In a little under 2 months I will be celebrating 50 years on this sometimes beautiful, sometimes wild, sometimes turbulent, sometimes peaceful, always home, planet Earth. My life journey has taken me to places and people I never thought possible, as most of ours have, I guess, and I find myself filled with gratitude and humbled by all that life has offered to me so far.
It's not the colour of the coin that makes me wealthy but the riches of my family. My husband and I are so blessed to be parents to two gorgeous young boys whom we adopted at the ages of 1 year and 9 months respectively... but for now...I am getting ahead of myself...so allow me to roll back a few decades or 5, and let you into my world.
I was born in 1971 in Durban on the East coast of South Africa, a city that swelters in the summer, and has winter mid-day highs that rival London in August, but I grew up about 30 kms inland from this vibrant coastal city, in a little village called Forest Hills, about 800 metres above sea level and several degrees cooler at times!
My parents were both born in South Africa, although my mom grew up in Northern Rhodesia which is now know as Zambia. I am the eldest of 3 and have a sister and brother whom I adore. The picture below from a few years ago is clockwise from the left: me, my parents, my sister, my sister-in-law and my brother.
I remember as a kid walking the sun-baked roads to school, when there were only a handful of houses on a stretch a few kilometres long, and an occasional speeding car would whip up clouds of dust that twisted and twirled, then collapsed into themselves, erstwhile choking their unsuspecting little victims clad in school uniform. But I loved it out there! My mornings were spent in school, my afternoons spent disappearing into the bushveldt with my friends and my dogs. Most days the only person we saw on the roads was an occasional game ranger on his way to or from a shift in the local reserve. When we saw land for sale signs start to go up, our 6 year old selves protested in the only way we knew how: we blockaded the road with boulders to stop the out of town cars from prospecting. Of course it didn't work! Instead we were greeted with shaking fists, adult expletives and threats to inform our parents.
We lived on a ridge, above a massive deep gorge where the river had carved it's own path over countless years and spent our afternoons and weekends with the neighbourhood kids, exploring the cliffs, climbing up waterfalls using monkey ropes, spotting dassies (rock rabbits), duiker (deer), zebra, vervet monkeys, lizards and snakes, chameleons and a plethora of birds of prey. We would beat our way through wild grassland whose sheafs rose above our heads, traverse the footpaths, flanked by Protea bushes, into the valley used by the locals, who lived in their little mud and tin hut villages by the riverside, and finally strip down to swimming costumes and play in the riverbed below. The smooth white rocks would shimmer in the sun and when the river was high, we could slide down the rocks and allow the current to sweep us over the little waterfall drops into deep rockpools below. Our own private piece of paradise; days of youthful innocence played out in a country whose heart and soul, unbeknownst to us at the time, were broken by Apartheid.
When we weren't bush-wacking, we could be found on our bicycles cycling a 12 km roundtrip up to the sugar cane farms, where friendly farm workers would hack a few pieces of cane for us to chew on our journey home. Freewheeling downhill the last two kilometers, hair blown back, cane fibres offering up the last of their sweetness, smiles on our faces. Home would welcome us with a dip in the pool and a game of Marco Polo with my brother, sister and friends. The night sky would invite us in with views of the Milky way to die for. We were truly blessed.
Christmas day would always be spent around the swimming pool with extended family, and my cousins and I are still very close to this day.
I remember that the one thing that was always top of my list for birthday and Christmas was books, books and more books! I was a literary sponge! I could never get enough. I loved to read and still do. On Christmas morning I loved nothing more than to disappear into my room with my books and some treats and bury myself in the pages of an adventure that was brought to life by my imagination. My favourite childhood titles included: I am David, My Side of the Mountain, The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia and Le Petit Prince. Hamlet is my favourite Shakespearean play and these days I love autobiographical and memoir, books of pilgrimage, philosophical reads, educational pieces and a nice balance of light summer novels to round it off. Wild, The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah and Jonathan Livingston Seagull are some of my favourite reads.
As I grew up I became more politically aware of the world in which I lived. I joined the debating team at school, listened to contentious "political" music (some of it banned at the time but which I had managed to get from a friend at school) and read a lot more about the deplorable state of our society. I entered a regional schools literary competition where my topic explored the music of Johnny Clegg as a Contemporary political poet whose works focussed largely on the anti-apartheid movement.
