We March

Going forward with nature

March always seems to present the month of beginnings when the signs of spring begin to show in nature and the days for the northern hemisphere begin earlier as the winter recedes into its seasonal twilight.

Then suddenly there could be a chilly blast with Siberia huffing and puffing over Europe with the vehemence of needing to tell us that she still exists. One year, I was in Berlin, and it was in the third week of April, it snowed. Gosh! It was depressing, as I got back home to Amsterdam, I booked a holiday to the Canary Islands.

Looking toward the warmth

March indeed has a spring to it, like we are about to march into something, a battle, an adventure, an experience, or all that together. We awaken from the slumber of Yuletide, and after the perceptively longest month of January, February grants a reprieve of love closely followed by the privations of Lent, a season of penitence and reflection is in full flow.

This year, everything is happening in March, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, in two Sundays, it is Mothering Sunday that has become commercialised and confused with Mother’s Day. We are also springing forward with the clocks on the last Sunday which is the last day of the month and Easter Sunday, what a time to be alive, like everything is in alignment in a leap year. British Summer Time begins.

Marching onward in triumph

Yet, we march on, full of hope and expectation, amazed by the beauty that gets revealed, the smells that hit our olfactory organs, and the singing of the birds chirping away giving our eardrums a new sensation that lifts the spirits with warmth and appreciation.

In each of us, we find a blessing if we dare to live and thrive, the newness in every morning signalling the God of the universe has us in His embrace, our mouths filled with testimonies for which words cannot be found except by some Pentecostal utterance because we have been overwhelmed with goodness.

Knowing that God is not against us but on our side always and fighting for us means that this march is a triumphal one. Let us all the noise we can as we joyfully celebrate this gift of life, grace, and victory.

Thought Picnic: On strength to my bones

Changes bringing changes

Generally, I would think I am strong and doing my best to keep healthy. It is however likely that with the change of environments from Manchester to Cape Town even though winter in Cape Town would pass for a mild summer at home I became slightly indisposed.

Irritation in the throat and a bit of a cough, before you knew it, I was completely sapped of energy of verve. Walking around our apartment, I was shuffling my feet rather than properly lifting them off the floor; not a good feeling at all.

A nurse without equal

I sicken too easily, and recovery can be brisk, once I have taken a good rest and slept the apparent fatigue off. I must commend Brian for his care, I guess he is worried sick seeing me literally incapacitated and he has seen this quite a few times too.

He rustles up a ginger, honey and lemon drink which is quite helpful and if he can persuade me to take a vitamin, it might well be strength to my bones. I hate popping pills apart from the ones I have been prescribed and for the aches and pains, Paracetamol with codeine gets to the root of the problem. I am perking up and feeling stronger, I won’t be doing any domestic chores today.

I put it down to change and the need to acclimatise taking comfort from stepping out onto the balcony to view Table Mountain and the beaches of Camps Bay, in one sweeping turn of the head. We love Cape Town, and this is where we meet to love.

Lo, I sniff the summer

The weather undecidedly moving

Going out for my walk this evening, I left home in my shorts and short-sleeve vest with the prospect of a dry evening of exercise. A few errands earlier meant I only needed 5,000 steps to meet my daily quota.

Within minutes, I had broken a sweat with a heart rate in the aerobic range when 4 kilometres in, raindrops were falling on my head, it did not become a rain shower but it felt like warning enough and having not taken a mask out with me, it was sensible to turn back towards home having already done 10,000 steps.

No sooner had I taken a different route back, the sun came out. Suffice it to say, I did miss the solar eclipse or any sign of it in the morning, not that it would have been that visible here or through the cloud-strewn skies.

Wheeze, sneeze, squeeze

I could tell my summer had begun, I was sniffling with a running nose, sneezing loudly every few steps and sometimes bent over, though thankfully not doubled down with those longish sneezes that could last from about 30 seconds to a minute, congenital, I presume down the maternal line, but rather exaggerated in my case.

By the time I got home, I had walked 9 kilometres, completed over 12,000 steps and was ready for a good blowing of the nose before having a drink. I might just get my antihistamine medication out; Beconase nasal spray is the advent of the summer season.

Like I have said before, one apparent benefit of the chemotherapy I took just over 11 years ago was it shortened my hay fever suffering from a March-September stretch to just within June to August. On the steps front, I need to get out of my funk and do a bit more walking too.

Curbing my somnambulism

Sleepwalking in the park

There are times I just do not feel like writing at all, the flux of thoughts not giving any insight to what might be interesting for a blog. Like when I went to Platt Fields Park yesterday for my first experience of the summer sun and sat in the shade because I was already exhausted from walking in the sun.

A funfair had taken up the front of the park with people being swirled and flung around on rides for cheap thrills, their screaming and howling in excitement, distant enough not to be disturbing or noisy. I doubt I want my guts churned by the interaction of speed and gravity all depending on the direction of movement in all planes.

When I was done and ready to return home, I was walking and yet could not keep myself awake. On a few occasions, I have had that strange feeling of literally shutting down, considering the fact that I might be endangered by falling or walking into something. The smart thing was to call a cab to take me home.

Funfair in the distance at Platt Fields Park

Platt Fields Park

Platt Fields Park

Platt Fields Park

Platt Fields Park

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.

