Dearest readers

We are so overdue for a coffee date! I have been catching up with my real-world friends this week after returning from my travels to the other side of the world. Now its time to catch up with my online friends. Its still very much winter here, so grab your favourite hot beverage and join me. I’ve taken a liking to mochaccino since I’ve been away. The folk in New Zealand do know how to make a good one – creamy and decidedly chocolatey! And their hot chocolates are pretty great too!

I don’t know about you, but when I return home after travelling, I feel a mixture of relief and sadness. So to alleviate that sadness, I’m really excited that I have something different to look forward to this weekend. My weekend actually started yesterday. Very good friends who are currently working in Baku (Azerbaijan, located on the Caspian Sea) are in town for a visit. I haven’t seen them for years. They came around last night fortified with wine and snacks and we had a long catch up about their day-to-day life there.

Today, my ex-husband arrives from the UK to visit (remarkably we are still good friends, divorced as long as we were married) to see our son and then on Sunday, we will all get together for Sunday lunch with the friends from Baku! I love how we are all meeting from so far apart in our little town here in South Africa! Life is good. 

If we were having coffee… I’d ask about your recent travels and you would ask about mine. It seems that we have all been flying around the world – New Zealand, Australia, Sweden and more! I have so much to share about my trip to New Zealand including the fact that I took over 1000 photographs. You must know that I am working hard to reduce that down to a more manageable number! I have so much to share! You will just have to read my posts about my trip as they are published to get all the details. All I’ll say for now, is that this is the further East I have ever been and the furthest South too – I crossed the 45º latitude mark, halfway between the Equator and the South Pole!

If we were having coffee… I’d share how comforting it was to see my son when I came back. We have travelled together since he was a wee lad and even though I was having a great deal of fun, I felt a little adrift without him on this trip. It was hard being on the other side of the world, 10 time zones apart – communication is slow when you have to wait for people to be awake all the time! We will have to get used to it I suppose, as he starts to live his own adult life, we will do things apart. I do hope that we will sometimes plan travel adventures together in the future though.

Source: https://www.mapsofworld.com/time-zone-map/

If we were having coffee… I’d sigh and say that apart from that, life settles back into the same old routine of work but happily with a dash of anticipation for what is coming up next. My plans for returning to the UK will need to be cemented in this last half of the year, so the list of to-dos is growing. I really need to get some of them done – time is running away!

Anticipation © Deborah Ann Stott 2017

Speaking to to-do lists, a while back I saw a post on social media saying that we start the week off all wrong with uninspiring lists of things that need to get done. The post recommended making a beautiful-moments-to-have list and I have tried it a couple of times recently – I like it. This week my beautiful-moments-to-have list contained:

• Enjoy and take joy in the many social events I have planned with friends and family – they are a rare treat as nobody bothers to come to Grahamstown to visit!
• Make an effort to look at the blood moon lunar eclipse from 21.30 on Friday, which will officially be the longest one seen in South Africa for over 100 years. I wonder if I can capture it photographically?

If we were having coffee… I’d want to hear news from you? How has the world been treating you whilst I have been away? Share what would be on your beautiful-moments-to-have list for the next week in the comments. Until next week, stay well and safe!

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