beware of the OWLS!

we are on the road again, like the littlest hobo, we just keep movin’ on.

but first things first, after my later posts from the bush it seems that i need to set the record straight. several friends have commented that they have been worried about my state of mind- i’ve had several comments that i sounded very sad in my October posts, and have presented a somewhat downheartened figure.

i didn’t meant to give that impression- i have really been fine, just a little introspective and philosophical perhaps. i’m sure that it is understandable that towards the end of a long hard busy season i’d be getting a little tired, and the novelty of bush living does start to wear a little on the soul of one unaccustomed to such a lifestyle, so my initial raving enthusiasm could hardly have lasted out the whole 5 months (if it had i’m sure you’d have wanted to strangle me! there is only so much ‘WOW! THIS IS AMAZING! IT’S ALL SO BEAUTIFUL! MY LIFE IS AMAZING!’ that any reader of a blog can take!). and inevitably, being out in the bush without all the usual trappings of modern life to distract, does lead one to more introspection, and thus perhaps a more melancholy blog.

but i never intended this to be a vessel for whinging and whining, nor did i intend it to be downbeat and disheartening, just an honest rant and rave about my feelings and the day to day of my slightly unusual life. and i definitely didn’t want to worry any of my nearest and dearest that i was chronically unhappy- not once, even on my most homesick of days have i ever regretted the decisions we made to take the job as bushcamp managers. we have got to have the most amazing experiences, and i am so grateful that we have had those opportunities. as with anything, you have good days and bad days, and i was just being honest in my representation in this blog.

and all i can say is thank goodness i lost my blog entitled ‘The End of Dreams’, or else i’d probably have mum trying to find the number for Zambian branch of The Samaritans!

but, with those things sorted out, let me tell you of our past week since leaving the Valley, and touching down in Johannesburg. oh, it has been so much fun! the things we’ve seen; the things we’ve done; the road signs that are still making me laugh now, days later… even on our first afternoon there was the predictable randomness that you are pretty much guaranteed and that i love about South Africa.

we navigated our way pretty successfully out of Johannesburg airport, and after a nervous few minutes when the road seemed to pull us straight in towards the city centre, we managed to skirt the massive dirty smoggy sprawl that is Jo’Burg. a few kilometres past the city we pulled in to a service station to top up our little hire car, Sparky (it is a Chevrolet Spark, so the naming of this one was easy. this, our last hire car on our ‘big trip’ is small, silver and serviceable, though lacking the character and years of our first, Grover. )

there was a little grassed area just to the right of the petrol pumps, which seemed to house a kind of petting zoo. a little strange for a petrol station, true, but what really raised an eyebrow was the choice of creature to ‘pet’- there were a pair of pissed off looking, those most notoriously unpettable of birds, ostriches strutting haughtily around. i shook my head, blinked a couple of times, but no, this petrol station did indeed have an ostrich petting zoo, alongside its choice of leaded, unleaded and diesel, and dodgy looking fast food. fair enough.

then i glanced at the car parked next to us, and saw that the man sitting in the driver’s seat had a little meerkat with a sky blue collar and lead perched on his shoulder. suddenly the ostrich petting zoo seemed normal…

we hit the road, and the surrealism continued as we saw the same road sign flashing up repeatedly. it had me in fits. it was a large exclamation mark in a red rimmed triangle. surely something very worrying to warn us about? you would think, but the lettering underneath the warning sign said simply ‘Owls for 5 kms’. i’m not sure exactly what the driver is meant to do to prepare themselves for these vicious and terrifying road hazards, but frankly it all felt a bit ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’. it didn’t stop me from taking up the war cry “OWLS!!!” every 30 minutes or so to keep the husband on his feet as he drove!

our first afternoon and evening in South Africa was just one long drive to Piet Retief, a little logging town that has nothing special to offer other than it was a half-way point on our drive to the coast and Sodwana Bay, our first real destination. we had been warned of road works along the way, which could make the drive to Sodwana take nine hours, and pretty soon we were indeed snared up in extensive road works. there was one particular point when we hit a stop sign and some traffic lights at the start of a one way traffic flow that took about 15 minutes to change (it was a very long one way stretch!). at this point the husband muttered something along the lines of “it’s all just got a bit African…. i have absolutely no sense of humour anymore…”. i shouted “OWLS!!” in response, which seemed to raise a smile, and we were shortly on our way again.

the whole situation quickly rectified itself upon our arrival at Piet Retief where we were swiftly welcomed into a massive homey room in a very Afrikaans backpackers, full of chintz and velour but with a very comfortable bed, and we spotted a KFC drive through just opposite. i’m not embarrassed to admit that we got a family meal, and made a very good attempt at devouring the lot- i may have lost momentum towards the end, but i did at least peel off and inhale most of the crispy, salty, familiar flavoured chicken skin. and it was DELICIOUS!

i slept prettily heavily that night with the greasy chicken in my belly, occasionally wakened by what i thought in my sleep addled state was the low rumble of lions roaring, but which of course was only the sound of the heavy logging trucks rolling down the main road.

the next day dawned clear and bright, and we got straight on the road to Sodwana Bay, arriving in the early afternoon at a friendly diving lodge that we had picked at random from the Lonely Planet. the welcome there was relaxed and warm, and my delight at being at our destination was matched and compounded by the affections of a resident massive 8 month old great dane puppy, that bounced around us and was generally adorable. we got showed to our little chalet, which had plug sockets (oh the thrill!) and a little en suite bathroom that was… inside!! A-MAZ-ING!

i admit, after 5 months of living in a tent, my standards may have slipped somewhat, but it was great to finally be at our destination, and have nothing to do other than relax, plan some diving, and think about ourselves. firmly in the mind-set of thinking about ourselves we had a beer, and then went to get some food for that evening’s dinner. being in a supermarket was a massive thrill in and of itself, as was the prospect of cooking for ourselves on the communal braii.

the afternoon’s happy activities were only briefly interrupted when we got the spare blanket out of the cupboard and spread it on the bed, in preparation for a night’s sleep at less than 38 degrees. as i unfolded the blanket over the bed it became apparent that i had inadvertently just unwrapped a surprising little package. i don’t remember my exact words, but the husband said i uttered something like “there is a mouse in the blanket…and another mouse is coming out of it… your job, your job, man job!”. it appeared that we had uncovered a mouse nest (or possibly even a little ‘lat’ nest- we didn’t look too closely) that had been built in the thick folds of the blanket whilst it had been out of use in the cupboard. after a few moments of panic the husband dragged the blanket outside, nest, mouse (rat), mouse-babies (rat- babies) and all. end of the issue. i felt a bit wussy when i requested a clean blanket, and it was only then that i realised how ‘bush-i-fied’ i had become- after our months of living with a resident rat in our tent, snakes in our bathroom and any multitude of creatures just a sheet of canvas and a zip away having a couple of teeny mice (rats?) on our bed seemed frankly like nothing to make a fuss about!

