Back To Blighty - Early July 08

Tuesday 8th July

My flight was called at this point and I set off along the endless corridors until I finally rubbed the dust of America from my feet and stepped aboard the Jumbo Jet which bore me across the Atlantic ocean in eight easy hours. For the first time in nearly 40 international long haul flights, I actually slept quite well. I think it was largely a release of tension and the knowledge that from now on, our future is in the lap of the Gods and not dependant on sudden bursts of empty enthusiasm from our dear and glorious leader that have governed us over the past five years.

Heathrow was a blur but it would seem that the new Terminal Five is now over its earlier teething troubles. There is a quick passport check, a rather chilly wait for the bus that took me to the car hire depot, and the delight at being upgraded to a better car than the one which I had booked. There’s no key – only a plastic card which slips into a slot like a hotel key. What now? Thank heavens for the grinning young man from somewhere in Eastern Europe who shows me how to get the thing going. It’s not easy to come off a long flight, and be faced with new technology, a gear stick, a roundabout and driving on the wrong side of the road all in the space of ten minutes. I find my way to my mother's home in Buckinhamshire and a welcome cup of coffee and suddenly America is fading into a memory and I am back in England, albeit only for a short time.

It’s has been a strange journey to the Languedoc Rousillon region of France. Jean’s parents were French colonials and he was born in Vietnam just two years before the French had to beat a hasty retreat in 1947. Despite a brief return to France, the family was used to life abroad and took a chance on Liberia which in the mid 60’s was a fairly active and financially rewarding place to live. Sadly this was yet another foreign country which fell foul of the agonies of civil war and once again the family decamped and this time returned to France. Jean decided that he was unable to make a life here and with his marriage falling apart, he joined a French contracting company that sent him first to Nigeria and then down south to Lesotho, and it was here that he and I met.

I had left England in search of adventure in Southern Africa at the age of nineteen and had found myself living in the little mountain kingdom of Lesotho, married to a local European trader and the mother of two lovely children. However, neither of our first marriages had worked out successfully and we set about discovering if we could make a future for ourselves. Rather than undertake this somewhat difficult operation under the close scrutiny of the twenty five European members of our small community, we bought a derelict farm across the border in South Africa and spent the next seven years coping with flood, drought and a sheep who thought it was a dog. If ever a relationship was forged in the fires of life it was ours. There was no walking away if the going got rough and with the nearest neighbour nearly three miles away, it was a long walk to find a shoulder to cry on.

Eventually a lack of finances and increasingly dangerous living conditions forced us to sell, and we sadly turned our backs on Africa after both living there for at least thirty years, and we flew to England to see if we could make a life there. After three years of gazing in wonderment at people who felt it necessary to put on a collar and tie in order to feed their goldfish in the garden pond and who looked down their noses at the new additions to their community, we were only to glad when we met the man who asked us to move to Miami to run his office.

So there in a nutshell you have the reason why I was now doing a crash course in French and Jean was technically coming home. It’s always a joy to return to the little village in southern England where my parents lived. My dear Dad passed away a while back, and a visit to his grave in a corner of an ancient churchyard just over the road from the cottage where Mum lives, is a reminder that wherever in the world I wander, I always feel as though this is where I would call “home” if asked. The cattle browse quietly on the other side of the hedge and the monk-jack deer have clearly made a few inroads into the floral offerings on the various graves, but I know that Dad would cheerfully share his summer roses with them. I miss him but cannot mourn his escape from the cruel effects of a massive stroke. I know he has gone to a far better place, and is happily walking his much loved dog George and catching up with some dear old friends who went on ahead. Knowing Dad, he has formed the heavenly choir into a decent choral society and is probably doing the accounts for them!