familiar chairs, unfamiliar faces

I'm sitting in the yellow chairs of the imagining department. It's been like this for a while, the changes and improvements continue. This place holds a lot of memories for me. 

I've been coming here for so long, for me and for my dad. They always ask after him on the ward, so I'm glad I'm not going there today. But who is left to ask, maybe a couple of the nursing team. If Prof Drake was in, maybe him. He won't be. It's not a clinic day. It's a scan. 

My full scan.

How lucky I am. It's the back bone of our country. I'm sad and angry knowing what the government are doing to it. 

Will it always be here?

I'm feeling nervous, unsettled and unsure. I feel cheeky to be getting the scan and also relieved. 

But I normally build up to this. I was caught off guard. And I don't know when I get the results... What will they say, what will the next year hold? Are my kidneys going to be ok this time, has anything new and dangerous begun, are the old and previously faithful ones behaving? 

Who knows.

Not me of course. 

Not yet. 

winter is different

I'm looking at one of the fastest pigeons I've ever seen. I have on a hat and scarf to begin to warm up for a walk in the grey cold air of my home town. 

This place, my home, my land is different and more than ever before. Changed forever because he's not here. His room is cosy and comfortable and he's not here. My mum has done a great job of making it feel full, but it's of course empty, unless we're all in it, filling it with jokes and laughs, which we've been trying to do. 

it's raining

Here in the heat of Africa's warm heart I'm watching the long awaited rain begin to fall. It's been almost a month since there was any real rain here in my small part of the world. 

It's gentle, the rain the mornings tends to be, it's falling softly and steadily and it's easing my sadness. 

Afternoon rain is heavier, more urgent, it's responding to the heat of the day. That was my tears yesterday. Now my tears are morning tears. 

Familiar strangers

I suspect that many people have more than one home. And some, none.

I'm about to leave home to go home. 

I'm nervous, excited, longing for the familiar of before. I'm happy to experience the cold and the sense of just being where I know I'm welcome. Not a guest. 

But this new home is really home. And I'm going to miss it. There is a simplicity to life here. 

I'm nervous of the situation there and how to fit everything and everyone in. 

Focus on family and friends, the close ones. Mainly my mum and sister. They matter the most.

And I'm there to say goodbye to my dad. 

My heart feels a strange type of heavy. 

flying home for Christmas

I won't believe it until I'm in my mum's arms, but we're going. Red lists, politics and my own sense of trepidation aside, we're off. 

Nervous doesn't come close.

That's if we get all the things you need to fly, that's if the plane goes where it's supposed to go.

I don't know how I feel, except right now, anxious.