for dinner we cooked steak, corn, and potatoes over the big fire pit, surrounded by the other guests at the dive lodge who were all very friendly and chatty, and after a very satisfying supper and a lovely bottle of hearty red wine we promptly fell into a deep sleep in preparation for an early start the following morning.

we were awake with the dawn, as is now our habit, but lay in bed a little before we headed down to the beach to get in the water for our first dive in a year, and the husband’s 100^th dive.

sadly, it didn’t go exactly to plan- the swell was massive, and unaccustomed as we were to the motion of the ocean after many months in a landlocked country by the time we had got out to the dive site and kitted up we were both feeling a little seasick. nonetheless, regs in and masks on we flipped off the boat and attempted a negative entry down to the dive site 30 metres below. unfortunately, my buoyancy had some other ideas and had a bit of an argument with me- i’d asked for an extra weight, but had been told by the divemaster that 5 kgs should be fine. i suppose this should be taken as a compliment- generally the heavier you are the more weight you need unless you are a very good diver, so the master had either assumed i was less fat than i am, or a better diver than i am, which is nice. but after a few minutes of having my head and torso under water but my feet desperately kicking into thin air above the waves it became obvious that i wasn’t going anywhere deeper than a metre or two without the extra weight. the husband was my dive buddy, and he realised instantly that something was wrong, we both met up on the surface, and called the dive boat over. the skipper gave us the extra kg, and we finned down together towards the buoy line, but the swell at the top of the water hadn’t diminished at all and so we soon found ourselves swimming against the current, 17 metres down but entirely unable to see the rest of the dive group. after a few minutes of this we were both exhausted, and not really enjoying ourselves so we decided to abort the dive and return to the surface and the boat. disappointing, after we had been looking forward to it for so long, but ultimately sensible.

we dived again later that morning, which went much better, though i did still struggle with my buoyancy due to some trapped air in my BCD that i just couldn’t dump. i spent the last 10 minutes of the dive with my bum somewhere above my head, and by the time we returned to the lodge that afternoon i had become known as ‘bubble arse’ by the rest of the Afrikaans divers in our group and had lost any dignity! not that diving is a particular dignified sport at the best of times- too much struggling into wetsuits, hauling your exhausted body in and out of RIBS and spit and snot in the mask for dignity to play a massive part!

we had another couple of days in Sodwana Bay, punctuated by dives, puppies and lots of sleeping and catching up with ourselves and the rather excellent HBO series ‘Game of Thrones’ which one of our guests had downloaded to our hard drive earlier in the season. life was good!

after a final dive on Sunday morning (some go to church, we go to the beach!), we reluctantly packed up our bags and hit the road, headed further south to Durban, and Tekweni backpackers, our spiritual home in South Africa.

we drove down the motorway, accompanied the entire afternoon by grey storm clouds and heavy pelting rain, but no OWLS! thankfully... which brings us almost to present day.

we’ve been at Tekweni now since sunday evening, and are just thinking of extending our stay by another night. we are lodging in Room 7, which is rather a grand name for the little shed we are in (seriously, it’s a garden shed, but with a double bed, electricity and a fan, so it’s pretty classy by our bush-standards), and have made ourselves very comfortable. the weather has mostly held, cooling down and sometimes raining in the evenings (its currently pelting down), but being gorgeously sunny and comfortably warm in the day time.

we have whiled away the past couple of days down by the beach, and today we submitted to the glorious cheesiness of UShaka Marine World- a complex of shops and restaurants, a ‘Sea World’ and a water slide park. it was the kind of thing that i would have probably been very snotty about a few months ago, but we just gave in and totally went with it. and we actually had a really great afternoon watching dolphins, testing our fish identification at the aquarium, surrounded by kids and brightly coloured amusements and fake shipwrecks. it was all just so different to what we have been living the past few months, and that in itself made it fun. the aquarium gave me a real craving for one of my favourite things, sushi- funny how the mind works- and we shared a surprisingly great platter at a chain restaurant called Ocean Basket, all of which was made right in front of us. we concluded the afternoon with a purchase of a beautiful tan and white Nguni skin (these are the Zulu cows, and the patterning on their coats is stunning), which is something we have been planning on buying for our as yet imaginary home back in the UK since we left Zambia in February.

so all in all its been another great day in Africa, and i am fully relaxed and falling in love with this laid back life on the road all over again. just keeping an eye out for the OWLS!....

things what i have learned being a bushcamp manager....

we are just about to leave the Valley.
we have bags fit to bursting, a computer bulging with photos, and a plethora of happy memories. our final farewells have been said at camp a few days ago, and we have just now enjoyed our last sundowners on the deck at the lodge. and, as i feel has now become customary, as we move onto the next part of this whirlwind journey, i am considering what important life lessons this most recent stage has taught me.

and unlike most of my previous blog entries, i think i can condense these ruminations into a few important succinct (ish... well it is me!) points.

the first, that the husband is a really wonderful, patient human being.
i didn’t think it would be possible, and all logic points away from it, but after spending the past 5 months working together every day and living together in a teeny tiny tent, i actually love him more than I did when we left the UK. he unquestioningly picks up my slack, does the complicated jobs that i don’t fancy, takes responsibility for dealing with tricky issues and he even pushed me in front of him when we were being charged by the bull elephant. he fetches me gin and tonics when i whine that i’m thirsty, and he even puts fish goujons on the brunch menu, even though he hates them himself, just because they remind me of my favourite Bird’s Eye fish fingers. he has calmly put up with my many strops and freak outs since i’ve been here (over variously, snakes in the bathroom; the tent being forever dusty and full of leaves; and our useless and beligerent trainee waiter), he has hugged me when i’ve been sad and missing home, and he has held my hand at beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
i know now more than ever just how lucky i am to have him as my husband, my best friend and my partner. i feel closer to him than i ever have before….. and not just because we’ve been living with no toilet door for 5 months.

second, i have realised that (clichéd as it sounds) ‘Home is where the heart is’.
and perhaps more importantly, i have learned that my heart is at home, in England with my family and with my friends. i have missed certain people so very much, they know who they are, and their constant support and enthusiasm via emails (when i could pick them up) and occasionally by phone has reminded me how lucky i am to have such wonderful loyal gorgeous people in my life. their enthusiasm for our adventures, and their concern when i’ve been struggling with elements of bush life has been so touching, and undoubtedly kept me going through tougher times. they’ve kept me up to date with their lives, and just hearing their voices resonate through their words about their day to day trials and tribulations has been so grounding and reassuring. their joy and excitement at our imminent return has really moved me, and i am so very grateful to have them waiting for us to come home. rest assured you beautiful people- i am just as excited to see you again too, and counting down the days.