I went on to study Law, Politics, English literature and other languages at University, eventually majoring in Law and English literature, and followed up my Bachelor of Arts with a Bachelor of Laws degree, where I elected to study Alternate Dispute resolution and spent a semester in the Durban Legal Aid clinic assisting indigent clients with their legal issues. I witnessed many political protest marches on campus and in town, some of them peaceful, others not so much. There were numerous occasions where we had to flee campus due to political protests that had got out of hand. I have been mugged, burgled and witnessed a drive by shooting in Durban city centre, that wasn't so much as mentioned in the daily newspapers.
In my final year at University, I worked for the I.E.C. during South Africa's first national democratic elections, and the entire process was an eye opener. With tensions running high, we had armed escorts to the electoral counting stations and had to keep the peace when conflict arose during the counting process. It was a humbling privilege to be part of such a pivotal moment in our country's history.
After University, I joined the Legal department of a major commercial bank and worked my way up through the ranks for a couple of years. I met my husband at a local English pub in my village, and when an opportunity arose for him in China, we jumped at it! The economy was tanking and violent crime was on the rise. We resigned from our jobs and moved across to China. We spent an initial 4 months based just outside Guangzhou city, in a rural development town. Hardly anyone spoke any English and I remember getting passionate about MLB as it was the only thing broadcast in English at the time. The world series was on and the Yankees beat the Mets to be crowned world champions, although it always amuses me that American sports such as MLB and NFL crown their eventual league winners "world champions" when nobody outside of America actually takes part.
Some days I stayed in our little apartment, had Mandarin lessons, took a motorbike taxi into the local town and did some shopping or did some photography or painting. Other days I would ride the company bus to work with my husband, through rural roads, flanked by paddy fields. We would arrive at the Paper Mill where my husband was a contract systems control and automation engineer and I would spend the day learning about the work that they did. In the evenings we would often pop into the local town, explore the market, grab some food at a cafe that had emerged out of nowhere from somebody's garage and finish off with a massage at one of the local parlours. I used to love our monthly trips to Hongkong to renew my visitor's visa and explore the islands and loved visiting the mountainous regions of Southern China in our time off.
The mountains have always been my happy place. In South Africa I used to love the Drakensberg mountains, the sheer magnitude and grace, the cool mountain breezes and the exhilarating hikes and chain ladder climbs. One of my best memories was hiking to the top of the Tugela falls, one of the tallest waterfalls in the world at 950 metres.
After the initial 4 months in China we headed back to South Africa for the summer and then emigrated to the UK. My husband spent the next 5 years contracting in China, coming home every couple of months, whilst I set up home in the UK, got a job and retrained as a Certified Chartered Accountant (that's a long story for another day!).
When my husband stopped working in China and found work in the UK, we spent a few years enjoying each others' company (travelling the world, enjoying London, going to football matches, learning to scuba dive, skiing, going micro-lighting, dance classes, clubbing, pubbing and enjoying life).
Then we started to think about raising a family. We were in the unenviable position of not being able to have biological children of our own, something we had known from the start of our relationship, and so we looked into adoption.
It was a long 2 year journey of training workshops, seminars, volunteering with children, applying to be matched with a number of different children along the way, and we kept hitting dead ends. We almost always made it to final selection but were always edged out by THAT couple that were more experienced, were going to have a stay at home mom available, had a greater support network of family and friends in the UK etc etc. After almost 2 years, I felt done. Done with the never-ending paperwork, done with the frustration, done with the disappointment, done with the heartache. It was there and then that I told my husband. "Take Friday off, I need to climb a mountain...a real one for a change!" I just knew I needed to hit the reset button. I needed to feel alive and invigorated. I needed to feel happy, and so I went to my happy place....
"Where do you want to go?" he had asked. "I want a mountain that reminds me of home. It must look and feel like my beloved "berg". I so desperately wanted to reconnect with something familiar. So I started Googling images of mountains in the UK and when I saw it, I just knew... this was the one! I had found my Drakensberg in the UK and it was called Helvellyn, in the Lake District. So we packed our overnight bags and road tripped up for the weekend.
We stayed in a lovely little b&b and told the host of our plans to hike up Helvellyn the next day. He warned us of the dynamic weather conditions on Helvellyn and to beware of the fog. We headed off the next day into the sunshine and were well into our hike when the clouds started to come in, closer and closer until we could feel their wetness on our skin. We couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us, but we had our map and we knew we were on the right path. I won't lie, I was more than a little nervous but we had no idea how long the fog would last and the b&b host didn't know which route we had taken. We knew we couldn't just stay there so we started leaving markers every 10 metres or so, in case we got lost. We picked our way slowly over boulders and around larger rocks and eventually heard other voices and made our way onto a wall where a group of 3 teens were sitting on what looked to be a broken down turret. We were very fortunate that the fog started to dissipate just at that time (about an hour after it had drawn in), and we realised that although we had started to see the mountain slope away from us to our right, to our left was a sheer drop-away to certain death. The fog had not completely subsided and although we were less than 100 metres from the top, we sensibly called it day, took a few pics and made our way down the scramble to our right along with the other 3 hikers who also chose not to continue. But that day I had climbed a mountain and I went home happy.
