Love, Distance, and a City Called Home

A Month On

Today marks a calendar month since I boarded the flight for the 13-hour, 25-minute journey back from Cape Town to Manchester, and yet the scenes from that visit still run through my mind as though the credits have not quite rolled. Already, I am planning the next one.

Cape Town represents more than a destination; the story began barely seven years ago, when Brian and I had our second rendezvous in South Africa. Soon after we met in Johannesburg in December 2018, I resolved to spend the next Easter with him.

It was a stroke of good fortune that in late February 2019, work dried up and, rather than loiter aimlessly waiting for a new posting, I took a next-day flight to Johannesburg. It was entirely unscripted, and yet it became the scene that changed everything. Brian joined me for ten days, which became the consummation of our relationship.

From Joburg to Cape Town

I did not cancel the planned Easter meeting. Some scenes, it seems, are written regardless of what comes before them. We were going to meet up in Johannesburg, fly together to Cape Town, and then return to Joburg for the end slice of our holiday.

Now, we just meet up in Cape Town and make home in apartments around the city and suburbs. It is the kind of story you return to willingly, knowing the setting well but always finding something in it you had not quite seen before. Each stay brings unforgettable memories as we work towards being together a lot more than being apart.

What Love Brings

What Brian brings into my life is immeasurable: love, care, companionship, laughter, shared experiences, and stories that make our uniquely special bond everything that matters to both of us. These are not trivial things. They are the substance of a story worth telling, and more importantly, worth living.

My heart is full, and I am blessed with such unconditional love that I pray daily to be worthy of the affection that someone expresses so wholly, freely, sincerely, and unashamedly.

Never a Dull Moment

There is never a dull moment. The way we seek out adventure, revisiting old haunts or discovering new places, gives the story its texture, the kind of detail that stops a narrative from flattening into something predictable.

So, Cape Town is a place transforming into a reality what is the stuff of impossible dreams coming true. Love transcends distance, endures difficulty, ekes out the best, and writes the stories we could never have imagined.

Cape Town, Our Home

Our minds walk through places we have registered so well that each recollection feels like more than words. It is like a film playing back, slowing just enough for us to keep up with everything, with no need to rewind or fast-forward; it is always at the right pace. Perhaps that is what love does to memory. It becomes the editor, keeping only what matters.

That is why we know Cape Town will be our home, our sanctuary, our nest, and our place. The story is far from over. We cannot wait to be together again in the Mother City; even time folds for the purpose of real love.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

On the mind of travel

A leg to start off

My thoughts wander from arrival to departure in the things we control and the things we must consider for now and after. These were ruminations of the mind as I began my travel from South Africa back to the UK. There were three legs to my journey, from Cape Town to Johannesburg on a once rescheduled, then cancelled and then rebooked flight which was a British Airways flight managed by their partner and subsidiary Comair.

Arriving 3 hours early at the Cape Town International Airport, I was not allowed to check-in for another hour. A porter helped me from the Uber cab that got me to the airport and stayed with me through check-in to when I had to go through security. He was of a friendly disposition, a human resources manager before he retired and took on porterage to keep busy. Porters get by on tips, though licenced and uniformed, they are not salaried, hence, the jostling for custom. I was even asked if I needed a wheelchair; we laughed.

Let’s get ready to fly

The first leg was uneventful, nothing was served to us on that two-hour flight and my baggage was not checked through to Manchester. I had to collect my baggage and check-in at the AirFrance desk in Johannesburg for my flight to France. I had a 4-hour stopover in Johannesburg, much time to reminisce about the last 5 weeks and the thought that Brian still had another 3 nights in South Africa before returning home.

When the time came for boarding came for my long-haul flight second leg to Paris, by the time I arrived at the gate, I was unable to take advantage of priority boarding. I was in Zone 1 and Zone 4 & 5 were already boarding. The crowd as such that there it was unnecessary to claim that right, I settled into the queue as it took almost 15 minutes to board. I took my window seat beside an ageing couple in the middle aisle seats then made to the toilet to change into my pyjamas before handing my clothes to the air steward to be hung in the cupboard.