and third, perhaps the biggest revelation, is that buttocks have an incredible capacity for sweating. i hadn’t realised it until the heat out here really picked up, and i found every time i sat down on a car seat, dining chair, bean bag, etc, i’d get up five minutes later with a soaking wet arse.
it was worrying initially, but after realising i hadn’t developed incontinence overnight when i turned 30, it is just now incredibly annoying and uncomfortable.

so, those are the three biggest lessons i am taking away from my time as a bushcamp manager. (i have outlined other things i have learned out here in the Valley in previous blogs, but i think these are the most important truths i can take away.)

one, that I have a fantastic husband at my side, and two a love filled family and group of friends waiting for me to set up home back in the UK, and three that i have both of those things despite having a rather sweaty arse.
so i think that i’ve learned that i’m a very lucky girl.

it shouldn't happen to a bushcamp manager...

today i started packing up our little bush home, gathering together all the knick knacks and bits and pieces we have accumulated over our time in the Valley- pictures i have drawn that we had wooden frames made for, pretty feathers and shells and mahogany pods, cards from friends and guests. all the things that have made our tent a home. we leave the camp in just under a week, and the valley itself in just over. and in doing so, i have been remembering our time here, the people we have met and worked with, and all the things we’ve seen and done.

now i could turn this blog into a deeply reflective monologue, but i fear i may have written one too many of those recently. i wrote a massive diatribe along those lines a couple of weeks back, but after an incident with an epilator, and some throwing (too complicated to go into now, but let us just say it concluded Epilator 1, Computer Nil) that appears to be lost into the ether. i will try and recover it and upload it post-datedly at some point, but i don’t really have the energy to go into it all again (40 degrees and massive humidity totally saps the energy, surprisingly!), and i’m thinking perhaps i should take it as a sign. this blog needs a little more light-heartedness.

so in that spirit, i thought it might be nice to remember some of the funnier, occasionally ridiculous moments and things that i’ve heard over my time as a bushcamp manager. i hope they translate into this blog- they have certainly had me creased up. and, they have mostly not been the times that guests have made ‘funnies’- lewd jokes about the size of African sausages (a tree that grows massive, heavy sausage shaped pods), or the recurring ‘What are we eating tonight?’,’Pork chops’, ‘Not warthog??!’, ‘Ha ha ha, I’ve not heard that before! But no…as I said its pork chops.’.

the funniest moments have almost entirely been unintentional, which of course makes them all the funnier. here are a selection of the things that have made me smile since June:

* a fellow bushcamp manager was having issues with his water supply, so called a meeting with all his staff, and asked them politely to refrain from showering for the morning to conserve water, until he had managed to work out what the problem was. after spending a frustrating few hours holding the pipes together in the Luangwa river trying to fix the problem and make the water pump again, he returned to his camp to find his assistant chef in the shower cubicle, water flowing freely.

upon asking him, no doubt entirely politely and with absolutely no expletives, why he was showering when he had expressly asked him not to, the reply was: ‘But Bwana, I am most certainly not showering! I am washing my shoes!’. not entirely the best use of limited water resources….

*there has been an airstrip built in between the bushcamps in the south of the national park, to allow particularly wealthy clients to fly straight in to the camps and avoid the long and bumpy 2 and a half hour transfer drive from the main gates. earlier in the season the first chartered plane was due to arrive, and we were chuffed that the guests who were arriving were coming to our camp. posh, eh?

so all of our staff begged and pleaded to go along with the husband who was meeting the guests, so they could get to see a plane land close up- a first for them. we thought it would present quite a spectacle on this tiny airstrip if we lined up the whole team, and as the guests stepped off their plane they were greeted by iced drinks and cool towels and a smart line of staff to meet them in the middle of the bush, so we agreed they could all go, leaving me to hold the fort back at camp. the staff were all over the moon, got dressed up in their smartest uniform, and headed out with the husband.

they returned an hour or so later, slightly shame faced, and all hurried back to their tasks. when i asked the husband how it had gone he said that it had initially been fine, and everyone had lined up neatly at the end of the runway, all very excited as the plane circled overhead, and he had been super proud of his super team. it was only as the plane came in to land, wheels touching down gently that he looked to his left and right to admire this super team and the super sight that they must present to the super rich guests on the tiny caravan plane. and instead of his receiving line he saw half a dozen backs sprinting in to the undergrowth. every single one of them had panicked in unison, and like a herd of impala scattered for the nearest cover, to cower behind various bushes until the plane had come to a standstill. not quite the super professional welcome we had in mind….

* mind you, i can’t really criticise. having spent the entire season boldly walking guests around the camp at night, armed just with a sturdy Maglite and an aura of confidence, a couple of weeks ago i broke the golden safari rule (never, ever run) and i too ran for cover.

we had an evening where a family of elephants had decided to take a particular liking to the trees around our camp, and were happily munching away in between our tents until late into the night. this posed a problem with escorting the guests back to bed after dinner, but we took our guide and he managed to persuade all but one of the elephants to move away with a clever combination of flashlights and mind games. after a frustrating and tense half hour, standing in the dark making small talk with our two last flagging guests, the guide (also tiring) assured us that the massive beast was calm, but not going anywhere, and we had to move around him, off the path to get the guests to their rooms. we did this stealthily and slowly, and crept up to their porch and bade the guests a whispered goodnight. but in getting to the tent we had been forced to rejoin the path and were now only metres away from the bull elephant. as we backed away the animal lifted his head, and shook his ears in a classic threat posture. we froze, and as it took a step towards us we heard the guide shout ‘run’. after the previous 30 minutes being strung tight as a bow, the one command was all we needed, and i had dropped the lanterns i had been surreptitiously collecting, which instantly guttered and went out, and we were leaping like lithe little impalas through the undergrowth in pitch darkness. i lost both flip flops, which unsurprisingly allowed me to run a little faster (its hard to sprint in flip flops) and amazingly i didn’t impale myself, and we all reached the car park intact, nervously laughing and whispering under our breath. the elephant had not turned a full-on charge on us, he had merely mock charged for a few steps, and the guide later said he had not told us to run, but instead uttered the words ‘he has come’… which doesn’t make much sense, and the guide was pretty hot on our heels, but we’d best give him the benefit of the doubt.

the experience was funny of its own accord (just picture it; us crashing through the undergrowth in the dark, havaianas and lanterns flying, not actually being chased by anything, just leaving a pretty calm and bemused elephant staring at our retreating backs, and you know it’s funny!), but what really cracked me up was when we were talking about the incident and our desperate ‘dash to safety’ the following day to our waiter. he nodded sagely, and totally deadpan said “Yes madam…. Well it’s always good to get a little exercise in camp.”.