We arrived back on our doorstep to a large brown envelope that was to contain the future we had been dreaming of for the past few years. Our social worker had dropped off a profile of a little boy available for adoption who was just perfect in every way. We fell in love with his story and his pictures and were fortunate enough to be matched with him a month later. We knew at the time that his birth mother was pregnant with her 3rd child and we were asked if we would consider adopting him/her too as social services did not believe that the mother was going to be capable of looking after a baby. Of course we jumped at the opportunity as we had wanted to adopt two children and the chance to keep a sibling pair together was too precious an opportunity to forego. So within 9 months of meeting our first son, we welcomed our second into our family. There was a protracted legal battle between social services and the birth mother before our youngest could be made available for adoption, but in the end her demons unfortunately won out, and we were blessed to be given the opportunity to raise 2 beautiful little boys.
I am now a proud mom of an 8 and 10 year old, who can be found doing the school run most mornings and afternoons and squeezing in a part-time day job in-between. When I'm not spending time with my husband and children and 3 cats, or being drafted in to play Fortnite, front-yard cricket or football with the kids, you can find me walking, cycling, growing my own veg, cooking vegan food, reading, writing, researching, and exploring the fascinating world of blockchain and crypto... I have an inextinguishable love for karate, where I hold a brown belt, and yoga, and hope one day to return to them in one form or another but for now I am managing a shoulder injury and a diagnosis of osteoporosis. I also love spending time with my sister, my brother and his family. With Covid restrictions finally lifting enough, I have started booking weekends away to the Mountains, the Lakes and the Coast, and plan to share my happy place with the ones I love most.
I came to the Hive chain via a referral from @jaxsonmurph who has been an absolute community hero for me. I think I first came across Jaxson on read.cash and had read an article or two, before finding Jaxson's crypto pickers on Torum and engaged a bit more. When I reached out for help on getting onto Hive, Jaxson reached back and did a virtual hand holding getting me onto the Hive and helping me get familiar with PEAKD and Proofofbrain. When I couldn't post due to lack of HP, Jackson delegated me some HP to get me going and gave me advice on where to obtain a further free delegation to help me on my way. When I got stuck trying to convert POB to POB Power, Jaxson and @leprechaun came to my rescue and provided immense support with clear guidance to solve the problem I was having. So I have to give them both a big shout out and say thank you for a great introduction to the community spirit that lives on the Hive chain across it's various communities. I didn't realise that there were such things as #introduceyourself posts on Hive. @macchiata @ocd team encouraged me to write #myhiveintro . I had published an intro for PublishoX recently and have used that as my starting point for this post.
I love to research, write and read (in no particular order!) and am looking forward to being part of this community for a long time, to learn and grow from the experience, connect with a diverse range of people and make new friends. I aim to read and write across a diverse range of subjects, from creative writing projects to crypto, technological advancement, health, education, you name it. Whatever takes my interest at the time or drives a passion within me.
Hey @samsmith1971 great intro post! Welcome to Hive. I just added you 10HP to make sure you don't run out of resource credits with your posting and commenting!
If you connect with @steevc, he runs a minnow support group and keeps a register of TeamUK users.
Good luck and work on consistency and engagement. This will pay big dividends in the long run :-)
Thank you. I am really enjoying it so far. I've followed both you and @steevc and hope to engage a lot with and contribute to the community.
Nice to meet you. I cannot follow everyone back as I just do not have time to read everything, but I am sure we will run into each other some more.
!BEER
View or trade
BEER.Hey @samsmith1971, here is a little bit of
BEERfrom @steevc for you. Enjoy it!Learn how to earn FREE BEER each day by staking your
BEER.I actually found Sam for the Brit list already :)
Couldn't agree more. it's one of great intros I read.
I have been eyeballing this because it is such an incredible story. I know you wrote it long ago, and I am slow on the uptake. I want you to know that I am short on time, but, you are one remarkable, incredibly gifted woman.
You have been richly blessed and you continue to give back.
I will probably revisit this again. It is fabulous. Sending love to you.