Miles and wiles

For a while now, I have taken no entertainment on the flight and concentrated more on the flight maps. We were to fly 5,530 miles or 8,900 kilometres over 10:17 hours to arrive at 05:35 hours local time in Paris. We took off on a Boeing 777-328(ER) at the speed of 210.6 mph (339 km/h) and soon reached cruising speed of 581 mph (935 km/h) and cruising height of 32,001 ft (9,753 m). We did after the Equator breach 10 kilometres, but I could not be bothered than much.

I maintain fascination with the place names I see on the flight map unsure of if I would ever visit, talk less of the logistics of getting there surrounded by my creature comforts. I am not one to countenance backpacking, a strain of colonial expectation greets my desire to have Sherpas and campaign furniture. If I deign to suffer such an experience.

Louis Trichardt, South Africa; Selebi-Phikwe, Maun, Mopipi all in Botswana, and Kuito (Silva Porto), Angola caught my attention before I fell asleep, tossing and turning, waking up 4 times to use the toilet. I had dinner but requested I be left alone at breakfast time which was to be around the unholy hour of 04:00 hours.

And then we land

After changing into my pyjamas, I was offered another window seat with presumably more space. We wore our masks throughout the flight except for when we had drinks and meals. At one point, the man sat in front of me acknowledged me. How uncanny, he was the same man who sat beside me on the first leg.

Arriving in Paris, I had a 7-hour stopover, I did not have to pass through immigration, but traversing Charles de Gaulle airport is never much a pleasure. I was soon through security and in the lounge that became quite busy by the time I left. The last leg was easy and after baggage reclaim clothed for the chill of winter, I was in a black cab, the window open and settled into what was supposed to be an imposed 10-day self-isolation. I look forward to another return journey that I so enjoy for the process and the purpose. One day, Brian will be by my side on the way to the land of happily ever after.

Beautiful Romantic Intimacy Attractive Nascent - V

A love nest in Jo’burg

The opportunity to meet in February was one I could not pass up. I arrived a day earlier than him and was at the airport to pick him up the next day with a sign, ‘Brian with an I’. It is likely our hearts were pounding unsure of what to expect of each other. Our only other meeting was at the bar and then for lunch. We had a lot of learning to do about each other.

This was a holiday of moments and experiences, fully laden with activity, mainly touristic. Then dinner at night. It afforded many ways of getting to know who we were, the pictures we took together began to look like this couple were made for each other. How that South Africa constitutionally recognises same-sex relationships meant we had liberties to be expressive and we used every opportunity to revel in it.

Much more than it seemed

It is likely that the 10 nights went so fast, but I never cancelled the plans for Easter, we had that pencilled in and an agenda that was filling up that little did I know that some of the arrangements he had in visiting Johannesburg at my behest were in fact, first-time experiences.

I commandeered the moments and activities, yet found in both the company and the companionship, someone I could converse with and relate to. We were becoming friends and lovers at the same time. Maybe I was thinking ahead of myself, but I felt there was a lot going on between him and me, not just platonic but quite involved. We were not going to make an apology for having become lovers.

It was 46 days to our next meet up in Johannesburg for Cape Town, whether I was counting down the months, the weeks, the days, the hours, or the minutes, there was no doubt in my heart and mind, I could not wait to see him again.

Brian Really Is Adorably Nice - IV

Daring to step up

With just under two weeks in South Africa when we parted ways, but I was not parting company, I was a bit forward in maintaining communication with him, and I initiated without asking our first long-distance interaction using WhatsApp on video.

If I had not planned to spend the New Year in Cape Town, I might have done something crazy like make an unannounced visit to Bulawayo, maybe I shouldn’t be too eager, but I knew where my heart was heading to. Every day, we exchanged messages and nightly calls, whilst I was not that inquisitive, I was learning a lot about him that heightening my admiration and respect for him.

The chance meeting we had seemed to have another touch of providence, he asked if I knew of a computer company, a very close friend and mentor who died five years before had owned it and with that came other interesting and troubling revelations that we hope will be resolved eventually in the estate and bequest of my friend to him and other parties that we have assembled to work in concert.

