Back in Edinburgh

"So, what's it like being back?" is often the next question. The first is usually "How was Africa?", to which I respond "fine thanks": Wiseman's 'Hand of Thole' is very much alive in my life! As you can imagine, this doesn't really cover it, but the true answer should probably come with the warning: 'you may have developed pressure sores, wrinkles and grey hair by the time I finish - are you sure you want to know?'

I had fully intended to close this blog at the last post until I was reminded that the narrative isn't really complete without the return back home. Which is something that many people consider to be sufficiently traumatic, as to warrant careful consideration and preparation. I neither considered nor prepared for my return home, and so it was that I flew in on Sunday morning and returned to work on Monday, with perhaps a not particularly clear head. 

However, it was a good week at work which passed uneventfully enough. In fact, save for six weeks worth of e mails, there was so remarkably little to catch up with that I may as well have never been away. It is a bit depressing to find that one's absence is so insignificant!

 It is an unusual thing for me to receive comments regarding how 'un pale' I am. It is all relative of course and I have just spent six weeks answering to 'white person' in Ghana, where everyone is darker than me - even my fellow white people :o( I guess anyone might change colour a bit if you put them in the sun (lots of it) for long enough - even me! But it came as a surprise since I had been entirely unaware of this until I arrived back home. 

I plunged straight back into life in Scotland without much pause for thought. I was even on call on Tuesday night (rotered on for Monday, but quickly swapped at lunchtime with a friendly colleague who took pity on me). The weather was beautiful (though this only lasted a week) and I relished the fact that I'm not sweating all the time  or caked in suncream and I have fewer potholes to swerve around than I have grown used to. I would like to emphasise the relative aspect of this - not to let Edinburgh council off the hook for all those that will start to bug me again shortly.

I experienced no significant reverse culture shock the first week, and was relieved to find myself quite un-phased by the contrast in environment and way of life. It took a week or so actually,  before I noticed the flatness that always seems to accompany an anticlimax, and the sense that something is missing. Maybe it is the sun: I find nearly anything can be blamed on the rain if you try hard enough!

But I went out to buy pineapple anyway, just to be sure that that wasn't it - I had to wait a week before it even began to resemble what I have learned pineapple should taste like, and it didn't make me feel any better after all. So I set about catching up and concluding the blog and posting my photos to facebook. This is something that I must confess is a first for me, preferring normally to leave it to everybody else and then to steal their photos.

I should possibly also confess to being ever so slightly disgruntled by the absence of friendly (non parental) comments in response to all my journaling efforts. I discover this week that I could have altered the settings to make commenting a bit easier, but console myself with the righteous thought that if you were determined enough it could have been done, and checking or changing settings while the technology was so slow wasn't an appealing prospect. Or wouldn't have been had I thought of it!

My mood is not improved much by my persisting tendency to be awake by 6am at weekends, regardless of how long I have or haven't spent sleeping by this time. And particularly when this is not the case during the week. However, week two got better eventually and it is now 9pm and still light outside, which doesn't happen in Ghana. I bought a new camera last week, while I was still remembering how much I needed one (!) and followed that up this week by replacing my mountain bike which died back in November (while I was some distance from home, having just watched the rest of 'team gym' drive off into the distance). 

I had a fight with my computer this weekend. This is not unusual in itself: what is noteworthy is the fact that I won, though this was was probably due to the less than technical nature of the fight. Despite sustaining a few injuries and coming out feeling as though I had just beaten AQ on the rower, I eventually overcame it and knocked it out (with the help of my long lost hammer) by about lunchtime. It spurred me on to actually getting my new camera out of its box and learning how to use it. There has been, I believe, a commendable lack of procrastination recently!

So, to answer the question......."what's it like being back?"

"Fine thanks"

:o)