a flying pain in the ...

Air Passenger Duty. APD. Also known as TAX. It hurts. Apparently it's going up by as much as 55% as of Monday 1 November. Boo Hiss. My flights to South Africa are already made up of 50% of "taxes, fees and surcharges". So I can only assume that long haul flights will become unaffordable. And I will be stuffed.

I can understand one perspective of reducing your carbon footprint and keeping climate change in check. In fact I positively agree with it as I think we are trashing out planet. Without which we are nothing. Can't we just offset our carbon footprint instead?

Better that than paying random taxes to the government with no knowledge of where this money goes. If it cannot be accounted for regarding climate change research, expenditure etc., then if this is the reason for raising taxes then it is not good enough.

I want to know more. I want to know why.

I do not want my hard earned money going into a random pot to pay for MPs and Lords expenses or anything else unrelated to travel, the climate or the environment.

I am deeply peeved.

my roots

I'm off to South Africa in less than three weeks. I'm gonna miss my roots. As much as I rant and moan about England, really, it isn't all bad. The obvious benefits are much loved family and friends. But there is the shared cultural history, the particular set of codes Londoners define the way they move around the city, the shared sense of humour and common understanding of sarcasm.

This drives me slightly batty after prolonged periods abroad when I just need to speak to an English person to have a conversation with a shared language, shared cultural history and a deep understanding of sarcasm - the lowest form of wit apparently, but it works for me and I miss it when people just don't get it.

I'll miss four seasons (not Vivaldi - already on my iPod) but our very own, very temperate climate moving gently from summer to autumn, to winter, to spring and back to our usually slightly disappointing summer. Although I have to say that this summer was pretty good by our standards. 

Now the leaves are starting to turn, the air is crisper and I can feel winter coming in the air. In three weeks time my body will be rudely assaulted by sunshine and humidity confusing my poor English-ness. Not that I'm complaining all that much. I'm going into summer when here it's gonna get to the point where it's so cold and miserable, people will use the weather as an excuse not to go out. Like I do. I seriously dislike being cold. But I'll miss the spring blossoms. One road in my area erupts into pink and white blossoms - new life on old trees showing off and rightly proud. Sometimes I'll take a drive down it because it is just so pretty. Even when it's out of my way. 

So yeh. When I'm overseas I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss my country. I miss my people. I miss weird things like cheese platters. Even though I rarely eat cheese on platters, but I do eat a lot of cheese. I miss loads. But I'm still going.

staying real

I don't work in an office. For now. But I am surrounded by office politics. Is this par for the course for any job? Are some jobs or working locations worse than others?

I am surrounded by a majority of females at least half of whom are well under half my age (and I am not really that old).

It is now more about policing their work, or lack of it, than actually fulfilling the job that I am paid for. Making work "enemies". Do I care? Not really. But frankly my dear, I have better things to think about. And to spend my energies on. And frankly, this is just sapping it out of me in the worst possible way. Shit.

I have happily given a lot of myself to this job. If you do something, you may as well do it properly. So I try. But I didn't imagine that it would overtake everything. My thoughts, dreams, visions, plans are taken up by this temporary job that has been part of my life for a long time. But. I am EMMIGRATING for f***'s sake. My thoughts and actions should rightly be elsewhere. But I am running at 50%. And damn that sucks.

I am seriously, officially over it. I cannot function anymore this way with conflicting life priorities.There are a small handful of people there that I would consider friends, or at least suffering from an intellectual ability. The rest of them need to grow up. Get a brain (cell). Get with it.

A narrow mindedness in the people I have to deal with suffocates this job. I really wish that people would get real. Get some perspective. Not a bubble.

the visa the visa the visa

It is taking over my life. As it should. But it is a touch overwhelming. Just when I think I've got things sorted, more stuff just flings itself at me demanding my attention. I now have folders within folders. Filed, labelled, organised, filed again. Moving to the Rainbow Nation involves an inordinate amount of paperwork. I suppose much like moving to any other country in the world. It is all the same in that respect. But damn am I overwhelmed by the enormity of it all.

for the first time..

.. in eight years I have been on holiday.

I travel loads as a bonafide "traveller" complete with backpack, occasional Lonely Planet and a deep interest in culture and a dedication to getting off the beaten tourist track (which I only really ever managed in Western Australia, Fiji and Vietnam).

But a week long holiday? Me? Nope. Not since 2002. Not since "wayzback".

The landscapes were stunning - white and terracotta washed buildings, out into the sand dunes, towards the lagoon ocean with variations of blue running through it making it all rather picture perfect. Apart from the buildings that are half built, slightly wonky looking and have been that way for the last two or so years. The global economy ground to halt and along with it so did the tourist buildings designed to accommodate ever more tourists who no longer have the disposable cash to be tourists. So a landscape beautiful, yet sometimes blighted.

The culture was overrun by ex-pats with a certain accent that sends me running to the hills screaming loudly and rocking gently, but to be fair, there was always a smile and a greeting which is more than can be said for what you get in London.

The locals on the most part were delightful but I never got to practise the local language since they all cut you short and speak in a hackneyed, cockneyed, accented English. It was far better than my hideously basic attempts but ultimately meant that I learnt bugger all of their language, despite being determined to be different to all the others who had been in the country for years and can barely speak a word. So I tried. But ultimately I failed. Every time I tried to think of the word I was looking for I would invariably get the Xhosa version of what I wanted in my head. So painfully, out spurted the English version translated in my head from English to Spanish, to Xhosa and back to English again. I had a headache. An African language on a European island generally doesn't translate easily. Funny that.

Yet despite all that I had the most delightful time. I needed it. Wanted it. Had it. Loved it. Hurrah.

what is the glass?

So it's the age old question of optimism versus pessimism. 

Is the glass optimistically half full or pessimistically half empty? 

Or am I allowed to be utterly ambivelent on every level by saying the contents of the glass are just halfway? 

I wish it was half full.