Facing the Future - and look back at the past!

Facing the Future – and looking back at the past.

My friend Rose and I are discussing the end of the earth, and needless to say this is the most depressing thought, and to add insult to injury the music on my computer is the type of music that will induce me to tears and I may just start chewing my wrists soon. Add to this I watched the Movie 2012……….. I have decided I am moving to the Drakensberg and will find the biggest “ARK” I can, so if you want to join me, let’s do this then. I have to admit the movie most certainly gave pause for thought.

So if any of this is true and I am not saying it is true, or not true, I ask myself what is the point in going to work, or even getting out of bed. I will tell you what the point is, we are not in control of our future even though we think we are, but we have our past to look back on and remember those crazy stunts we pulled off as schools kids which by rights should have gotten us killed. Or those times when your own children put your very life in danger. And I realize that worrying about the future is actually not going to solve anything. So I choose to live my life to its best and when I have the blue days like we all do, I dig deep into my recess of my memories and sit here and smile the smile of the stupid and pretend that the grim reaper is not actually knocking on our doors. So to lighten the mood, I will share a few childhood memories and a few experiences with my children and lastly what is important to me right now.

“OH yes, if my girls are reading this and we do indeed only have a few years left on this earth – I want to be a grandmother before that happens. LOL………only joking my girls, hint hint!! No pressure……..

When we are children we have the desire to try anything, to climb that high tree, to jump over that bale or obstacle with the absolute belief that we are invincible and that the tooth fairy is real and that Santa does indeed see if we are naughty or nice. Since then I have developed a fear of heights, speed and oh just about everything!!!

It is only as we fall and scrape our knees or break our bones that we being to appreciate that we are not invincible but we still face life with a sense of courage and believe totally and unequivocally that we will become famous, rich and be the most revered people in the world. This belief stays with us until we ourselves stop believing and accept that life is not a wonderful play ground, but we still allow ourselves to dream and we still accept challenges and we still fight the dragons every day. These dragons just have new names, rent, electricity bills, rabid land ladies, deceitful friends and ex-husbands. But my love of life has not diminished, my belief that good will win in the end and my belief in people on a whole is still very much intact regardless of how many times I am shown that the people of the world need to be a little more tolerant and loving towards their neighbours.

Have you ever watched children at play, if they don’t like the game, the simply change the rules, or they walk away from the game. Their imaginations know no bounds and they never, never give up.

Have you ever tried to say no to a three year old that is determined to have their own way not matter how much you try distract them or bribe them? There is no shaking their train of thought, and if by some miracle you are able to distract them, do not for a minute think this has anything to do with your powers of persuasion or bribery. They may simply have lost interest or something else has caught their attention; but you can be sure they will remember and they will go back to the very conversation and battle you were losing when they feel like it.

I am sure I contributed to my parents grey hairs and loss of sleep as my brother Bain and I knew no fear and “Be careful, you are going to get hurt!” which we heard on a regular basis was interpreted to us “We don’t want you to have fun, we are in fact mean parents and will stop you experiencing the joy and the laughter” and we went ahead and did what we wanted in any case. Pretty much like our kids did to us as parents. Oh how the wheel doth turn and we are really punished for our childhoods.

Bain and I would on a regular basis take our pellet guns and venture into the bushes without a fear in the world and we thought we were invincible. On our farm there was an old club house which had been abandoned years before, it had the most amazing pool, the size of a school swimming pool and even though it was filled with frogs and frogs eggs we loved swimming in the pool. Just the thought of this gives me the absolute horrors and the thought of the bacteria. I just shudder. This however had no effect on us as children, we dove right in, between the green goo and frogs eggs and came up for breathe with this lovely necklace of eggs on our faces and draped around our bodies. Totally disgusting; but we did not see it as that.

We were treasure hunters diving into the deep caves of the Amazon jungles and we defeated pirates and fought off sea monsters and loved every minute of it. The water beetles were fairies and the snakes were fire breathing dragons. We always had our dogs with us who joined us in the pool and we splashed and swam and collected frog’s eggs to watch them morph into tadpoles and then frogs only set the frogs free in the pool later.

We climbed trees and even though I was terrified of snakes, I was not going to miss out on the fun, I was not going to be called a sissy, so I climbed the trees and imagined that the moving branches were green mambas and many time jumped down and ran off through the long grass convinced that the snakes were chasing me when the moving branch was indeed a snake. Being up in the trees and looking at our world on the farm, we felt we were invincible and could fly if we just believed hard enough. We were Tarzan and we were magic beings who were all powerful – then we would hear the whistle and our hearts would beat faster…. Our parents were home and it was bath time and dinner time.

I remember one Christmas; we had this most amazing Christmas tree. It was a thorn tree that my brother and my father had cut down and brought into the house. It was sprayed silver and we added our decorations, shiny tin foil shapes, cotton wool, pop corn threaded on thread and streamers. My dad played his guitar and we sang along and lit candles and Bain and I shared our secrets and listen to our parents sing Christmas carols to us. I still to this day have never re-captured that feeling of having the most magnificent Christmas and Christmas tree as I did when I was 8 years old. It was only later in life that I realized the thorn tree was all my family could afford and the paint books and paint brushes we were given was all that the budget allowed. But I still think back on this Christmas and realize that of all the Christmases we had as children when the finances improved, we were never as close as that particular Christmas, where the true feeling of Christmas came though.

