Tear Drops and Red Wine

We hit it. The low.

Perhaps it's the realisation of how long we are actually here for setting in. We've inhabited friends' apparetment in Wimbeldon while they ferry then drive to Switzerland. The feeling of cooking dinner and watching TV like normal human beings feels strange, surreal. Something reserved for our own homes. Yet here we are in London, doing it. Purchasing groceries with more than a few days in mind. Planning trips and catch ups with friends, not just with the purpose of slotting in moments but instead filling time.

And maybe it was when we were carrying out 20kg of our life on our back through the trains and buses, with pitty glances from fellow travellers that set us off. The look in their eye. They wondered. Are we stuck? Yes, we answered to a few daring starers. Telling them our story made us feel less alone. A burden shared is a burden halved they always say. Non of these lovely people could actually do anything about it, but just knowing we'd told someone else validated our loneliness.

We have hot showers and write on facebook to make the minutes seem less mundane. We avoid the news and only glance at it momentarily.

There was some relief tonight. UK airports are opening again. Maybe this time next week we'll be in transit. Asia would even be better than this. This sitting and waiting and not knowing. But there is still fear and doubt. Will it erupt again? Or will the other one explode? The world feels like it is peering over the edge. I want to be home before we all fall.

Most of me wants to write about Africa. I wish I could. Not yet I suppose. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.

I've seen Les Mis twice since being here. There is a line in Empty Chairs at Empty Tables that says;
there's a grief that can't be spoken.

That is what Pader is to those who have experienced it. A grief that can't be spoken. Because speaking about it should validate it, and nothing can. Nothing will ever give justice to what we saw or experienced. And especially to how it changed us.

So instead I'll say we had a lovely day at the seaside at Brighton yesterday and on the way home saw a fight. It included bike throughing, lots of yelling, 2 white guys, 1 black...and a huge butchers knife. I freaked out of course and ran to the other side of the intersection with 20 other people as 5 police cars pulled up. I made us walk home quickly as we watched the policeman chase the fighters down the streets. At least another 25 police cars made there way to the scene over the next 2 hours. We suspect we saw the iceberg of a much deeper and bigger event. It kept our minds worried and preoccupied for a few hours.

Must hit the bed now. Another new bed. I'm excited for this one. It includes a breakfast in the morning chosen and made by me. A noveltly. Something that hasn't happened for 2 months.

Love from Wimbeldon.