well that’s it…we’ve arrived.
This is my new home, all the furniture is in, unpacked…just a bit of re jiggling and we’re done…so now what?
It’s been a very stressful time for all of us…Peter in a new job, well same job, new country and way of working, different work culture and covering a much larger geographical area and managing more people.
Kids in a new school, new friends, new languages away from their dad and the very large and close knit family.
Kids have made some great friends and most of Peter’s work colleagues have been really helpful with advice and places to go and visit, but other than than we’ve had to do everything on our own.
I’m on my own all day, I have the gardener and the pool guy to speak to, but to be honest that’s out of politeness only. I visit a couple of cafes on a regular basis and seem to be a bit of a novelty being English as they’re aren’t many of us here.
We live in Centurion which is an Afrikaans area and their love of the English is not great. I’ve had a couple of encounters with Afrikaans because of my country of origin, guess it’s something I’ll have to get used to, but won’t tolerate…just got to learn to keep my mouth shut and walk away.
Yesterday the kids were watching Top Gear at Kyalami and as I’m not a petrol head I wondered off for a coffee and a cigarette. There were thousands of people there and everyone was getting knocked and bumped into, lots of smiles and apologies and ‘after you’ As I walked off there was a mad rush to get up the step to where Clarkson was standing and as I moved through the crowd I bumped into a gentleman, as I turned to apologise he shoved me from behind….I asked ‘what did you do that for?’ he started shouting at me that I was rude and to get out of his way….I replied ‘I’m sorry but there was no need to shove me’ his response was ‘don’t fucking mess me with lady’ and he shoved me again and sent me flying. He was white, 60+ and Afrikanns. I know this as someone muttered ‘bloody afikaans’ I stood there amazed, I didn’t swear, retaliate, I walked off stood behind a board and I cried. I found the first aid tent, asked if I could sit a while, explained what had happened, they gave me a tissue and left me to have a real good cry.
I was alone, Peter is in Europe this week with work, I had no one to turn to, no one to call, only the children were there and I’m not their responsibilty. At that moment in time I wanted to go home, back to the UK and the only friends I had were on twitter and boy they were a support, I recieved hugs and kisses, messages of support and understanding, some from people I tweet with regulary and others not so much that were on line and responded.
I calmed, I stopped crying, I found the kids, I told my 16yo son what had happened. He fetched me a drink, looked after Alex and we carried on and enjoyed the rest of our day.
By the time we drove home at 6pm I had the mother of all migraines, I needed sleep, medication, a cup of tea and looking after..again who is here to help me? No one just the kids, so Dan had to help me, he got Alex to tidy up his mess and get ready for bed, made sure all the lights were turned off and let me go to bed with a hot water bottle and a steaming mug of tea.
Still got a headache this morning…..Alex is entertaining himself with selotape and cardboard boxes, Dan will probably sit in front of the xbox/TV all day and I’ll stay here on the sofa with the laptop and my twitter friends
