See me feel me

13 MORE sleeps.

And the soundtrack of your pending departure is no more adagio; it’s become rather allegreto, sort of like Killing me softly to Last night a DJ Stole my Life.

God forbid that it should get to the agitato stage … 

For now you’re on Love, Love me Do.

And practising your winking in the mirror as you place another pair of boots in the box you have for them: your boots in a row, sandals and things in plastic shoe-boxes; your breathless handbags stretch a Shoprite plastic bag knotted at the handles.

Oh crumbs. It doesn’t fit in. Two boxes then, of shoes and handbags… that will stay at home, in your tin office turned storeroom.

You’re not Imelda Marcos but you do like footwear and it’s painful relegating your blue suede vedldskoene to obscurity.

Your cowboy boots, your shiny black splurge boots … there they are, discarded too in the caverns of caprice.

Choices. The commitment that is choice. This pair of shoes. No, that pair.

This type of life … no, that type.

Choices, change. 

You try Walking on Sunshine When Bouzoukis Played!

(ends)

 

14 more sleeps.

Exciting. Daunting.

It’s like being a piece of elastic —- pulled to travel yet the other end is so firmly rooted.

You feel so fond of the things you’re going to leave … the dogs trigger a heartfelt affection; those friends you love to hate, and love again – they seem to be irreplaceable beacons of refuge and succour.

 

When will you laugh again, like that? Will you? Ever?

Your heart softens to coddle the memory of them, the pictures of separate lives entwined, Rewind to remember.

But it’s not that time now.

No. You’re going forward.

Sorting, shedding, shredding.

You aim to travel light, to live light, to breathe light.

Baggage is a bugger. You want none of it!

Out go the black bags, lots of them.

They’re full of nothing you want with you; they burst with emptiness; they fly away on the wings of no regrets.

And you watch. You see yourself, transparent. Diaphanous. Content. Focused.

You’re so comfy in your boots, they’re like no boots at all.

(ends)

 

 

 

 

Call centre blues

TURKISH Airlines gave me the first taste of how impossible it is to get through to an airline call centre.

I hung on, literally for hours, listening to voices telling me to be patient, my call is important.

Eventually, I took the Gautrain to ORT International, and went to the Turkish Airlines desk.

Right. Lots of forms and calculations to facilitate a refund, then I waited.

And waited. As if the pain of the rand shrinking was not enough.

About two weeks later, I battled the so-called call centre again, but alas, there was no reply.

Again.

I got a brain-wave and phoned the Airports Company South Africa at ORT.

They gave me the airline’s ORT telephone number at their office, but that too did not bring any results.

I called Acsa again.

This time they gave me the mobile number of the airlines’ Operations Manager.

Bingo! This is the way to go.

The Turikish Airlines OpMan in Joburg established that my refund cheque was idling in a staff member’s desk drawer.

Yes. Just chucked there and forgotten. She told me the cash would be in my account in 24 hours.

And it was.

I went back to Air France, for my flight from Johannesburg to Athens; it was the same airline I’d travelled on last year, to Greece.

My June flight was booked, then the date began to stretched too far into the future.

I had to change my R16000 ticket and surprise surprise found that a ticket for May was half that price.

But, when I tried to change the flight online, the fees and the R8000-something ticket price exceeded the total costs of the R16000 one!

Weird.

I tried the Air France call centre … This couldn’t be fair?

Yes, you guessed it. Hours and hours of hanging on: some times I timed 20-30 minutes before I hung up.

Then I got a lacklustre person called Rae on the Air France call centre line.

She told me hold on, and on, and then she said she could not help me and put down the phone!

I nearly cried.

What to do?

Well, you know, phone Acsa and ask for the Air France OpsMan.

Bingo!

Marice was a star, and again an efficient OpsMan worked magic. Nathaniel and Ranusha flapped their angel wings and nursed me through my smouldering panic.

My R16000 ticket was changed to an R8000-something ticket and I got a voucher for the balance after the cost of the ticket and the changes was deducted. That’s ok. 