I'm told it snowed in Stockholm

Tundra-times loom

This should have been done in the summer, Scandinavia is not for Sub-Saharan Africans at this time of the year nor is it for the faint-hearted or the warm-blooded.

However, gratitude and appreciation cannot be delayed for the discomforts of the weather, I heard this morning that it had snowed overnight in Stockholm so I should be prepared.

Happily, I packed my shorts and T-shirts, my sandals and sunglasses back into my wardrobe and prepared for the trek to the North Pole with huskies to my sleigh.

Alright, 3 years ago, at just about the same time, I was in Stockholm but on business for just one night staying in a hotel that was so out of town, it was another country or I mean, it was literally in the country.

Plans that work over those that fail

Itching to get out of town this weekend, plans were well ahead of other office plans which somehow have a regularity of failure that nothing was so certain – so rather than cancel, I just waited for the reality of farce to materialise and once that happened I booked my flight, my hotel already secured from days before.

Nothing too formal on this trip, a change of Ascots and the mandatory bowler hat for weather so treacherous, maybe I am a woos, people live there comfortably not accounting for the extreme notion that the sun sets at 10 in the morning having risen 30 minutes before.

My good friend who provided great succour to me when I was in hospital just over a year ago and visited me in the milder winter of the Netherlands in December is my hostess.

We’ll be snapping away at Swedish heritage before I return on Sunday. Ah yes! I am prepared for the situation where I might wear a pair of leather gloves over an underlying pair – I don’t do cold that well.

Spring forward, fall backward

No tick-tock clocks here

All my clocks and none with a tick-tick sound have been touched, once again we become the masters of time with those in night clubs being short-changed an hour and sleepy I finding out that I am waking up early.

It is Summer and time too – we’ve had too long a winter, too cold a season; now is the time of the sun and hopefully some warmth too.

Much as I have never really grown used to this phenomenon of shifting times by reason of my body not agreeing with this aberration of the numbered hour, I have tried to deal with it as best I can.

Bizarre adjustments

My clocks change somewhere in the afternoon on Saturday and from then on I try to believe the time is steady and no abrupt things have happened, most importantly, my microwave oven tells the time – she has been in service for 15 years and she still does my TV dinners in the statutory 5 minutes or 4 since she produces thousand watt waves – Sharp she is and a triple-act pony to boot.

The computers will do themselves and for saving almost 1,500 Euros, I have to adjust my watch manually, else it would also manage the days and dates aligned to their respective months with a leap into the longer year.

Spring leaps into Autumnal falls

The mnemonic to remember of daylight saving is so American I would really like not to remember but it is still the best way to know what to do – like a gazelle, I spring forward and like a log I fall back – more appropriately, it is, Spring forward : Fall backward.

What goes forwards and backwards is the hour, spring we all know above and below the tropics, the fall is traditionally what we know as autumn, we referring to those of us who speak English as opposed to that which needs to be qualified for differentiation.

The computers and my mobile phone automatically spring forward and you can guess, a good few people are going to be late to church with their sleepy excuses.

Meanwhile, I should exhaust my last hour of hibernation because it is really now – Summer Time.

Tone blind

Beat the heat

Were now experiencing a major heat wave in Europe. The mercury is playing on the 90s Fahrenheit and on some places would exceed a hundred.

We can expect 35 Celsius in Utrecht which just about 40 kilometres from Amsterdam such that it is a blessing to be in an air-conditioned office.

Those have their dangers, only last week a good 5 days were expended in finding source of an outbreak of Legionnaires disease, which end up in the cooling towers of Post CS, the building temporarily housing Stedelijk (Town) museum. That resulted in a fatality.

Generally, I wear a suit to work, but never in this kind of weather, my full African garb consisting of a white guinea caftan with trousers to match and a traditional Yoruba cap is good fashion against the heat and the sun.

Whereas this offers an opportunity to dress up or dress down depending on how you look at it, the amount of exposed flesh observed on others sometimes leaves much to be desired.

The tone of a raccoon

As I waited at the bus stop, there were signs of what that sun and more at done to many; people who take off their sunglasses and you see the facial equivalent of a panty-line the barely tanned eyes in the collage of a face that makes the people look like happy raccoons.

Somehow, everyone wants a tan of sort regardless of the risks, even if they have slapped on gallons of sunscreen.

The converse is the tone, darker skinned people who attempt to lighten up using chemicals that are probably better tested on gullible humans than helpless animals.

A lot can be done to tone skin and other exposed parts of the body like the legs and the lower arms.

Knuckles, Elbows, Knees all darker

Summer however affords the opportunity to dress light, expose more and in effect reveal the stubborn dark parts that the creams could not lighten.

This lady in front of me as I tried to board the bus had been at it, and her elbows so contrasted with the general skin tone one would have thought those were tailored patches.

Another stubborn region is the knees and the knuckles; I would not make too much fuss about palm prints.

Vitiligo might be the haven for some, but the uniformity of skin discolouration would leave one rather suspect of that diagnosis, but with goes without saying that when these issues come up, Michael Jackson is a full appreciation of bigger considerations as your pigment deserts you.

Reference

Skin Bleaching vs Tans

Skin Bleaching/ Lightening & Its Dangers