Again, we met up

I had decided we will meet again for Easter, the rendezvous being Johannesburg and us flying out together to Cape Town for a longer break, all tickets were booked by the end of January. The green shoots of love were growing fast, we seemed to have decided we both had something going. When Valentine’s Day came, I received the most beautiful bouquet of flowers.

How was I to know that an issue with my schedule of work would free me to pursue a passionate affair in late February? As good fortune would have it, he could take time off too and we met in Johannesburg for 10 nights. This thing called love is too beautiful for words, dreams and fantasy became my new reality.

Bashful Reticent Introverted Amusing Naughty - III

Patient in impatience

The morning could not come soon enough, I must have dreamt some of the most beautiful dreams in a long time. What I could not forget was the embrace we had, it was like my body was more prescient than my head. The feeling was calming like my blood pressure had come down a good few points. Not something I could remember I felt but from 15 years before.

I was eager for the day to get on, yet I had to curb my enthusiasm. Mid-morning was the limit of my restraint when I sent a message inquiring if he slept well and was up for the lunch date. When he responded in the affirmative, I sent a cab for him as I prepared for our meeting. I had a good mind of where we should go.

Soul with a soulmate

At the hotel, we made for Melrose Arch and found a restaurant for a healthy lunch. I probably spent more of the time talking. He was reserved, he later said he was nervous all through. I was too mesmerised to notice. After lunch, we called a cab for Sandton City during which I discovered his quick wit and nothing could conceal his smile that took over his whole face.

After ice-cream at Häagen-Dazs, we returned to my hotel to relax, taking pictures before he left for his friend’s place and then for Bulawayo. I think by then, I had decided there was going to be more to our encounter, I was already planning my return to South Africa. His overnight bus trip back to Zimbabwe might have been totally inconvenienced by my messages. I think I have found a soulmate.

Beginning Reaction Indication Affinity Notable - II

The chance for change

Strangely, I was not looking for anything, I was just on holiday in the sun during Christmas, a pleasure I last enjoyed on the beautiful environs of Taj Mahal some 7 years before. However, I could not excuse myself from this handsome man who initiated the conversation when I thought I had no prospect of a passing glance.

When we got to the bar and ordered drinks, we began to chat to each other, the topics veering from the serious to the trivial, punctuated with laughter and increasing affinity. I was a bit crestfallen when he said he was returning to Zimbabwe the next day, but it was significant to know that his journey would be late at night.

The lurch for lunch

Maybe, it was an opportunity or an opening, I seized it and invited him for lunch the next day, having exchanged numbers and making to leave. As we were leaving at the same time, his friend offered to give me a lift back to my hotel, which I gladly took. The further engagement on the trip to my hotel consolidated the prospect.

In a few hours, I have developed a liking for him. When he introduced himself, I asked if his name was ‘Brian with an I’, it could have been Bryan. Before I went to bed, I send a long message of appreciation and thanks for meeting him. I did not forget to remind him; we were going out for lunch the next day. Could it be I was falling in love?

Belief Review Interest Anticipation New - I

Then came a plan

I think about the time I helplessly fell in love at the end of December 2018. The trip I made to South Africa was one that had been on my mind for months, but it was difficult to plan for. As the year closed, I was put on a new regimen of pills that simply messed up everything normal about me and then I underwent a procedure that required a two-week rest, especially from air travel.

Immediately, after the rest, I was in Germany for work and it was there that I decided, if I did not take that holiday, I risked regretting it. I jetted out on Christmas Eve and arrived in Johannesburg on Christmas Day. Meanwhile, I was back on my old pills and feeling good in myself.

Mona Lisa is mine

Three days later, I saw this amazing person, not that I dared approach because he just looked like he would have eyes for something else. I resigned myself to the equanimity of a museum visitor. You can view Mona Lisa, but you cannot take it off the wall and walk home with it.

Reticent and shy as he suggests he is, he was the one who made the first move, saying Hello and that was the beginning of history. I just had a crazy thought that for the days until his birthday, which is the 7^th of July, I might just write something about falling in love.

