched! Which is a bit like a leopard asking the same! At one point someone's rottwieler was running around on the beach and there was a brief face off between him and the seal. My bet was on the seal, especially if they got back in the water, but the rotty was smart enough to back off to a safe distance and bark instead.

Group photo

All 47 youngsters plus the four adults... I think one of the guides is in front too.

more Orange river

Orange river

This is K and I coming down a rapid called sjambok... in English... the equivalent of a cat-o'nine-tails.

Orange River - pictures four and five

On the last evening, the campsite was very large, we were basically camping out in a river mouth that had dried up. The boys couldn't resist putting sticks in the gravel for goal posts and playing some soccer. These are the same boys, who on the first night, wanted to sing Manchester United songs at close to midnight when everyone else had gone to bed long ago. They went to sleep talking soccer and woke up talking soccer. So when K bounced the ball on his head and some other fancy stuff, the boys were immediately smitten!

Watching them play in the dust with the sun setting on the mountain behind them was seeing soccer as poetry.

Orange River - pictures two and three

This gives a good sense of the geology and what it was like to be on the river with all the canoes, surrounded by water and mountains. In front is the guide giving the signal to stop.

Orange River - picture one

This is one of the river in the early morning on the last day.

wishes won't wash dishes

B and S wash dishes at their place next door, and I wash dishes at ours. I miss our dishwasher. Although, even if we used ALL our dishes we still wouldn't fill a machine. So I guess it's a blessing in disguise! Not to mention the water saved!

This is the Quinn cat next door that Henry desperately wants to be his new best friend. But she is making him work for that priveledge!

This is the wall we share with Mum's garden as seen from our upstairs bathroom. B and I sometimes have whole conversations from our upstairs bathrooms.

House & Home

Here are a few pictures of the house as we have done it up. I was given a new digital camera and so can finally put up pics - if I can get the internet to work with me, baby!

The first is of C and K at work in our dining room on a Sunday morning.

The second is of part of our kitchen, we seem to have unintentionally found a striped theme for the downstairs.

The lawn looks like it is starting to recover which makes the smell of the manure we put down worth it. Not that we can lie, walk or sit on the lawn without getting poo all over us yet. Hopefully we'll get it healthy just in time for winter!

I just cut some bougainvilla to put in our house, it doesn't have a scent but it is so exuberant, even in a vase that it livens up the lounge and K's fave sitting and reading the paper chair.

We are slowly starting to get to the place where we are completely set up and the admin is over, and we can actually start living a daily life. For me this involves getting up with the cats, walking around a few blocks with H before it gets too hot and then working on my history before going in to St P to teach it. For K it means running around in the car and eventually ending up at DRFN for some work.

The Great Orange River

The geography of the river is largely towering granite walls painted in red, oranges and blacks. The rock is folded and creased and cut sharply through the middle where the river has carved a path. Often in the morning and evening we were in the shadow of the mountains on either side of us.

It is hard for me to describe the feeling of being on the water in that place. In the early morning there are so many sensual experiences. The cold and wet grass tickling your feet. Drops of water falling off the paddle onto your bare legs as you pull your self through the water with smooth, even strokes, twisting your hand and shoulders to put the blade into the water. the sun burns the backs of your eyes as you watch a bird that is just a black shape against the light blue sky. In the evening the feelings are very different. Your body is exhausted and done. Your brain is on hold from feeling completely dominated by the environment around you. There is dirt everywhere but it is comforting and feels like it is keeping you warm. There are so many things that simply do not matter on the river and living becomes elemental. It is so physical all day that the physical becomes all you can focus on. Food, sleep, water are all your body needs. It leaves your mind and spirit completely empty and then fills it with the unforgettable scenery which becomes seared onto your pupils so that even when you close your eyes at night, in your sleeping bag, you see the silouette of the granite against the sky. And even in the night the physical environment cannot be ignored. It seems as though you must memorise every star and all the star dust and their place in the sky before you can sleep. It cannot be possible that anywhere else on the world is the sky as full as the earth.

rain, sunburns and the Orange river

Oleo just came dashing in, disgusted that the sky is once again promising to fall on her head. It has been thundering and lightning all day and the humidity is gross. You could say that a monkey is getting married cos it is raining at last, but the sun is till shining through the drops. The humidty after the rain is always worse because the water evaporates off the hot concrete.