* we had a very sweet guest passing through for lunch one day who hailed from Singapore. i had been quietly admiring her handbag as she loaded on to the vehicle on her way out, a beautiful tan Mulberry, when it dawned on me that she had walked in to camp…. So she had been carrying a massive leather Mulberry handbag through the bush, in the heat of the morning, for 4 hours. hardly the most practical carrying device- it didn’t even have a shoulder strap- but at least it contained useful things like her binoculars, and camera and a hat or a bird book right? no, she opened it up as she got into the vehicle to reveal a set of travel size Molton Brown shampoos, and a bulging make up bag… not entirely necessary equipment on a bush walk you must admit.

the best bit was the guests who had arrived with her said she had been talking about the bag for the duration of her stay- this wasn’t an old battered thing that she didn’t mind if it got knackered out in the bush, this was a brand new purchase at LHR, bought for the express purpose of the safari. she thought it would be ‘just perfect’ for bush walks….because it was tan….. hmmm…. yeah…. £800 well spent i think….

* we have been in camp over the tenth anniversary of 9/11. we have had a lot of American guests. we have heard quite a lot of quite bigoted opinions blurted out over the dinner table- it seems as a rule the Americans are not quite so fond of political correctness as us Brits, and when talking about 9/11 it seems anything goes. (for the record, i’m not saying that 9/11 wasn’t an atrocity against mankind, but i am saying that all muslims are not to blame for it.). as ‘hosts’ we are obliged to keep our mouths shut, and attempt to veer guests on to less dangerous topics of conversation, but on one occasion there was absolutely nothing we could do:

American Guest (concluding a long anti-muslim rant): So in short, their women shouldn’t be allowed to wear their silly burka thingies, they shouldn’t be allowed to have all their ramadans, not in our country, no siree, and if we aren’t careful they are going to overpopulate us, because they just keep having babies, and then they will want to bring in their shariah laws, and frankly its dangerous, and I just think they should all go back home.

American Wife: Well, let’s talk about something a bit more cheery shall we? (Turning to her neighbour, a charming French lady who had remained silent for a while) Do you have children?

French Guest: Yes, one grown up son.

American Wife: Ah yes, I remember you said… He’s married to a Muslim lady... Aaaahh….

* another lunch time conversation between guests from different backgrounds cracked me up recently. we had some rather well heeled Brits in camp, and some more down-to-earth aussies. they were discussing hunting, and talking about shooting in the UK. after a long conversation about the relative merits of pheasant and grouse shoots, and the way that dogs were used to flush the birds from the undergrowth the Aussie girl was looking a little confused and piped up;

Aussie guest: “So let me get this straight, you go out and scare the birds out of the bushes and then you shoot them, send dogs after them, and then eat them?”

British guest: “Yep that’s pretty much it.”

Aussie guest: “OK, sorry I just wanted to get it straight. You see I’m from Queensland. We pretty much just shoot kangaroos there.”

* i overheard another conversation between guests at tea time, one enquiring about the call of a Grey Lowrie, whose common name is ‘The Go-Away Bird’ after its distinctive ‘Ka- waaay’ call:

Guest 1: “What bird is that?”

Guest 2: “Go-away”

Guest 1: “What bird is that?”

Guest 2: “Go-away”

Guest 1: “Ok, that’s not very nice and I’m leaving tomorrow, but I just wanted to know what bird is that?”

* a great conversation between guide and guest took place on a walk- i was not there, but had the incident described to me afterwards by the guest who couldn’t stop giggling:

Guest: “What is that baboon doing? Why is it scratching at the ground?”

Guide: “Ah, that one, he is digging for nuts and seeds.”

Guest: “And what is that baboon doing? Why is it up a tree?”

Guide: “That one is acting as a lookout for the group.”

Guest: “And what is that baboon doing? Why is it sitting in such a funny position?”

Guide: “Ah… that one he is warming his testicles in the sun.”

* we had a rather odious wannabe travel journo in camp for a few days, who was with us on a freebie and taking full advantage of our bar. after a particularly heavy afternoon, where he had polished off an entire litre bottle of smirnoff at sundown, he bought the conversation round to Bear Grylls, and said his brother had given him a Bear Grylls knife for his African adventures. he was upset at his brother’s lack of sensitivity;

“Why on earth would I want a Bear Grylls hunting knife? He’s my competition man! He’s the reason I can’t get on TV!!”.

it was another bite your tongue moment, and to my shame I nodded sympathetically and failed to correct his wildly optimistic statement. actually Bear Grylls is young, charming, ex- army, and he makes programmes about surviving in the wilderness. he is not late forties, and staying in luxury safari lodges. i suspect Bear is not really his competition at all, and perhaps the reason this man is failing to get on tv may have something to do with the fact that he was far more interested in depleting our bar stocks than actually getting out and filming anything. and even when he did venture out of camp he seemed to spend the entire time trying to figure out how his camera worked, where he had put the tapes and worrying about his microphone giving him a third nipple under his skin-tight t-shirt. Bear Grylls- never fear, i think your career is safe for the time being.

* i was suffering from an upset stomach a few weeks back, and had spent the morning laying low. on emerging from our tent in the early afternoon i saw a new scout that was in camp. i greeted him, and asked of his wellbeing, as is customary, and he did the same to me. when he asked how i was i replied honestly;

Me: I’m OK. Feeling much better than this morning thank you.

Scout: You were unwell madam? What was wrong?

Me: Just a bit of a bad tummy.

Scout (nodding sagely): Ahh…. Was it the diahorrea?

Me: No, more the other way actually.

Scout (again nodding sagely, but now grabbing my hand in a vice-like grip): Ahh… hold….. HOLD….

I can only assume that he was referring to my sphincter muscles, and the grip was to ram home the message… it was a little unclear, and to be honest the conversation had taken a turn for the personal which left me feeling a little uncomfortable, given that I had just met this guy, but I suppressed my giggles and nodded sagely back at him.

Me: Yes, thank you, I most definitely will be sure to hold.

* the Zambian radio that the guys listen to is most entertaining, despite (or perhaps because) of the preponderance to play 80’s and 90’s electro pop. it seems not an hour goes by without the Venga Boys or Right Said Fred being churned out, and just last week i heard the old classic ‘You Drive Me Crazy’ which was according to the DJ performed by the “Fine Young Can- Eballs”.

one of my favourite shows is called ‘The News from the News’, and involves a lot of shuffling of papers and the DJ very haltingly reading out random sections from the newspaper, typos and all.

but the funniest thing i ever heard was a preacher- type, shouting and exclaiming his message to the masses. and the lesson for the day was indeed a worthy one- it was ‘Why you should not beat your wife’.

the two main reasons he gave though, were somewhat shakier;
“You should not beat your wife, because what if you beat her into a coma? Then who, who will wake up in the morning and make your breakfast?