Winter will end at 11 AM

In preparation

Travel is an expectation and excitement rolled into a flurry of emotions that you cannot fully express apart from just being the experience being lived.

I had ample time for plan for my journey to South Africa, once I had passed my TOGAF certification last week Tuesday in London and returned home to Manchester on Wednesday, I had 6 days to get things sorted. My first plan was to get the laundry service to pick up my laundry on Wednesday evening to be returned 24 hours later.

Daily, I had begun to gather the things I needed for my journey, trying to ensure nothing was forgotten, and this without making lists even as a small still voice was advising me to consider a list. I would think I have everything I want and also something for Brian and I to wear, as for weeks I had been looking for matching jackets, Brian being two sizes smaller, but with the same length of arms.

Hefty baggage

I did most of my packing the day before, using compactors for my shirts and trousers with my underwear, then shoes, hats, and other essentials. My portable scales put the suitcases at 19kg and 16kg, I think there was another few kilograms added by the time I got out of the door. I hailed a Uber cab to the airport when 5 minutes into the trip, I realised I had left a wallet at home.

This happened my last trip too, fortunately, it did not contain the essential cards. I got the driver to turn back whilst I retrieved my wallet and we took a more scenic route to the airport. After checking in and being ushered unto the Fast Track lane which was anything but, you begin to realise why you should have more than enough time to clear security.

Security dexterity

Without a doubt, those with toddlers need to research how to traverse security at ease and at speed, I had 4 families ahead of me and everyone looked like first time travellers, babies implacable, mother extending like an octopus granted a few more limbs to unpack bags, hold the baby, keep the other child from running around and attempting the contortions of a double-jointed gymnast. A sight to behold and a good 30 minutes of my life frittered away before the wand wielder checks my watch, cufflinks and affinity bangle, then waves me through.

I proceed to cool off in the lounge, the need for travel to be stress-free cannot be exaggerated, there are two stops before Cape Town tomorrow afternoon. We are coasting at 4⁰C, the thought of leaving winter behind warms my breast.

Hiding the winter props

In Paris, angels were on assignment, that is all I can say. Having walked through the literally inscrutable Charles De Gaulle airport, it is a beast of an airport as friendly as a hyena is to its prey, if it were avoidable, but why simplify the complicated, when you can make it a harrowing experience.

The boarding gates for my next destination of Johannesburg were in the same terminal and I still had to lug my things through security, the obligatory striptease without music has become a dramatic art worthy of an Academy nomination. Thankfully, but thankfully, there were no families with toddlers, pushchairs and kids on fizzy drinks running around like they were buzzing on drugs.

The disarray at the security check is not worth reckoning with, we survived it and I made for the lounge. There, I should have shown my paper boarding pass, but I resorted to my mobile phone boarding pass. With that in hand, I made for a seat with the aim of charging my phone and putting my overcoat into my suit carrier.

Angels working overtime

That was a struggle as I put my phone down and knelt on the suit carrier to get the zipper done up. I only had time for a drink when I noticed my flight to Johannesburg was boarding. I picked up my bags and it was close to a 10-minute walk to the boarding gate and on getting through, I found my seat, put up my hand baggage and was about to sit down when an air stewardess presented me with a mobile phone.

I was completely oblivious of the fact that I had left my phone in the lounge, I cannot account for how the phone made it from the lounge to my seat. The gravity of realising how it could have been a disaster to lose my phone only began to dawn on me hours after. I got me some angels watching over me.

Winter did end at 11:00 AM

As we arrived in Johannesburg, it was 11:13 AM, two minutes ahead of schedule, I was hit with the heat of summer, my winter was over as I was informed I would need to collect my baggage and recheck-in with the local airline that would get me to Cape Town, this after I was told that my baggage had been checked through to Cape Town, I guess that was figuratively rather that literally. I collected my baggage and no additional labels are attached to them.

My seat was pre-allocated, and I could not change it because it was with another airline, Brian had a seat 3 rows from mine as we had arranged to be on the same flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town. We met up in the lounge and I was expecting him to use his charm offensive to get us to sit together. As luck would have it, whilst I was given an aisle seat, the window seat was free, it meant Brian could come to sit beside me for the flight.

