Settling In, Settling Down

I’ve had so many thoughts swimming around my head in recent days. I want to write about so much, but somehow I can’t get the link between my brain and my fingers to work, so no matter how often I write something, I end up giving up half way. I seem to lose my train of thought.

There has been a fair bit of change in my life recently.

I laughed at myself as I wrote that. My colleague Sarah recently asked me if I was the master of understatement. Perhaps I am.

I have left my home to return for a while to South Africa, my old home. I have started a new job. Two of the three most stressful things in life. I have also had various changes in my relationships with everyone I’ve left behind and returned to. That’s three out of three, I think.

I’m not complaining too loudly. I know we’re incredibly blessed that we can both be in positions where we can work from pretty much anywhere. It comes with sacrifices, but ones we are more than willing to make for a time.

Life here is very different to in the UK. The city we live in, Pretoria, is not that much smaller than London, border to border. It does have about ¼ of the population though and that makes a big difference to a place. There are large open spaces, wide roads, and a large house is generally home to one family, not five flats.

Our home here is in a cul-de-sac near a field, there are other people around us, but it’s pretty quiet. We rarely see any of our neighbours, even though they all drive past our front door. It is lovely. It is different and less entertaining than the crazy streets of Lambeth. Right now the only sound apart from the tapping of the keyboard keys is the wind in the trees. It is peaceful. It is what I have craved for so long.

It’s not all sunshine and roses though. Our neighbour – a young man – was tied up and burgled in his home last night. Having had a knife to my throat during a robbery nine years ago, I find that very frightening, still.

There’s a beautiful field behind our house. Between us and it are a spiked fence, barbed wire and electric fencing. Still ‘they’ broke through the wall of an empty property to gain entrance to our ‘security village’.

That’s just how it goes here. No one really bats an eyelid.

Work has been going exceptionally well. I work for a website called PlayPennies. I started writing a post a day for them, but within two weeks I’ve been doing loads more. They have been so welcoming and I’ve enjoyed it so much so far. If you’re a UK parent, have a look. We have all the best deals we can find for parents every day, in one place.

When it comes to finding presents, or stocking up on things for children, PlayPennies writers (including myself, now!) sometimes come up with pretty amazing deals

Check it out – come Christmas, you’ll be really glad you did.

Relationships. Well. Those are tough even on good days, aren’t they? I don’t want to go into details now. Things change. People change. It’s the circle, and the cycle, of life.

In many ways I feel I’ve dropped the ball, but in others I feel I’m gaining more, learning more. Growing more.

I’ll have more to share on that, someday soon.