Had I not spoken to a real live person, I would have had to spend more money for this new, lower cost ticket, than the original one,.

I think it’s important that these airlines, any airlines, make it easier for clients to get hold of them over the phone.

There are some things a computer cannot do … and now I have the dates of a flight on Aegean Airlines to adjust.

Hold thumbs!

(ends)

The invitation
IT arrived yesterday, the Invitation for Holidays In Greece to stay at “My House” in Eressos, Lesbos.
Cute, but what about the street number, the street’s name?
“We don’t have these things here,” she said. LoL.
LoL indeed.
I trust the visa people will understand.
They might, when I tell them the postal address is a single post office code (the same for everyone in the village), Lesbos, Greece.

Eressos is a village that started rising in about eight to six centuries before Christ, according to Wikipedia.
It had a population of 1130 people in 2001 (that may be the whole municipality, I don’t know. Point is, it’s not a metropolis).
Sheep and goats, and olive trees, they outnumber human beings. There is a whole lot of sky and fresh air.
I haven’t heard the sound of olive trees. Nor have I seen their leaves bob and sway.
I long to set my nose along their leaf-skin’s silhouette. Do they tremble in the breeze?
Olive trees.

From the web:
“Eressos makes a brief appearance in the novel Sure of You, the sixth volume in the series Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin. In the chapter entitled “The Third Whale”, Skala Eressou is described as a seaside town with concrete buildings and a beach of coarse grey sand. Some places in the town are described. These include the shop on the square where Mona found the key rings inscribed with the name “Sappho”, the hotel called “Sappho the Eressian” where Mona stays in a spare, clean room with a single bed and a lone lamp, the big grey bluff at the end of the beach where more nude bathers were gathered, and the famous tents put up by the women who were part of Sappho’s tribe.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eresos

From the web SERIAAS :: Land usage in Lesbos

Click to access kizoskoulouri.pdf

• SOUTH Africans travelling from South Africa to the Schengen countries will find that gathering documents for the visa is not rocket science.
• However, it does require patience, and planning.
• Getting your Schengen visa sorted for a flight from South Africa is a precise process.
• The http://www.vfsglobal.com website outlines the protocol, as do other websites, ones that offer a visa service: they collect the documents, drop them off for processing and deliver the visa, once it is ready.
• If you haven’t previously applied for a Schengen visa, and done your biometric tests (they are valid for five years), you have to go in to the various VFS centres in the major cities to do it.
• It can be a schlepp, collecting the documents, and authenticating them. Just make sure everything is in order.
• I plan a two-day mission, and execute. There are no short cuts!
•
• This is what you need:
• Application form (download from http://www.vfsglobal.com and complete)
• Colour photographs
• Confirmed ticket
• Passport (valid: see requirements on website)
• Proof of accommodation abroad
• Three months original bank statements or any supporting documents from the bank
• Travel insurance min E30 000 (can be provided by credit card you used to purchase ticket)
• You get that altogether and ring a visa service, even if you need the biometrics done.

If you can’t change your mind, what can you change?

I’m on my way to Greece, to the island of Lesbos, and more specifically, the hillside town of Eressos.

OK, I’m leaving seven weeks early … a spur of the moment thing … why wait?

Air France changed the departure and return dates on my ticket: May 11-August 10

Today is April 23. Phew!

There is barely time to breathe let alone sort out the visa stuff; and all manner of travel protocol.

And my tax return; where are the receipts and notes?

There’s nothing like a change of plan to intensify the task at hand; to rattle your comfort zone.

It makes you think: Crumbs, am I nuts?

Then you remember … there is no script.

 All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.

Henry Miller

The hurry and flurry feed your racing heart, they fan your explicit ardour. You’re ready to leap onto the springboard, you jump with gusto.

The thrill you trust will spill into a soft spot landing, outside the glare of expectations and preconceived ideas.

You travel, because you must; you dream. Movement hastens inevitability, or so it seems.

 

(ends)

The story so far:

There’s a lot of crying in the chair and Dan and Isaac do their bit, but will Sally recover?

DAN reached for another serviette.