You should not beat your wife because what if she wakes up in the morning and decides to beat you back with a crowbar? She could beat you into a coma!

For these reasons it is very bad, and you should not beat your wife.

Amen”

* i had another few smiles over cultural differences, when our staff had to fill out their personal information forms. they had to list their children, and give their ages. our head chef (a lovely caring man I hasten to add) was totally stumped by this, and after a great deal of pencil chewing he told us that he could remember the names of his 6 children, but as for ages he could not possibly hazard a guess.

no such problem for our laundry man, who proudly filled out all of his five children’s names and ages. the first four were the usual biblical names- Noah, Peter, etc. but i think his wife had given him free reign on the naming of his youngest. his 4 month old baby is called Astronut.

* on other occasions it is enough for mere mispronunciation to be the cause of hilarity.

i’m sure you can imagine we had a lot of giggles in September, in the run up to the national elections, given the Zambian tendency to replace ‘l’s with ‘r’s and vice-versa…. dinner table conversations were often punctuated with statements from one of our guides along the lines of “We are all very excited about the big erections”, “We think this will be the most momentous erection for our country”, and “The results of this erection could be life changing”. our guests to their credit kept very serious faces; i am immature, and sometimes had to hide mine behind a napkin.

but my favourite mispronunciation was when we had a panicked radio call one day from the office down at the lodge- it appeared that one of our members of staff had failed to turn up to court, and the police had arrived at the lodge and demanded that we send him out so he could attend his case. we protested that we were grossly understaffed and needed some notice to get in a replacement, but the response from the office was that if we didn’t send him out immediately the police would come down to the camp and get him. and the final word from the office was “And they have HAND-I-CUFFS!”. however menacing our friend on the radio was trying to be, it’s difficult to project an air of seriousness when the threat is ‘hand-i-cuffs’.

* and finally, despite being a generally good humoured person, there is not much that makes me laugh when I am up pre-dawn to prepare breakfast for guests- i can appreciate the beauty and the peace and all that guff, but i’m usually running round like a blue-arsed fly, trying to make sure all the sugar bowls match, the porridge is hot, and the guests are all awake, so having a good old guffaw is bottom of my list of priorities. but one morning, not that long ago, i had the funniest conversation with our room attendant at 5.35 in the morning, and it left us both in total fits:

Me: Have you done all the wake up calls for the guests Dan?

Room attendant Dan: Erm…. Yes madam, I’ve done 4 and 3 and 2…

Me: What about tent 1? Have you woken up the guests in tent 1?

PAUSE

Dan: Erm….. no madam, I have not done 1.

Me: OK… but why not Dan?

PAUSE

Dan: Well madam, I was scared.

Me: Why were you scared Dan?

Dan: Well…. Erm… there were loud noises coming from the tent madam.

Me: Were they people noises?

Dan: Yes madam.

Me: Were they arguing noises?

Dan: No madam.

Me: Sooooo…. What kind of noises Dan?

BIG PAUSE

Dan: Mating noises madam.

ANOTHER BIG PAUSE

Me: Well….. I guess they are already awake then…

all in all, it has been an amazing and generally very happy period of our lives, and we have laughed many times over the past 5 months.

despite the inevitable frustrations, the odd difficult guest, and the occasional struggle with our circumstances, i know when i look back on our time as bushcamp managers i will only be able to smile.

what a difference a day makes...

i had always assumed when October was referred to as ’The Suicide Season’ by bushcamp managers it was due to the oppressive heat and humidity. we are halfway into the month, and i now have a different theory.

i think people start to feel a little strange, perhaps a little mad, come October because by that time they have been out in the wilderness for so long. it has certainly worked with me that way. and indeed, i’ve held back from blogging for a week or so, because i’ve been feeling so sorry for myself, and in such a negative state of mind, and i didn’t want to write something i would seriously regret.

i’ve had little rants in my head about how utterly tedious it is to still be washing every bra and pair of pants in a little green plastic bowl lodged into the sink; i’ve had fits about the fact that it is impossible to keep the sand and foliage out of our tent, so every morning as i lever myself out of bed i trudge over several dried crackling leaves before i can turn on the light; and i’ve actually wept real, angry tears about the impossibility of keeping the sheets clean, because our feet are always so filthy from walking around in flip flops day after day that you can’t help but leave dirty paw prints on the end of the bed.

i’ve had thoughts revolving in my head, just waiting to be typed out, about how my beautiful isolated Eden has transformed in my head, and now feels more like a prison.

about how hard it is to keep a smiling face with the guests day after day, to nod and agree how fantastic it is that there is no internet, and no tv, and what a relief to be away from the pressures of the modern world, when all you really want to do is get out of this backwards outpost and back into civilisation.

and about how sad that a place i initially adored and was so excited to be living in has transmuted into a place i just can’t wait to get away from.

and all of this negativity is genuinely, i believe, bought about by a kind of cabin fever. i’ve always been susceptible to it- i would drive the husband crazy when we were living in London because we’d plan for a quiet weekend in, and by Sunday at 3pm i’d be climbing the walls, having a hissy fit and demanding we go somewhere, anywhere, do something, anything, just as he was settling down to watch hours of pre-recorded football. and that was how i reacted after a day and a half in our 3 bed house, with internet, sky tv, all of my belongings to entertain me, and a plethora of activities at my fingertips.

the only thing that is surprising to me now, when i consider it, is that it has taken 4 and a half months for the cabin fever to kick in here in the bush, where in many ways we are so much more restricted in what we can do, and so much more contained in a relatively small area.

i suppose there have been breaks, the odd day here or there where we have escaped up to the lodge, and at the start of the season when we were quieter we would often ‘get out’ when transferring guests to other camps, or even get to go on evening game drives if there were few enough guests that the presence of two extra bodies in the back wouldn’t force anyone to squeeze up. these little journeys out of our camp base were enough to break the monotony, and just give a brief change of scene; enough to keep me sane and halt the encroaching cabin fever.

but for the past month, since we got back from the 3 days off over my birthday in September, we have been almost constantly full to capacity. this has kept us within the confines of the camp, and within a schedule, so even though the faces that we see every day are changing as the guests move through, the programme is always the same and the monotony starts to hammer home.

