it's snowing in ayrshire!

no really ... hot damn i only have to put my nomadic feet on african soil and ...
it starts snowing ...
where i would have been ...
if i was not here ...

not to worry, i dare say i will "get over it" ... the snow envy, maybe ...

i am having a wonderful time in the old home country. it is summer, the sun shines, the birds sing and my face grows browner by the day. no more british palor for this girl. well, not on my face anyway. the rest of me remains super white!

this past week peter saddled up and took his aging mama on a road trip. a veritible journey into the past. a time of renewing the family connection. pure bliss for mama, the dear boy handled himself impeccably! we visited, we embraced, we stayed, i drank an ocean of coffee and peter imbibed enough coca cola to fill loch lomond! i looked into the eyes of my dear siblings, those wonderful souls who have been with me from my first memories. i have hugged and been hugged, i have cried and talked, shared news and memories, caught up on the comings and goings of the next generation and their offspring.

my youngest and i visited the botanical gardens in my old home town, pietermaritzburg.
the morning dew, still thick on the grass, soaked through our shoes as we made our way to 'the place'.
'the place' is a grand old camphor tree. beneath the spredding branches, in memory of my beloved mann is a memorial bench.
we sat and remembered the good times, we held tight and felt our loss as sharp and painful as the day we lost him.
does time help, does it dull the pain of remembering?
perhaps we have no wish to forget the beloved mann who lived and loved and enriched our lives.

yesterday we returned to joburg, happy to escape the excessive heat and humidity of kwazulu natal.
we were welcomed home with the kind of storm i adore, a ferocious downpour, flooding the streets and turning roads into raging rivers! these storms do tend to slow down the traffic a little but ... i was a passenger and free to enjoy this wild, wonderous, wet, african bounty.