Q1 Complete

So endeth another month, the span of thirty days trickling to a close.  From its start in quarantine through IWD and St. Pat’s to an enforced cleanse/wagon.  Halfway to the next moments with Mweemba, always a difficult spot to navigate the emotions, and with such uncertainty over processing and shipping delays in the mixer as well.  

Plus, the office.  The realization of taxes due, the flimsy platform on which the (lucrative) career rests, the continued lack of entrepreneurial spirit.  More on that anon, after this walk from Woodside on Mirriam’s new running route...

Risk / Reward

On the table for discussion, the Comfort Inn's $790 offer.  An opportunity to save $300-400 if you act now, or the chance to flush the non-refundable fare if the quarantine does not continue or issues arise with the flight or passport return.  Just off the phone and although some accommodation (no pun intended) may be possible, there are no guarantees.  Managers are meeting with government every week, and much is in flux, so the inclination is to hold off for new information for a few days more.  But the potential trajectory points to one optimum solution, and the consequence of failing to act is just a few extra dollars for an improved hotel and food welcome.  What a world it remains, as I write about demand charges late into this Sunday night, and dream sweetly about my "babies"...  Hehe, remember? 

Seventh Day

The cleanse completes tonight, and body feeling the benefits.  How a bottle of wine and pizza would hit the spot during tonight’s organizing/cleaning, but the will is there to wait one more 1/52 of the year and Liverpool, Easter Sunday, etc.  

How much can change in a week, the news from the TRV, the thank you walk tonight to celebrate all the plans that can now be made.  A new car from Balzer to be arranged, the boat, Calgary and the mountains, a pop in underneath the CN Tower, the cottage preparations and the rest.  5 more weeks to the day the wife sets foot in her new home?  Surely.

Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I...  let’s see if the beautiful plans for 2021 can live up to the dreaming.  There’s every reason for optimism.  Believe.

Application Received

March 12 to March 23, a beautiful timeline for the TRV, all things unfolding nicely on the immigration front.  Finally a change on the ECAS today as well, inching ever forward in the process.  Remember the optimism and enjoyment in defeating this lengthy struggle, the desperation for reunification.  Because it will not all be wine and roses, no matter the efforts to make it so, as the WhatsApp conversation to come about Windhoek and driving will make clear.  Again, who else has navigated through COVID so successfully?  I would like to read it.  Need not jinx it though, as the DHL package remains to be stamped and returned, but this summer is shaping up beautifully indeed.

As is the Fall.  More positive news today on the London front, with the Globe season announced to October 30, and Sunday in the Park not opening in 2021.  Even "& Juliet" is set for a return in September, so hopefully the timing of the Zambian exams allows for the first accompanied visit to the Thames.  I am looking forward to that introduction.

This happy news all falling in the middle of a RapidCleanse, RenewLife with Acacia Gum and various roots, so kind of strangely not celebrating it all as fully as I might.  Add in the uncertainty of the NB border, the real sense of remaining in a holding pattern remains.  

"Patience," served Mirriam at DHL, as she sent the passport off.  We are so close now to a return to life, far improved.  Cometh the hour.  

A Thousand Years

Hard getting motivated these days.  The temptation to remain in quarantine mode is bordering on extreme, as Year 2 of the pandemic rolls on.  

But, as ever, signs of life... Hamlet rebooking for November leads to the Cherry Orchard, and ideas.  Plus news from the Globe should drop this week.  Wonderful to imagine being back on the Thames, and with the real love at long last for introductions.

News out of Zambia, a young new James is born.  Lots of love flowing to and from Batoka, and the purchase of Misty proves crucial in the wife’s quality of life.  The auto-trader searches leading to her Halifax lover H(a)-RV(ey)?  It feels right in the way that these things must.  Monday will show.

Oh, how much of the 2021 trajectory hinges on this TRV.  So much easier to do everything once she is here and people can see.  Thus the walk to 35 Lakecrest in the snow and setting sun for a special request I meant to deliver last week.  This could be the one, having discounted the possibility of other May travels this evening.  The hotel Q just doesn’t make sense, unless it is for transit from Lusaka at the first of May.