we had a really fantastic Australian couple come and stay at the start of the month for two nights. they were living and working in a remote mining town in Zambia, and travelling with their mum and showing her the sights of the country they currently call home. they were our age, and we bonded instantly. i felt that i could talk honestly with them and share the pressures of being away from home, being thrown into a community that is alien, and how much you start to miss modern conveniences that you took for granted. better than that even, it was amazing to chat to people who were totally on our wavelength; who used swear words as adjectives not expletives; who not only knew what we were talking about when we mentioned the likes of ‘Summer Heights High’ and ‘Family Guy’, but agreed on their genius rather than thinking them crude, infantile and in bad taste. it was absolutely amazing to spend time with guests who felt like friends and equals, and though we have had some really fantastic people stay with us and i have adored many, almost everyone who passes through is closer to our parent’s age than ours, and these were the first in a long while who were just like our friends back in England. i didn’t want them to leave after their two very short days, and when they did the void their parting left just rammed home to me how trapped and bored and frustrated i was feeling. the cabin fever was well and truly upon me.

and thus, i did about the only thing i felt i could do.

i sulked .

because of course there is no stomping off in the bush, there is no slamming the door and going for a long walk, there is no ringing up a friend and going to hang out at theirs for a change of scene. there is nowhere to go, so i stayed where i was and was miserable.

i’m not a totally irresponsible bitch, and iI recognised that the guests who were coming to stay with us had paid an awful lot of money to be here and inflicting my sulky face on them was not really fair, so i pulled it (and myself) together for the times that i was front of house. but behind the scenes i spent most of my hours angrily swinging in our hammock, or face down on the bed, finding it difficult to raise enthusiasm for anything, snapping at the local staff or the husband, and generally being very bad company. if i wasn’t exactly suicidal i was pretty damn depressed, and i suspect my behaviour and moods were pushing others towards homicide.

so this was what the famed ‘Suicide Season’ was all about.

eventually the husband realised that something had to be done, for my own welfare and sanity, and also (probably mainly) his. he insisted i go up to the lodge, just for a few hours- there was a transfer leaving at 5 in the morning, and another returning at 12 the same day.

this would give me about 4 and a half hours in a different place, with different faces, with access to internet, and the option to go to the spa and get a rush job done on my feet, which by this time had suffered the worst of my agitation and frustration and were pretty much picked to shreds.

i was sullen, couldn’t really think it would make me feel better, and at times almost couldn’t be bothered to go. and then the night before, when it looked like there wouldn’t be room on the vehicle to fit me in i amazed myself by the lump that materialised in my throat and the hot tears that streamed down my face. i rushed to the sanctuary of the hammock, and decided i was most definitely mad.

but at 5am the following morning, just as the morning dawn was cresting the hills, i plonked myself into the front passenger seat of the transfer vehicle, with 6 passengers behind all wrapped up, and waved goodbye to the camp for a few hours. as we drove away i realised that i hadn’t left the 100 metres stretch of land that the camp is situated in for almost a month.

and i felt the weight on my shoulders lifting almost immediately.

by the time we reached the lodge a couple of hours later i was smiling and garrulous, and it was all one hundred percent genuine. no forced smiles, no fake laughs- i was just pretty happy to be somewhere different for a short while.

and of course the time passed way too quickly, and i didn’t get half the things done that i needed to do, but it didn’t really matter- i felt refreshed and revitalised by my change of scenery, and ready to face my guests and my staff with a healthy attitude, and a spring in my step. no longer a victim of ‘Suicide Season’, just a smiley bushcamp manager ready to enjoy being out in the middle of nowhere for the last few weeks of the season, keen to make the best of the situation we’ve found ourselves in, and to suck every last little bit of enjoyment out of our last days here.
after all, it really is a little slice of Eden.

and if anyone tries to tell you different they are probably just sulking.

things what i have learned after i turned thirty...

it is pretty much the same as being twenty-nine.

only with proportionately more time spent in a spa... though i am only 1 1/2 days into thirty-ness, so unfortunately i think that might change....

things what i have learned before i turn thirty...

my wisdom teeth.

they are still hanging on in there, half emerged and half stuck in the safety of my gums. they have been this way for a number of years. every 3 months or so they look to be making a bid for freedom, and i get sore gums where they try to push through a little bit further. and every time i go to my dentist for a check up, she has a prod at them, and says maybe next time they will have come through enough to warrant yanking them out, but really they seem to be in no rush.

and i wonder if maybe my wisdom teeth are a bit of a metaphor for me as a whole person- they, and i it seems, are half way there. i’m definitely half way to being wise and have learned a lot in my 30 years on this earth, but I also recognise that there is a lot more left for me to learn before I can even hope to be ‘yoda-like-smart’ about the world that surrounds me.

and, frankly, I think that’s about enough wisdom for this (nearly) thirty year old for the time being. I wouldn’t want to have it all figured out by now, any more than my 4 wisdom teeth want to be yanked from my gums- if I did it would make for a fairly dull next 30 years!

but, I do like to share, so here are a few pearl(y white)s of wisdom that I have learned recently:

*I have learned that people are essentially the same the world over- some people will bend over backwards to help you, just because they are nice like that, and some people will do their best to bend you over and screw you, just because they are not nice like that. the trick lies in working out who is what.

* I have learned that turning a top back to front is a great way of extending your wardrobe repertoire when stuck with the same clothes for 5 months straight and no opportunity to buy any exciting new ones. it makes a refreshing change to have a high neckline at the front, and a dipped or v-back, and in this humidity leaving my back unadorned to feel the breeze is an additional bonus.

seriously, I’ve been doing it, and it works.

You just have to remember to cut the labels out, or it itches.

* I have finally learned how to wear coloured lipstick and nail varnish. for a long time, after a disastrous phase aged 15 where I experimented with gothic eyes and lips in all hues of purple, navy, silver and mulberry (I even had a…gasp…black lipstick. god!), I have shied away from anything other than the palest neutrals and nudes, always going a shade or two lighter, and feeling like those were the only safe colours I could use without looking like a child who had got into mother’s make up box.

this past year I have pushed myself out of my comfort zone and forced myself to try brighter colours, and I love them. admittedly, I’m still a way from any nice lady-like reds, and dark pinks ( I feel too mumsy), but I have conquered orange, coral and fushia nails, and have a bright pink matt lipstick that always makes me feel on-trend. And I swear when I get home I’m going to try a rich burgundy nail and a red lip. even if it doesn’t suit, I’m going to try it.

*I have learned to avoid the sight of hippos shagging- its too depressing. we see it inadvertently quite a lot from the deck at Chindeni- they seem to enjoy an audience, so often time their liaisons to coincide with lunch or breakfast- but despite this rampant exhibitionism, it’s really just rather sad. they do it in the water (obviously, doing it on land doesn’t bear thinking about. their poor knees wouldn’t hold up), and the male always seems to look at best half-hearted, at worst like he is thinking about something else more interesting. like drying paint.

and the female almost always looks like she is drowning- you can just about make out two little nostrils sticking out of the water, but being regularly submerged by the big beast on top of her grunting, exhaling heavily and thrusting away wearily. horny horny hippos indeed…

* I have learned that national stereotypes have quite a lot of basis in fact. Generally, the Americans are loud, the Canadians are sweet and softly-spoken, the Indians are fussy about food, the Aussies are laid back and fun, the Brits drink too much, and the Japanese really do like to take a lot of photos.

