The boxes have arrived!

Yes, after a journey of 8 weeks or more, that took them through Liverpool, Europe, and the islands off Morocco, and then 10 days in customs being looked at... John, Paul, George and Ringo, my 4 boxes sent from London, have finally arrived and been delivered.

It;s a strange sensation, there isn't really anything within them that I urgently need, and yet to be re-united with them and their contents, I was like a kid in a candy store opening them up and checking nothing was broken, and excitedly taking out objects... It was like Christmas for adults!

I was also treated to my first experience of super efficiency in Johannesburg. The delivery was scheduled for a time between 9:30 and 10:30 - and yet at 8:30 the driver called me on my mobile to say he was already parked outside my front gate.

So pergaps efficiency does exist - just not in the drivers licence department....

My ship has come in!

Growing up my grandmother would always comment about her “ship” and how when it came in, she would be rich.
Today I can say that my ship REALLY has come in, though sadly, I am not rich in that process.

According to my shipping company, and a couple of other websites I have referenced, the container ship on which my boxes, John, Paul, George and Ringo, are being transported arrives in Durban today, and for the first time in about 6 weeks, my boxes and I are once again on the same continent and in the same country.

Apparently it may take another 2 weeks for my the four of them to hitch hike themselves up the motorway from Durban to Johannesburg, but pretty soon I will be reunited with them, and in a way I will be a little richer for that.

Or at least I will have a bit more clothing…!

Dawning reality

A friend of mine was saying a few days ago how big a move I was about to undertake, and I scoffed that it was all relatively easy. But as time passes and I get closer to flying, the reality and gravity of the situation is dawning.

Right now I am waiting for my boxes to be collected for shipping. Having fussed over them for the last month, I finally have put the last piece of packing tape on box 1 of 4, 2 of 4, 3 of 4 and 4 of 4 - my life possessions summarised numerically, like some kind of bar coding system - as if the memories and cherished possessions packed in those four small packages could be summarised.

And why couldn't I NAME them? Why did I have to number them? Well, what difference - I have named them anyways! John, Paul, George and Ringo (Ringo is the small box) are lined up patiently waiting at the front door - ready for their 2 month traverse to the Southern Hemisphere.

And suddenly I know I am moving. That all plans I am making for "next week" are being made in a new country, in a foreign land.

Reality is beginning to bite...

Little boxes...

Well, strictly speaking, they are not so little... and instead of giving a feeling that there are many of them - there are just 4.

Four boxes that together hold the material elements of my life - a life I am about to move from one part of the World to the other.

I have been in the UK for 6 years, having grown up in Cape Town. And now the time is right for me to go back to South Africa, but to return to Johannesburg, the City of Gold. The adventure begins in just 10 days time, and as time rapidly approaches I am feeling more and more like I am running out of it.

I wanted to create some kind of journal, a log, some way that I could share this adventure with those who care enough to ask "Will you stay in touch?" And hopefully in this particular way, I will succeed...

Well - back to those boxes!