Family and loved ones. I am also eternally grateful for the paints and the book as I developed a love for painting because of this gift and it is still something I love to do when the creative BIG hits me. (PS, if anyone has seen this bug, please send it back to me as I am seriously in need of getting my hands dirty and need to paint again!)

When I was 12 years old my dad introduced me to a scrambler motor bike, and I had the freedom of the farm, I kick started the scrambler and off I went, through the tobacco fields and cotton fields, the mealy fields were my best as I tore paths through them. The freedom and the speed, well I thought I was going quite fast, but in fact I was most probably not going that fast, but it felt amazing. My favourite time of the day at that age was when I returned home from school after riding in the back of our green van that was bringing the newly baked bread for the corner shop at Gadzeema (The smell of fresh bread still conjures up these memories) and got on the scrambler and just rode off in whatever direction I felt like. You would not be able to get me on a bike now that’s for sure and the love of the bike left me when I realized how dangerous a bike can actually be, but at 12, I was not scared of anything (well maybe of upsetting my parents if they ever found out what we got up to.)

The joy of the innocent and the love of life as a child is something we all need to feel from time to time. Like when you are shopping with your girls and you start to dance along to a song in a supermarket or clothing store and you know you look like an absolute idiot but you jam along and sign along embarrassing our children and not caring who is watching, but these are remnants of our inner child and we need to encourage them to come out and play every now and then. Life is too damn serious as it is and if you really feel sad, go look for a group of young children playing and get down into the sand pit with them or grab some of the play doe and get your hands dirty. Your spirits will be lifted in a few seconds. Or read them a story, have you ever watched their faces as you describe the adventure you are reading or the giggles as you change your voice to suit the story.


My children were still young, Caitlin was not even at school and we had the evening bed time story ritual. They loved their stories about animals and the adventures they got up to and one evening I was reading to them about the antics of a the animals in the jungle, as I was reading to them about a hippo who had the hiccups, by sheer chance, I developed hiccups and no matter how hard I tired to stop them, they carried on during the story of the hiccuping Hippo. The children giggled and rolled off the bed in the sheer joy of the story and the magic power the hippo must have had to give me hiccups.

We all lay on the floor and laughed at the sound of my hiccups as I tried to finishing the story and when it was time to stop, I loved their voices saying “Oh please mommy just one more story please But this time make one up for us, one where we are in your story.” These stories were their best as they were animals, or kings and queens or pirates or whatever they wanted to be on that particular night. Memories of love and laughter and joy - No matter what has happened since then or what is still to come, we have those memories and we all cherish them and think back to the times when we were scared of almost nothing and believed and every now and then our parents took the time and joined in and were our play mates; rolling on the grass with us, playing tickle games, climbing trees with us, throwing up only to catch us. They were our horses and carried us on their backs or lifted us up onto their shoulders so we could see over the crowds.

My children took this one step further, they decided I needed roller blades so I could roller blade with them at Horwood’s farm in Edenvale, and my shrieks must have awoken the dead as they wheeled me around and made sure not to let me fall. They had no problems racing down hills and speeding up just to see the sheer terror and excitement on my face and they screamed as loud as I did with laughter and delight. I think I laughed more than I roller bladed and the children teased me about my lack of skill and inability to skate on my own, but they thoroughly enjoyed the time with their mum who was behaving like a teenager.

There was one time when I was sure Caitlin tempted fate as she decided to climb up onto the roof our house as she had done many times, but this time she decided she could not get down. I arrived home from work, in my short work skirt, stockings work shoes and when I arrived she was on the roof absolutely refusing to get down. Mathew was trying to coax her down and Sarah was being his back up support, but Caitlin was frozen stiff. I jumped out the car with the speed of a cheetah, ran to the back door. Climbed up on the wall and scrambled up on to the roof like one of those lizards from the X -Men, completely forgetting my fear of heights or the fact that my work attire was not suitable for rock climbing. My skirt was by now above the pantie line and I had my rear on exhibition for the whole world to see, but i did not care, my child was in danger and if this required me leaping through flames, i would not have hesitated. It was only once I had rescued her and passed her down to Sarah was I suddenly over come with vertigo and I cannot describe that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you feel you are seconds from death.

I clung onto the roof, and very slowly crawled backwards, ripping my Lycra stocking and the curses that were coming out of my mouth are not to be repeated. From being Super Mom, I was suddenly the horrid troll threatening death to the children if they ever climbed up on the roof again. I swear the decent took me hours but Mathew was encouraging me with his, “Go Mum! You can do it and Caitlin had run inside to go and watch her favourite TV programme not one thinking about the near death experience she was subjecting me too. Ok, ok it was not very high off the ground, but still, climbing onto the ladder gives me the heebby jeebies and I feel quite ill as I climb up onto the last ruing of the ladder. Climbing on my kitchen counter to look into the top of a cupboard is enough to make me feel light headed and ready to pass out!


My wish is that they share these memories with their children and experience the pleasure and overwhelming love of having their own children and see their children experience new things and as they learn, they teach us so much in return. Love, humility, faith and the joy of being a child again.

Ok, now I am going to find a jungle gym or a roundabout and I am going to sit there and just be a kid again, let’s hope they have a swing big enough or a slide big enough to hold this BUTT!. I know the inner child is still in me and I also know that we decide to be happy or not, we can let life get us down or we can take the time to listen to the birds and watch the sunset or go and sit on the beach and just feel the exhilaration of being alive.