* I have learned that really, genuinely, the only person who will notice if I don’t shave my legs every day is me.

(on a similar theme, try as I might, I have still not learned how to shave my knees properly. whatever I do, I always miss a patch on the bony bit of my knee where the stubble remains. though miraculously, it seems these hairs don’t grow, for they are always the same length. you would have thought I’d have mastered it by the age of 30, but it seems not.)

* I have learned that, however much I try to convince myself otherwise, however much I say that I don’t need it, and I would never just eat a spoon of sugar, tea is just nicer with sugar in it.

*I have learned that some people just like to complain or be a problem. there is

nothing you can do about it. even if you remedy everything that they can find to

be negative about, they will find something new that is not satisfactory, perhaps

the way the sun comes up is not to their liking, and the only way to cope with

these kind of people is to privately remind yourself how empty their life must be if

they spend their entire time looking for things to complain about rather than

getting on and enjoying.

* I have learned to look away from the obvious, and think outside of the box when it comes to seating- bean bags and hammocks are the way forward.

* I have learned you actually can teach an old dog new tricks. I just received a text message from my mum proving that point- though to be clear, I’m not insinuating that my mother is either a) old or b) a dog. she signed off her text “lol mx”… assuming she doesn’t mean ‘laughing out loud’, she has after several months of only being able to communicate with me very sporadically, it appears mastered the art of ‘txt-spk’… god help me. god help us all.

* I have learned that it is pretty much impossible to have the correct temperature of curry for a mixed group of people- some will always complain that it is too spicy, even if you have essentially served up a stew, and others will condescendingly sneer at its mildness, and ask whether it is difficult to get chillis in Zambia. as a consequence we don’t serve curry often in Chindeni.

*i have learned that i will never be a ‘light traveller’. and I’m kidding myself if i ever thought i was. even if I’m just going away for a day or two, I find that I always pack way more than I need, and am lugging a heavy bag.

I should have probably realised this truth about myself when I was working in London, and would frequently take two, sometimes even three, bags into work, just for a day in the office.

the single hand-bagged friends would mock me on evenings in the pub, camping buddies would look on incredulously as I loaded myself up like a pack-donkey for festival trips, and my office buddies would marvel at how big my weekend bag was for….well for a weekend away.

but like a plucky little boy scout I am at least, always prepared for every eventuality.

I will always have plasters and hair bands.

* I have learned that though you can be too old for pigtails, the side-plait is ageless.

* I have learned that nothing stops tsetse flies biting you. the best form of defence is resignation- the only way to deal with them is to stoically stand back and ‘take it’, and eventually (after a couple of months at least) your body ceases to react so violently to their little pincers.

* I have learned that I am not the best boss when humidity levels are high. something about having sweat trickling down every part of my face, my front and my back makes me a lot more liable to snap at the inane questions the staff have a tendency to ask in the middle of the day, when you are exhausted, and trying to multi-task (ie. manage a bushcamp, and not melt).

*I have learned to love Gin and Tonic.

* and one of the most important things I’ve learned is the importance of friends and family. yes, there have been times when I’ve missed home comforts like tv, or the internet, or nutella, or chai lattes, or clothes shopping, or a traditional English pub. but the only times I’ve ever really wanted to go home is when I’ve been missing people.

sometimes you hear travellers saying that the worst thing about being away from their native country is missing the football matches, or not being able to get marmite. I can only hope that those people are lying, because otherwise they must have very unfulfilled lives.

* finally, and possibly the most important thing I have learned is an invaluable piece of advice proffered by the husband. it is important when it comes to running a bushcamp, but is probably relevant in all warps of life.

he said, “Tams, of all the things to get involved with, the shit-pump is at the very bottom of the list”.

sage words indeed.... and the husband has no wisdom teeth at all!

thoughts on turning thirty (or 'what it is to grow up')...

DISCLAIMER:
I’ve really struggled with this particular blog, deleting, re-arranging my confused thoughts, rewriting, and trying to make sense of what Im trying to say.

it feels like it should be a momentous one.

which inevitably means it is long and rambling…more so than usual.

I apologise- you have been warned.

so, in a matter of days i am soon to hit ‘the big 3-0’, and that has always seemed in an abstract way, to be pretty old. by thirty you are traditionally expected to have it all planned out, sorted and set.… and yet, i don’t really feel like i’m quite there yet.

of course, i’m quite a lot of the way there- i am educated, married, and a property owner (if only by default, in the ‘what’s mine is yours’ clause of marriage).

and over the past couple of years i have made some pretty massive grown up decisions about my career, and the path i want my life to take.

but, those decisions were based on what I knew I didn’t want, and if I’m honest, I still don’t think I really know what I do want to be ‘when I grow up’.

when starting this blog I chose the words of a Frank Turner song as my inspiration- I said I didn’t want to grow up.

a year down the line, an undoubtedly maturer me is re-considering this statement.

i still hold true to the sentiment i plucked out of the lyrics- i don’t want to stagnate, or be bored or made miserable by my life. but now, i don’t think that ‘growing up’ is necessarily about that.

i have with my swiftly approaching ‘coming of age’, and undoubtedly aided by the past year of pushing myself out of familiar territory and out of my comfort zone, come to a certain level of maturity and self-knowledge.

and now i think that perhaps, ‘growing up’ is instead about accepting yourself, your strengths and your weaknesses, taking responsibility for your decisions and actions, and not only coping with the hand that fate deals you, but turning it round and making something positive; making the most of it; making a life out of it.

and so, i recognise that i’m not going to change the world, or be famous or a role-model or an icon. i think, that this is a fairly commonly held conception in young children (and all the contestants on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ it seems); i expect because as a child it seems that the whole of your little world seems to revolve around you, and ergo when you grow up you surely must be a fairly important and vital part of the grown up world.

but i’m embarrassed to admit that i continued to have a feeling that fame would sneak up and thrust itself upon me long after i should have outgrown this notion. i was always unclear how, or why exactly, i just had a feeling that i was destined for some kind of infamy. perhaps that is subconsciously what drove me to pursue a career in television when i went to university. (I know it was what pushed me to nearly appear on a couple of crappy reality shows during my time there- i was a shortlisted contestant on both ‘Bar Wars’ and ‘Cruel Summer’…. yes, i’m sure those would have been a perfect first stepping stone on the road to greatness for me…not humiliating and exploitative at all…hmm…)

but in this current age of celebrity and 15 minute fame, WAGS and X-Factor and Big Brother, it is clear that being famous doesn’t validate you or give you worth, rather the opposite. ‘icons’ are made and crushed in a week on the pages of gossip mags and tabloids, and i don’t think that was ever what i wanted or envisaged.