We arrived in Cape Town without much fuss, the captain’s parting message beyond the Christmas wishes was the hope that South African Airways would still be a thriving company that provides the wonderful service we have enjoyed over the decades. How Jacob Zuma and his clique almost ruined that bastion of South Africa expression with incompetent and unqualified people.

I was soon in my shorts and amongst the teeming crowds of the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront.

Courtesy of the William Kentridge exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town.

South Africa: The terrible history lessons we must know of Apartheid

Not on for a role reversal

I do try when I visit places even for work to get a feel of the place, the people, the culture, the architecture and the history.

However, on this sometimes hectic business visit, I have not been opportuned to do much, however, I got out on Saturday and then on Sunday where I did get to see some interesting parts of Johannesburg and what made this city,

The initial plan included a visit to Lion Park, where you can see lions roam free. It probably would have been interesting, but pictures of people in caged trucks thrilled at watching nature was a role-reversal I would better watch on National Geographic than participate in – I declined the offer of doing that.

Now, wildlife conservation is more than commendable, it is necessary and essential to ensuring that the footprints we leave in the sands of time are one of the record that we left this earth a better place than we found it. There is no doubt that parks like Lion Park need custom and will trade on our fascination to continue doing the exemplary work they do.

A differentiator on colour

My history and somewhat cultural lesson came from a ride with my hostess on the Johannesburg Red City Tour bus, between history, story, anecdote, fact and legend, a city built on the discovery of gold and diamonds could have dazzled with the glimmer and glitter of gemstones blinding us to a deeper reality that still defines a lot of what South Africa still is.

There was no better place to scratch beneath the gleam than at the Apartheid Museum where to give an idea of the colour bar in the Apartheid times I was given a ‘random’ classification of “Nie-Blankes” or “Non-Whites” and was by that designation supposed to enter the museum complex through the gate meant for non-Whites.

 

At the non-Whites entrance of the Apartheid Museum.

The absurdity of this whole arrangement became evident when you realise that whilst I am non-White, I am definitely European. To think there were times in Africa where people not historically indigenous to Africa treated Africans as sub-human on African soil, just cuts to heart with great pain.

Chameleons of discalm

The fact that this Apartheid regime was put in place by seemingly enlightened, educated and intelligent people just goes to show that certain elements of basic human instinct are defined by the utterly irrational to the point of risible ridiculousness. Yet, fellow human-beings were subjugated, denigrated, oppressed and dehumanised in ways too unimaginable to countenance.

At the stroke of a pen, within the Apartheid framework, you could be racially reclassified for purposes of convenience except the extreme of white becoming black or black becoming white. People who changed race in this many were known as chameleons.

The Star of the 21^st of March 1986 published a piece that now appears with on a poster in the museum – the news piece started thus: 1985 had at least 1000 “chameleons”. More than 1000 people officially changed colour last year. [Google]

 

The Chameleons of South Africa at the Apartheid Museum.

The example of people

Prominent within the museum were exhibitions of people who transcended this vile aberration of humanity, whose lives we must study as examples of the graciousness and accommodating qualities of the human spirit. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu – there are few people who can stand in stature and meaning close to these men in humility, reasonableness and compassion.

We must be careful never to lose the reality of history and the lessons thereof for the easy talk and ignorance of dismissing the significance of history to our present and future. I still see the scars left by Apartheid in contemporary South African society and I am afraid, I see no men in leadership doing much to lift the majority from the mental enslavement that remains the in the wake of the Apartheid rule that was abolished 21 years ago.

South Africa: Getting under some rich Johannesburg skin

Sandton

Having been emboldened to go out on my own, I caught a hotel taxi ride to the Sandton Convention Centre where I had been told I could go to Nelson Mandela Square and Sandton City shopping centre. Sandton is a contraction derived from the names of the suburbs of Sandown and Bryanston.

The concept of a convention centre, I fully understood, but I failed to grasp the essence of the square, because rather than see an open square as one would have expected of square, plaza, place or piazza in Europe, I saw a building. I was not daring enough to ascertain if within the walls of this place a square might indeed exist, I have since found out, one does.

