Eish! London 1 - 3 July

JULY
“All life is an experiment.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

This month Carey and I are going to take a coach tour to Leeds Castle, Canterbury and the White Cliffs of Dover. We discussed it before our Salsa Dance class and have settled on Saturday the 18th. I’m finally going to see where the Canterbury Tales hail from!

Wednesday, 1 July – (surviving this heat wave is like being back in Africa! Loving it!)
Today I booked and paid for my flights to Hong Kong: 13 to 19 September 2009. Exciting times. £440.00! (Choke on the ‘extravagant’ dream!) Bring it on!

Thursday, 2 July
Today is the 30th anniversary of the original Sony Walkman! According to the Metro Paper the Walkman was: “As revolutionary in its time as the iPod is now, 50 million of the portable cassette players were sold in its first decade.” For any post 1990 babies: The Walkman was about 10cm x 15cm and played one side of a cassette at a time; that’s about 8 – 12 songs and then you had to manually turn the cassette around. After a few hours of play time you would have to change the batteries. For any pre 1950 babies: Today a 4cm x 3cm iPod Shuffle continually plays hundreds of songs in the order you save them in (or it shuffles them around for you); and if the battery is low you recharge it through your computer. All that change in only 30 years.

If you are interested, like I am, Jack Bacon has written a book called The Parallel Bang (2006), in it he has a diagram showing the statistics of human progression: Man has been on earth for a million years; fire, tools and language have been around for 60, 000 years; civilization, cities, agriculture and writing: 5000 – 10, 000 years; and Modern Science? Only 200 years! I must admit I find the exponentially crazy growth of mankind’s ‘extra stuff’ (that’s my terminology’s not Mr Bacon’s) mind-blowingly scary. Happy 30th anniversary to the now obsolete Sony Walkman. Hopefully I won’t be obsolete with my 30th birthday in a few months!

Friday, 3 July
The ‘good news’ for today came via a text message from my Mom telling me that my certificate from the University of South Africa, (issued in absentia) for my 3 years of part time studying, had finally arrived (more than 6 months after receiving my results!). I officially have a big certificate to say that I have a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. I’m officially a teacher…and I wasn’t there to see it or celebrate it. Maybe one day I’ll actually get to wear a cap and gown at a graduation ceremony and have a party. One day…

Instead of a big celebration I settled for taking myself to Covent Garden and treating myself to a cuppa. I sat alone at a table on the cobbled stones looking towards the curio / memorabilia Jubilee Market next to London’s Transport Museum. I ordered a cappuccino and sipped it slowly, watching all the people with their busy lives rush by, wishing that at least my family were there with me to mark the moment. I sent a text to each of them to let them know I was thinking of them and I wished they were with me…My Dad’s reply was: “I am… enjoy luv dad.” I saw very little through the mist in my eyes. The warm drink softly soothed my sorrow; with each sip I steadied and strengthened a little more. Slowly sipping, slowly strengthening. I have no idea how long I sat there, but it was dark when I took myself ‘home’. (Love you too Dad)