So much time pondering this in-between time.  Oh thy will be done this time, please.  The Tim Horton’s song following of the title was a nice touch...

Agreeable to the Latest Discoveries

So says the map of the world on the wall, below the antlers adorned with a cheap Guinness hat.  The sketchy dude with the shaved head and devil tattoo on the skull has just drifted out at 3:20, having dropped his phone clattering to the ground and after so much salt added into his beer.

Remember?

Always that’s the word, but especially this day, as it grows difficult.  The pieces of previous years put together through jotted down passages in notebooks, photos, faded memory.  Ever the same.  A smile as whiskey in the jar or Sunny Side of the Street is played.  The stories and the green.

The “marathon not a sprint” counsel.

Sister-in-law in labour across the continents, checking hourly for the immigration updates, and otherwise all unfolding (it would seem) pursuant to some divine plan.  The contentment is there, no (or little) desire for the random encounters that fuelled these days of old.  Satisfaction and celebration instead.

Phil joined at 7am this morning, how will those moments be remembered?  With reverence and a smile, surely.  Young Marnie joined the call with gusto, and then Devin assisted with the test drives.  A Farewell to the Standard moment, alas.  The CX-30 is a beaut, but need consultation now, and I love that I love that I do.

Nephew-in-law born 20:20, 13 minutes ago.  Long life, my young man, long life.  What a world.

The Eve of the Day

Strange to be here, looking about, the same space but Abbass character and history drained right out of the place.  Decent food and wine, but not a spot for the long-term.  I wonder how it will fare in a non-Covid summer?  Perhaps we’ll see.  Seems instead an example of how to throw money away.

But to the point, I have $25 of Guinness next to me, ready for the morning.  No 7am opening once again, impossibly, one year on.  I wonder what would have happened had it all played out differently, gone herd, so to speak, even once things had stabilized.  We’ll never know, other than the fine trajectory that has left you with a ring on your finger.  The year of thinking (and doing) magically.

Just need that TRV to come through to plan out an immaculate summer.  Tomorrow would be the perfect lucky day to receive it.  Animo Peregrino.  There is so much ahead.

Now head to the bathroom before the ferry and remember Machu Picchu...  then get your rest.

179(b)

Day one of waiting, and not even a work day so no chance of anything happening.  And yet.  Will it be seen as enough?  The visas and stamps and Willard and Protacial and Misty.  Thought about a return to the Drakensburgs or to Cape Town to accompany, three years from the meeting night after all, but that seems to have just been a fun way to run out ahead of yourself.  Save the additional $5000 that might cost, and put it toward a car and the Mush-a-Mush quarantine?  It seems the makings of a plan.

This day of nothing, eating scraps from the freezer, finding new shows to stream, the only hassle the recharging of the phone, as garbage and dirty clothes pile up around.  There are things to be done, to work on before M. arrives, if prayers and positive vibes so allow.  Trust the process, he says, on the eve of Spurs in an empty stadium.  Maybe the Europa run could be watched from here?  Semi-finals are April 29 and May 6, should you find yourself surprisingly together with access to a television.  Or is this wifi portable to the cottage?  It just might be.  Let’s let things line up in the proper way.  

Please.  Just clear that hurdle, I beg of thee.

Bwindi Impenetrable?

Big afternoon, as we click send on the Tourist Visa App and our dreams for the future.  Stay tuned.  Spent this lazy Friday morning imagining how to accompany the wife on the return, and Uganda and its gorillas popped up as an intriguing rainy season option.  Pourquoi pas?  

Last eve the anniversary of year one of the pandemic was celebrated with a brilliant little symposia bingo, characters and road trips and memories and laughter and no pants.  St. Pat’s looms, as does a Sunday NLD.  Let’s have it.

Release

 I had ... a moringa miracle tea.  

How did we get here, and how do we leave?  

A fever tree before me now.

Ha.   HA!  Remember.  

What did you want to listen to?  That you played immediately on hitting the button.  Do you remember?  

How could you?  When it was Klaus Doldinger’s Fairy Tale. ? 

Ha.

(Is there a way to salvage everything?  With this positive music?  The Traveller.  So good.)