Sally’s already snotted and cried two of them into soggy, limp lappies.

Number three.

Okay, Sally, get out of that chair. I’m taking you into the garden.

Sally sighs, and throws her head back.

In a while, her sobs quieten, but her eyes look like saucers of pain, swimming in a sea of grief.

Dan links arms with the woman, who’s slightly shorter than her 5ft 9.

And leads her off the verandah.

The fragrance of the jasmine soothes Sally.

Dan’s presence becomes real. She’s a pillar for the broken woman.

What’ve I started here, she asks herself.

Her eyes are drawn to Sally’s breasts, well, it’s that big stone that captures her attention, and then it’s umm, downhill from there.

Dan can see the pulses in her neck. They throb with life. They quicken when Dan draws her closer.

You’ll be ok with me, she says, looking into her swollen, sad face.

We’ll do things, like 10-pin bowling, and white-water rafting. It’s hard to cry when you’re doing things!

Sally’s smile is as bleak as a cold grey morning.

Her sadness is ash, the passion burnt to a blob of grey.

Isaac watches them walk back to the table that he’s cleared and reset.

He’s fluffed up the cushions (holding his breath: the mites!) and replaced the tablecloth.

The women sit down.

Dan raises her eyebrows and her right index finger.

Isaac is already on his way. And Sally’s stopped crying.

(to be continued)

 

 

 

 

The story so far: There’s weeping in the chair, but Dan wants to go for a walk.

THE woman’s shoulders jerk. Her sobs morph into gasps of despair.

Boy, if she could see her mascara mapping her misery.

Dan thinks it’s a sorry sight, and the waiter does too.

He’s got chamomile tea on a tray, and a bottle of water.

The woman looks up and gives an almighty trumpet sound of a nose blow on the tear-soaked serviette..

She dabs her eyes, smudges the mascara and folds herself into one last quivering cry.

Thank you Isaac, Dan says. Just leave the tray on the table please.

Issac, as discreet as ever, lowers his eyes and places the tray on the round rattan table.

It’s seen better days, has that table, but then, so has Isaac.

He remembers the new furniture, the carpets wall to wall.

But he’s never seen anyone cry like that.

Dan pours the tea while twirling a spiral of honey into the cup.

Sally, yes, her name’s Sally, Sally Thompson, is checking her phone.

Bitch, she says.

BITCH.

Dan see’s the woman’s neck veins throb, pulse.

Here, have some tea, she says, looking into Sally’s face.

I’ve put a few drops of rescue remedy in it too. Sip on it. Breathe in. Breathe out.

Sally smiles. Sort of.

Dan sees her lips tremble, a little, then iron out to show some teeth.

It’s awful how the woman’s chin quakes, and bubbles and breaks.

Through it all.

(to be continued)

 

Once upon a time, like five minutes ago, Dan’s attention was focussed on a shoulder supported by a striking clavicle.

At the throat, in the gap between the two clavicles, hung a brilliant stone; no, it’s of a translucent, hypnotic lustre, and it’s nestled there, on a thong.

The woman was on her own, and leaning back in the cane stoep chair.

Her dark eyes matched the stone.

Dan popped her cigs in the little clutch, swept her hair back, and strode over.

The woman had a tear bubbling in her eye, a great well of a tear, ready to drop.

But first, a slow slide down a flawless cheek. A snail’s trail of what?

Dan couldn’t imagine.

She cleared her throat.

Um, seems as if you could do with a tissue. Here’s a serviette. But I guess they call them napkins here in this posh spot.

What’s the matter.

The woman reached for the serviette, and held it in her left hand. She took her glasses off with the other, and put them on the table, squashing the arms in all at once. Her right hand quickly joined the left and they filled with serviette.

Her hot torrid tears hit the cloth before her face did.

The woman sobbed, a searing silent sickening rising, falling.

Sally grabbed a shot of single malt.

Here doll, take a sip of this.

If you don’t want that, here’s some rescue remedy.

Let’s go for  a walk now. 

It’s a beautiful spring day.

(to be continued)

 

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