K went to a workshop yesterday and didn't know it was outdoors. As a result he spent most of the day in a borrowed hat and trying to hide his crispy forearms under his shirt, behind his back and any other place that could give him some relief. His face is brown as a farmer's but his arms are nothing short of two large lobsters. Sleeping next to him last night was like sleeping next to a radiator. I on the other hand am looking more like my natural colour. Just from swimming and walking around I have got a healthy hue back.

We will be canoeing down the Orange river next week, we'll be going with the International Youth Award students. Four adults, fifty teens - promises to be fun. I made the lead teacher promise to let me be in the same canoe as K and his sunburn. I am feeling more than a little apprehensive as I have never even managed to make a kayak go backwards, let alone forwards over rapids! The advantage of having fifty kids with you is that I won't have to wash a single dish! I am looking forward to sitting at a fire, watching the glow of the embers, while the unending stars are above us.

Keir in the dunes

Keir, in Gobabeb

Catchup

I have now been here two weeks and as cliched as it is, time seems to pass differently here. It is like two weeks have been stretched out till I never left. And yet, I seem to not have done very much in the days I have had.

The house is all set up, and we have hung pictures, which goes the furthest to making a place feel like home. We bought and borrowed furniture from various sources so that now we have a lovely lounge and small dining room table. Most of you will understand that a small dining room table doesn't leave much space for scat or speed scrabble. Which is fine as we end up next door at L's most nights anyway.

C is already tired of speed scrabble but the rest of us love it so much that a night hasn't passed in the last six that we haven't played a game. The scat has gone down equally well with the more rowdy crowd. Of course that makes me happy as my bliss is to play cards all night, every night.

The cats are in heaven, Henry gallavants and is fast making buddies with all the neighbours, including L's cat and H's two wee dogs. The one is actually smaller than Henry - giving him an unfair advantage, it won't be long before there are complaints about our roving ginger boy. Oleo is as happy as a pig in mud, she has favourite spot under a bush for her mornings, and a spot in the ferns for the hot afternoons. They are getting along and even snuggle together with me when it finally cools down at about 3 in the morning.

I am walking everyday with H and in the evenings with L, the only times of the day when you want to be moving further than the fridge for water, which must be boiled and then cooled before drunk. On these walks I get thrills from all the birds I see that I have missed. This evening we saw guinea fowl, as well as the blue waxbill which looks like it was dipped in paint.

I have occasionally swum in the new town pool with R and that is lovely. As always, getting in is the hardest part. Your body is warm from the car ride, and the water is still cold from the previous night. Swimming under the sun, with the water glinting in front of me makes me impatient for visitors so that I can share these simple things that define life here.

A Closed Mouth gathers no Foot.

Last night I sat at my Mother's table and played cards with her, my two sisters, a boyfriend and my husband. The title of this post was something said by S - the boyfriend. It made us all laugh so hard and in that moment I was overrun by the feeling of being home and being held in the normalcy of here.

There are so many changes to the town, and to the people that are here, almost everything is slightly different. Whole new suburbs where, for me "here be dragons" was once stamped on the map. Wanaheda, Rocky Crest, Prosperita, these were not words that were part of my childhood. Now they are sections of the city I have never been to, in a city where I have lived in 18 houses in half a dozen suburbs, in a city where half a dozen suburbs was all there was.

There are also things that are the same and it is these things that give me silence in my soul. The roads still smell like evaporating petrol. The smell of rain (petrichor - I looked it up) and the smell of dust are all sensory reminders that I am where I always have been in my heart. They also remind me that these smells will always be here, wherever I go. The backs of my Mother's hands are still as soft as talc and the couch's texture is grainy. The sky is so blue and all the other colours are washed out by the sun. Everyone spells colours this way.

I do miss WDC. She is a large and vibrant city that sucks your time and leaves you with a nervous and tense energy that almost never fades until you collapse on your couch determined to ignore her, waiting, just outside the window.

WHK is so different, the breeze blows in my open door, and warmth of the passing day leaves a layer of dust on my skin that seems to make my day slow and gentle.