I then circumnavigated the area only to find a stark contrast between the affluent wide roads in the front to the quite different gathering areas at the back. I eventually made it round to the entrance of the Sandton Gautrain Station where I decided to travel down to Rosebank Gautrain Station instead.

Rosebank

This station had stretches of shopping malls adjacent to the train station, it was easy to walk around this Rosebank area and find your way using the touchscreen information boards, the shops had brands I was familiar with, from Nando’s to Dr Martens.

The shop attendants were helpful, constantly smiling and even when technology failed them in the Dr Martens shop, they did not allow their seeming frustrations to dampen their customer service. I was quite impressed with the Dr Martens staff wearing sexy Dr Martens boots and shoes, that itself had its attractive quality.

One other snippet of trivia I have just learnt as I do when writing my blogs is that Nando’s is really a South-Africa export that started in Johannesburg in 1987. Who’ll have thought that?

People

In general, I have found South Africans quite friendly, from the people at my hotel where one of the ladies appears to view me quite suspiciously through to my colleagues, many of whom I have interacted with for over a year by email and telephone conversation until we finally met here.

Despite the earlier difficulties, people deep down are affable, wonderful and good. The conversations on UberBlack rides are just as amazing as with anyone who through driving meets with people with all walks of life.

From ordinary people to extraordinary people, our humanity on this global village can bring out the best in us.

South Africa: Johannesburg and the exclusive Gautrain society

Getting out

Until Friday, I got around Johannesburg courtesy of people attached to their cars and using taxis ordered by the hotel which had drivers I could not have suggested were scrupulous.

On Friday, we met at my hotel, had breakfast and then drove out to Sandton Gautrain Station, now, I thought the station was near the hotel, like round the corner, I was not close. First, I discovered an error on their website that showed the station was 100km away, the reality was 2.4km.

The Gautrain society

The Gautrain with the controversy that surrounds the investment that went into this project is one of those beacons of the great divisions that still define this society 21 years after the end of Apartheid rule. I am just an observer.

The trains are somewhat unaffordable for anyone below the middle-classes, the stations apart from the airport are in the most preferred real estate and affluent areas of the Gauteng region. The car parks have guards ready to challenge and harass. The comfortable are never discomfited by the uncomfortable.

The shuttles are like cages from the wild life of a deprived majority that people can so easily pass through corridors of chaos in the calm of cars, coaches and carriages so willingly oblivious of the squalor and deprivation that sometimes jump out like a jack box into our pathways.

A sore underbelly

To say the people of South Africa have been failed by the system and leaders who have blatantly and sometimes corruptly enriched themselves without consequence or sanction would be to subscribe to the criminality of a gross understatement. The burdens are heavy on the rich and the poor.

As a tourist, I am also schooled into the fear that sometimes grips the privileged as they attempt to be distant from the seriously and visibly underprivileged. This society is sick in its heart and the yawning chasm between the haves and the have-nots widens to immeasurable interstellar voids over which no man can traverse without coming to great harm.

Yet, it does not just affect the blacks, even the whites who tend to earn more from the entrenched history of entitlement and privilege have some of their own in poverty and penury – it is evident that the system is not working and hence the different levels of unrest from industrial to civil that makes the news quite regularly.

There is still a state of being apart socially, economically, mentally and much else in this Rainbow nation in everything but that dreaded word.

Yet, again

I travelled comfortably on the Gautrain all the way to Pretoria and returned from the Hatfield terminus, I could not help but notice the very stylish benches on the train platforms that were literally impractical to sit on, I saw more people sit on the floor than on those caricatures of design malfunction.

From the station, I conveniently used the UberBlack the luxury Uber taxi service which appears to be cheaper than the shuttle service provided by my hotel. By far, besides the fact that the hotel drivers never seem to have change that you end up parting with a lot more than if you paid and offered a tip – it is both underhand and deliberately dishonest.

Johannesburg however, is a big place, the Johannesburg Red City Tour bus was an open top bus that went around some historic sites, strangely, they do not venture open-top buses into Soweto, you are comfortably ensconced in a hermetically seal van, presumably for your safety.