and in coming to a clearer understanding of myself as i approach the state of ‘thirty-ness’, i’ve realised that not only am i just an average Joe, not destined for stardom or greatness at all, i’m really very happy with that, and just hopeful for a nice, contented life. and i do believe that just by being nice to people and smiling at strangers, giving directions, or offering a helping hand you can affect people, and you can improve the world by just a smidgen on a day to day basis.

and though i might not change the world in any massive tangible way by doing this alone, i like to think that one day i will have children, and raise them responsibly and well with the same attitude, and in my own little way i will have left a legacy, spread a little love and changed the world simply through their existence.

and in this acceptance of my averageness, i have come to the realisation that i also have to accept the skin i’m in- its not magically going to change, however much i may wish it so at times (on the beach, in Topshop changing rooms, whilst watching ‘Britain’s Next Top Model’…). i am of an age where i have to be realistic, and accept the physical limitations placed on me by my genes. but, in this acceptance i have also come to recognise potential attributes that i have spent the past 10 years turning a blind eye to.

so, i accept that i will never be a perfect size 8 unless i permanently starve myself, and combine that with a punishing exercise regime. and i really don’t like starving myself….or punishing exercise come to that….

i accept that i will never be able to bounce around happily without a bra, nor wear a cropped top. but then, i don’t really think 30 year olds should bounce around bra-less or wear cropped tops, so its probably a good thing that i know not to be tempted.

and though i’m sure i will on occasion moan about the size of my arse, or wish for a washboard stomach, the benefit of not being a size 8, apart from all that money saved on crop tops, is that i have nice curves, good boobs, and a feminine shape. the older i get, and the more practice i have, the more able i am to dress to that shape, embrace it and enhance it. as long as my boobs continue to defy the pencil test i reckon i don’t have too much to complain about.

i accept that i will probably always struggle with the occasional outbreak of adult acne, a legacy from my father. i am seemingly an impressive annomaly in that i have both the forehead wrinkles and laughter lines of someone quite a few years my senior, and the odd vicious whitehead of someone 15 years my junior.

but, it could be worse- i have friends who have had to deal with really difficult eczema, rosacea and birth marks, and they don’t complain. so frankly, whining about a spot or two seems a bit petty.

i accept that i will always have a lump on the bridge of my nose. i didn’t particularly love my nose as a teenager, but then i bashed it in on a pavement when i was twenty in a piggy-back related incident (there was vodka involved), and it has never been the same since. i looked very seriously into my options for corrective plastic surgery before i got married because I used to be very self conscious of it. but before i could part with any money some good friends and my now husband talked me out of it, and i’m actually quite glad. my slightly wonky nose is a part of me, it tells a story (quite a funny one at that! 2am piggy back races? really??) and to be honest i don’t think most people even notice it.

and i accept that i have horrible feet, a legacy from my mother. they are really rather horrid- they have on occasion prompted total strangers to say “ooh, gross, what’s wrong with your feet??”. they are flat, bunioned, skinny and veiny. i have long toes, and dropped balls (if you will excuse the turn of phrase), and my heels have a tendency to crack and split like rhino hooves. since i’ve been out in the bush they have reached new heights of nastiness, my soles are like sandpaper (incidentally, that is also what I am using to attempt to keep them under control, i shit you not!) and the dirt is so deeply ingrained that i wonder if they will ever be clean again.

and, as well as being ugly, due to their ridiculous shape, i will never be able to stand for more than a minute or two in heels over 2 ½ inches, let alone walk, let alone wear them all evening in a sexy and seductive way.

but, most of the time (in England at least) you can wear socks.

and boots.

and for the times when I can’t hide them in boots i at least have nice neat little ankles to distract from the horrid feet.

i am also accepting of the fact that i have a tendency to be a bit flaky (i’ve moved from physical attributes to character traits now… though on occasion it would probably be fair to use the word ‘flaky’ to describe my feet…). i am very bad at saying no, and often find myself carried away with others enthusiasm. i will often half-commit to something that i’m not really up for- a night out say- and then find that in actuality i am utterly exhausted, or have a million other things that need doing, and going out with friends gets bumped from my list of priorities, so i back out last minute.

this is something i need to work on. its not that i’m totally unreliable socially, and when it comes to something important i do stick to my guns- as demonstrated by the number of hen dos i’ve organised, or by the fact that i have been asked to be a bridesmaid for one of my girlfriends next year, or simply by dint of the number of friends i have managed to retain over the years- but i recognise that letting people down, in any capacity, is not a good quality, and at the very least i need to be stronger and not agree to doing something that i don’t really want to do in the first place, to avoid getting last minute attacks of the flakes.

i understand that I set very high standards for myself and those around me in the workplace- i am intolerant of laziness, and slovenliness. i know this can make me difficult to work with- i will lose my temper if things are not done to the highest possible standard, if cutlery is mismatched, or the deck is not swept. but at the same time, i am using this perfectionism to improve the guest experience here in the bushcamp, and as long as i utilise this tendency towards OCD in a positive way rather than just stropping about the minutiae it needn’t be a weakness.

i shy away from confrontation; i am terrible at decisive decision making; i am easily swayed.

i am scared of lots of things, and i don’t like to be alone in my own company for very long.

i probably care too much about what people think of me, though not really in a vain way, more in an insecure way.

i read too quickly, pick my feet, don’t use night cream, still smoke too much, and have no self control when it comes to biscuits.

but at least i recognise all these things, accept they are parts of me, and i’m working on them.

and i recognise also that i am hard-working and a good employee. i’m a loving daughter, a supportive and enthusiastic wife and a loyal friend. i’m not a genius, but im certainly not stupid. i can talk to almost anyone, i can make most people laugh, and i genuinely care about the people around me. i want to make people happy, and when i succeed at that it makes me happy.

i have faults, but i also have strengths, and if i was perfect i’d probably be pretty dull.

i accept myself, and i’m pretty comfortable in my own skin, and so even though i don’t have everything planned out, and i don’t know exactly where i’m going with my life, maybe that doesn’t really matter. i may not know exactly ‘what i want to be when i grow up’, but i do know what i already am, and the general direction i’m heading.

maybe that in itself is enough.

i was listening to a different Frank Turner album the other day, and with a flash of clarity i realised that the words to ‘Photosynthesis’ were now to me less relevant, and less inspirational than the words to a more recent song he has written.

“I wanna live fast, and I wanna die old,

end my days in a house with high windows,

on the quiet shores of the south coast.”

it seems perhaps his outlook on life has shifted a little, as has mine.

maybe we have both grown up after all.