I’ve been trying to find a different word to describe the nostalgia enveloping me this week. There are a few reasons for this, so consider yourselves warned because this is going to be a “Me Myself I” entry. You might want to walk away now...

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of our move from Greece to Turkey. The idea is thoroughly depressing, because living here over the last year has been very depressing - when is that bastard Allen Stanford going to stand trial??? I wish I could celebrate, but sadly I can’t. I don't like living here. The solution? Focus on the positive: visits from my Australian nephew and his wife, my brother and his family, Denis and Denise, Roy and Victoria, Arthur AND the three weeks my Malawian family will be with us from December 20.

Tomorrow is my brother’s 40th birthday. He and one of his best friends from school are hosting a huge party at Harare Sports Club. My parents drove up from Bulawayo this morning, and are staying with my mother in law. It feels weird to not be going, and talking to mum this afternoon I realised it’s the first time she’s stayed in my house in Harare without me. Focus on the positive: no hangover Sunday morning.

My friends Jules, Kate, Alberta and Cathy all had lunch today. We did a few lunches when I went back to Zim in September, and it was great. I so wanted to be there today, because it’s Jules’ 50th birthday on Sunday, and today’s lunch was for Jules. Focus on the positive: good memories of the last lunches, and hopefully not too long before I enjoy another lunch with my girlfriends. Oh, and no after-lunch hangover.

This morning I learned a friend’s father passed away last month, and we didn’t know because our friend is on a farm and has had no telephone for the last two months. His dad developed a heart problem, and just faded away. This news made me think of Joy, Ivan’s aunt who died while we were in Zimbabwe, having endured eight months of chemo for bone cancer and been given the “so far so good” story. She died 48 hours after they discovered the cancer had spread to her brain. Focus on the positive: my friend’s phone is working. Hmmm, that’s all I can get, because I haven’t had the guts yet to remove Joy from my Skype contacts. It has to be done, but seems so final.

It’s not all doom and gloom: Wednesday I took my Greek friend Antigone around the Ege shopping centre. We had a great time, found some delicious chocolate, drank some great coffee and bought some nice clothes.

The doctor’s receptionist in Zim who mixed up my blood test results with another patient’s finally got the right results. After confirming I didn’t need an ECG for my doctor in South Africa she told me my cholesterol has gone down from 6.3 to 5.6... okay, it needs to go to around 5.2, but at least it hasn’t gone up!

My thumb is much better, and thankfully it was on the left hand, so my love of Bejewelled and Farming has flourished because I am right-handed and could use my mouse with ease. Oh, and I also finished my article on Amethyst mythology.

Still, it’s going to be a tough weekend. I hate being homesick. And melancholy. And nostalgic.



 

NoNaNo

Yesterday afternoon I put an end to my NaNoWriMo hopes for this year in the most brutal manner.

I’d been for my weekly grocery shopping, and included in my purchases was a fine metal knife - the one with the handle and the blade fashioned from a single piece of steel. After unloading the car I put away the shopping. After deciding to cook the beetroot for dinner I set about preparing the vegetable using the new knife.

While liberating the leaves from the fourth bulb I felt the knife touch my thumb. I glanced down... when I saw the knife had slid into the flesh at the top of my thumb as easily as a blunt knife would have delved into soft butter I let out an almighty shriek, and lifted the knife, dropping it on the table.

It was a nasty moment. There was no blood straight away, but I knew when it did come it would be like Victoria Falls - Zimbabwe’s equivalent of Niagara Falls. I grabbed a clean dishtowel, some ice from the freezer and crushed it in the towel. I should have shoved the thumb under the tap, but the gash was a slit, and it looked like a small mouth. I wrapped the finger in the towel, lifted the hand in the air and went to sit down. I didn’t want to phone my husband, so I waited.

The pain was pretty bad, but more from the ice than anything else. When it got really sore I carefully unwrapped the towel... there was blood pouring out of the slit, which lifted with the towel. Now I wanted to pass out, and felt like ing (where’s that wonderful Skype vomit emoticon when you need it???) so I went back to the chair and lay down.

Fifty minutes later the blood had slowed somewhat, and I stupidly went onto the Internet. No consolation there - all the suggestions involved getting to ER and having tetanus and stitches. I had a tetanus jab about seven years ago when I stood on a dog’s bone in my garden in Zimbabwe. I decided to phone my husband. Here’s the conversation:

Me: Good news or bad?
Husband: Good... I think
Me: The new Sky card for the satellite TV is now working.
Husband: And the bad?
Me: I’ve cut through my thumb and it’s still bleeding nearly an hour later.
Husband: Is it still on your hand or have you cut it off?

