Dec
06
5 months! We have lived in the UK for 5 months! Does it feel like 5 months? Well, actually to me it feels like 10. I think we have packed so much into the months that we have been here that I can’t possibly imagine that we could have done so much in such a short space of time. Summer changed to autumn and autumn became winter and now in just 14 days time the sun will start to makes its way back to us, as our days start to get longer again. I am still waiting for the horrible cold miserable winter that everyone described, but I have this strange sense that it might just be passing me by in oblivion. I don’t know if I am really going to see it as this dark terrible dreaded time, or if I am rather going to see it for what it really is… a few weeks of something different.
Yesterday was my 38th birthday. This was my first ever birthday away from South Africa, away from East London, away from my friends and family and I can honestly say that yesterday afternoon I missed my brother Michael more than I have since I arrived in the UK. In the years after my mom died Michael and I grew closer than we had ever been, we could sit and talk for hours and I don’t actually ever recall a bad word or an ill feeling that ever passed between the two of us. Of course there will be those times, the special occasions like birthdays and Christmas, when you do wish that you could see all the familiar faces that would just make the day perfect for you. There are a few people who I wish could have been here yesterday, some of them are very far away and some are a little closer, some have passed on and I carry them in my heart, but in the end of the day we make the special occasions matter with the ones we are with. I was invited to a mom’s night out with the year-3 moms from Jenna’s school on Thursday night and the evening became a little impromptu birthday party for me. I really appreciated the fact that this group of ladies who barely know me, would go out of their way to make it a special evening for me. So it is ok to miss the ones who have always been there for you, but whether your days are filled with familiar faces or whether you are invited out with new friends who then make you feel like you really matter, it’s up to you to decide what to do with it, how to make the most of it. I spoke to my brother on the phone yesterday evening and then it finally felt like my day was complete.
I was indeed spoilt for my birthday. I got an iPhone. I am usually not one for techno-gadgets, but I think this little device may just be the 8th wonder of the modern world. Getting gifts for a birthday or Christmas is so special. There is just something wonderful about holding a wrapped gift in your hands and wondering what is inside. I think it’s a feeling we experience in the very early stages of our lives and like a stamp on our emotions, we remember that feeling forever. It is just simply called “excitement”. Of course when the gifts arrive early and you know you can’t open them until the right moment, then “excitement” becomes “excruciating”. Well, for me it does anyway.
On Tuesday morning we woke to our first frost of the winter. It was the 1st of December and it seemed like the most appropriate start to the first day of the real winter months. Mitchell and Jenna have been waiting patiently for the frost and they were so excited to run outside in the freezing cold morning (Jenna was still in her pyjamas) to scrape the ice off the windscreen of the car. Everyone else was passing by in the street and there were the Wright
family in their pyjamas, in the freezing cold, on the pavement, with mom taking photos. Of course scraping the ice off the windscreen is not the best, fastest, or most comfortable solution. It is far easier to go outside 5 minutes before you plan to leave, turn on the engine, gradually turn up the heater in the car, and just wait a few moments. Now we will wait for the next instalment in “white winter mornings”. We will wait for more frost, thicker frost, and eventually a snow-covered garden.
On Friday Jenna’s school had their school Christmas market for the children, during the school day. Jenna came home with gifts for all of us, but that excitement that I spoke of earlier was too much for her to handle so she handed out the gifts and made us open them all. It was her very own Christmas shopping day. After school on Friday she went for her second try-out at the Gymnastics school in East Peckham. She absolutely loves it and this week I will register her to start classes.
On Saturday Mitchell’s school had a Christmas festival. There were stalls in the hall, in the gymnasium, in the cafeteria you could buy anything from a bottle of South African wine to Christmas decorations and everything in between. Most of the stalls were manned by boys from the school and I was delighted at just how well-mannered and pleasant they were. There were games for the kids, they could win prizes, and Santa was there in his grotto. It was just a lovely morning.
Our Christmas decorations are up, the lights twinkle in the lounge window, photos of our family and friends hang all over the Christmas tree, There are mince pies, mulled wine, burning log fires, frosty mornings and bags of gifts and just like the sun, Jon will soon be heading north to spend Christmas with us. There are those people we will miss this Christmas, but we will make the most of the time with the ones we are with.
