No TV, Just Life: 19 June 2017

Ideally, I should give each post a specific title. And I’ve given it some thought and decided that while I’m still learning the ropes and my posts are still just me meandering through my day, the date IS still the only appropriate title. I’ve played around with labels for a bit, just to sort of flag repeat topics like sunrise, sunset, garden, and such. I know I don’t absolutely HAVE to post every single day – but I’m still in the habit-forming stage, rather than the habit-breaking phase. I’m finally ‘live’ i.e. posting each days post on the day – rather than back-dating. I still have to find a fixed time-slot in my day allotted to blogging. Early mornings is good – though I can’t write about a day not yet lived. Plus, of course, I don’t wake up early every morning.

Sheez that takes me back! When I had stopped drinking for some time, this one sentence became the essence of my miracle of sobriety: I wake up every morning. Emphasis on each word! Whilst drinking, I would ‘skrik wakker’ (literally ‘scare awake’ the nearest english phrase would be ‘woke up with a start’) rather than wake up. Perpetual guilt over drunken actions (imagined or real, remembered or feared) never allowed me to look forward to any day, my emotional compass was firmly wedged in the guilt, fear, apprehension, shame corner. Next word: every – whilst drinking it was quite possible that I’d ‘skip’ a day; as in stayed passed out / asleep throughout the next day and night only surfacing the next day. Final word: morning – as with ‘every’ when I surfaced, it wasn’t always morning.

What a blessing living sober is! It was a lot of hard work to get here – just ‘not drinking’ is to alcoholism what just ‘not sh**ing’ is to diarrhoea; it suppresses the evident sympton without treating the cause – and has no chance of being a lasting ‘solution’! If I could ‘just not drink’ or ‘control how much I drink’ I wouldn’t be an alcoholic. Being an alcoholic is not a choice – I certainly never had any ambition that what I really wanted to be when I grow up is an alcoholic!

This is another topic I feel strongly about and could write a whole book once I get started, so to avoid a long, tedious rant, I’ll wrench myself away for this subject.

The weather is actually an interesting topic, so changing to that. Today we’re experiencing maximum temperatures of 32° Celsius (= 88° Farenheit) yet tomorrow only 17° Celsius are forecast (=62° Farenheit)! One day summer, next day winter. Yes, 17° C maximum temperature I call winter. I’m in Africa, remember? Don’t even mention the ‘s’ word in my presence! The temperatures have been erratic for a long time now; I’ve never paid that much attention to it in the past.

Pretoria does not promote outdoor-activities – well, there are plenty, but for safety-reasons either in groups (as in join a club) or in an enclosed entrance-fee charging place. After having lived in East London (South Africa, not UK!) for three years, moving back to Pretoria was a very restricting experience. I did try to go for walks or drives to see some sights or countryside – a habit I had developed in East London – but it’s not been very successful. When I tried Groenkloof Nature Reserve I was advised to stay in the car and not stop, as several tourists had been knifed there recently. I tried the Wonderboom Nature Reserve and found that beyond the actual Wonderboom the ‘Reserve’ is not really cared for – the paths were neither maintained nor easily marked; finding the waterfall was a major mission, involving some tricky climbing I had not bargained on! For that entrance fee I expected more!