He rushed home, and we figured it wasn’t too bad, so we dosed with antiseptic and plastered it. Thankfully I bought dinner while shopping, because I couldn’t have cooked last night. After three neat scotches (which didn’t help) I ignored all rational medical advice and took a large 600 mg Brufen tablet before going to bed. Waking up a few hours later I’d found I’d been sleeping on my arm, which was full of pins and needles. I had to run my right hand don my shoulder to find my arm, pick it up and put it on my chest. I hate it when that happens.

And today has been hell. I have bumped this thumb while mopping the floor, vacuuming, putting away laundry and making tea. I managed to shower without too much hassle, but I was being extra careful, and trying not to wet the plaster. I suppose we’ll have to remove it tomorrow, but I’m afraid... I’m imagining the most horrible picture under the plaster.

The most annoying thing is that I am now very far behind in Nano, and I have accepted that I won’t be able to complete 50,000 words by November 30. I’ve been writing articles for Suite 101, and a international gemmologist from India picked up on a piece I wrote about rubies, and has linked it to his website - he gave me a second option, offering to pay me $20 for it, but as that site gets its revenue from advertising I chose the linking option. It's a confidence booster, and as I am contracted to produce nine more articles by 30 November and am starting to earn from my writing on that site I suppose I need to prioritise my writing.
And then there’s the thumb - it’s taken me around eight hours to write this because the bloody thing is so sore. But there is a bright side to the injury - the juice from the beetroot made the sliced thumb look even worse than it was! I couldn’t have picked a better vegetable to injure myself with than a beetroot!

On that cheery/painful note I wish you all a wonderful weekend!

 

I’ve just finished writing from a man’s POV in Nano; here’s the last few paragraphs:

I filled her in on some of the mundane details of the evening, deliberately avoiding any mention of the woman who stood silently in the room with us, visible only to me. Desperately hoping she would leave I ate quickly, and finished my second glass of wine. Beth was wearing black jeans and a very woolly black polo neck jersey. Her dark hair tumbled over her shoulders. She’d kicked her boots off when we came to the lounge, and now her feet were tucked under her.

“Wow, you were hungry,” Beth commented as I put down my plate.

“I still am,” I said, and reached for her.

Later, in my bed she slept curled up against me. My arm was around her shoulder. I couldn’t sleep. Beth breathed softly against me. I stared into the darkness, and all I could see was the face the woman who ran away from me earlier that evening.

My word count is not too bad - at least I’m ahead of where I should be. Reading these paragraphs back it seems like this could be a ghost story - but it’s not. My hero is in love with a girl, and he’s unintentionally hurt her. And he feels lousy about it, because now he’s been with his sometime girlfriend, but understands there’s no future with her. He likes her, but it’s more a physical than a mental connection... but then this probably doesn’t make sense! Not even to a guy. I’m quite happy with this love scene, though... or lack thereof! It leaves a lot to the imagination, especially after writing about how he feels after the “rejection”, and in the shower before his girlfriend arrives!

This afternoon I read back through some of my very first entries in my first blog on the site. It’s quite depressing to realise how much I found to write about then, and how my blogging has changed since those early days. On one entry all the people commenting are no longer active members of the site - all are basic members. I wonder what has happened? Perhaps I became too focussed on blogging... I love blogging, but I need to get my blogging groove back.

I wrote an essay on Zimbabwe’s incredible Minister of Finance Tendai Biti for the last round of Project Write World. To my amazement - because the other entries were excellent - it was placed first. I had some help from my friend Belinda, an MDC activist in Mutare in Zimbabwe. She read the piece through for me, and gave me a few details about Mr Biti’s character. Sadly, things in Zimbabwe are deteriorating, but a few very brave people are trying to put the country back on its feet; and none more than Mr Biti. If you interested and want to read about a seriously brave man here’s the link:

ID: 1608592   (Rated: E) Title: The Most Difficult Job in the World  Description: How Does One Man Revitalise the Economy of One of the World's Most Brutalised Nations? By: Sarah

There are some excellent figures for people doing Nano - it’s really encouraging reading and seeing how my writing buddies are doing on the official Nano site AND here. I’ve been posting my writing in my portfolio here, but it’s a shocking mess, so it’s private. When I looked at it this evening I wondered how on earth it’s ever going to make sense...

Well, I need some sleep. I wish you all a great weekend, and whether you’re Nanoodling, writing blog entries, prose or poetry... may your Muse be inspired and the words flow from your pen/keyboard.

Have a great weekend!!!

 

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