Aw, thank you, Denise... it's a long read😂... I kind of just lost myself in it when I wrote it !LOLZ but I appreciate that you took the time to read it. I go back and read it from time to time myself. It's a wonderful reminder for me of the blessings that have graced my life 🙏💗 Thank you for the tip too; that was very kind of you. Sending love right back xx !LUV !PIMP
You must be killin' it out here!
@samsmith1971 just slapped you with 1.000 PIMP, @dswigle.
You earned 1.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
They're getting a workout and slapped 1/1 possible people today.
Read about some PIMP Shit or Look for the PIMP District
Aw man @samsmith1971, you are out of PIMP to slap people.
Go Stake some more and increase your PIMP power.
(We will not send this error message for 24 hours).
Read about some PIMP Shit or Look for the PIMP District
@samsmith1971(10/10) gave you LUV.
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I guess I’m bio-D-grade-able
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@dswigle, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of @samsmith1971
Use the !LOL or !LOLZ command to share a joke and an $LOLZ
(2/4)
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Fo Drizzle.
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@dswigle, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of @samsmith1971
Are You Ready for some $FUN? Learn about LOLZ's new FUN tribe!
(3/4)
It is not a long read at all. When a post is interesting and captures your eye, it is never long enough. I think it was perfect and anything shorter would have cut out important details that would have felt missing. So no! I am glad it came out, just as you had imagined it.
It is a great reminder and I am glad you go back and read it. You are, indeed blessed and it is always heartwarming to know so many people that know just how lucky they are.
Thank you for the LUV!
!PIMP (the first one didn't work 🤗)
You must be killin' it out here!
@samsmith1971 just slapped you with 1.000 PIMP, @dswigle.
You earned 1.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
They're getting a workout and slapped 1/1 possible people today.
Read about some PIMP Shit or Look for the PIMP District
Just came here, a little late ;-)
A great introduction. Its one if the miracles on earth... the things we deeply wish become true the moment we dont think about and turn to something we love to do. Happy that the kids became the great chance to grow up with your love !LUV
@beeber(1/3) gave you LUV.
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Thank you beeber 💗 They are our biggest blessing, that's for sure. thank you for taking the time to read my intro hehe... I only recently pinned it... I so wish more people would pin theirs as I love going to read those of others when I come across writers on the blockchain that I enjoy - would save all the scrolling...sometimes for what seems like forever !LOLZ !LUV
lolztoken.com
They can really get inside your head.
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@beeber, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of @samsmith1971
Are You Ready for some $FUN? Learn about LOLZ's new FUN tribe!
(3/4)
@samsmith1971(2/5) gave you LUV.
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I think most of us are not so proud showing their first insecure steps on chain
My introduceyourself for example was written in German :-)
hehe... you know if you wanted to, you could go back and edit in a deepl translation... if you wanted to... 😊
Hi there Sam, it's great to see another Brit join Hive, welcome!!
Your's must be the most informative self intro post I have read in a long time, it's so interesting to see that you've been around, particularly in and out of Hong Kong which used to be my beloved second home, but sadly no more.
Anyway, I see you've been interested to @newbies-guide already, that's an initiative I started recently to make it easy for people to find information about Hive. The other project that I'm heavily involved in, is @pinmapple, that's the Hive travel community. You haven't mentioned travel as one of the subjects but I have a feeling you have a lot to offer (who doesn't like to travel!!). If you ever write any travel content please feel free to post it from the haveyoubeenhere community https://peakd.com/c/hive-163772/created.
Hope you have a great time on Hive!
hi @livinguktaiwan thanks for stopping by :-) I've just followed @pinmapple, and C/haveyoubeenhere and yourself. I will certainly add these communities to my reading/curation list as I love to consume a diverse range of articles. Some of the highlights for me in Hong Kong were Chinese New Year, walking up the big hill behind the skyline in the evening and taking in the cityscape all lit up, visiting the Kwan Yin statue and offering up prayers for the health and safety of my family, and meeting a bunch of US Navy guys in the Hardrockcafe in Kowloon who were docked in the harbour at the time. They knew how to have a good time! All very innocent of course lol. I still have the t-shirt I was wearing that evening which they all signed ha ha. One even drew a picture of their ship on it! We had drinks with them...seemingly bottomless...got an invite to go and explore their ship the next morning but sadly they received orders to ship out at short notice and so hubby and I ended up watching the prep from the dock and bidding the ship a bon voyage. I haven't been back to HongKong in many years but it was a vibrant city with many tales to tell when I was there. Travelling 2 hours up the Pearl Delta to Kaifachu (sp?) where we were living, about an hour outside of Guangzhou, was always a peaceful time for reflection and reading. I bet you miss it! :-)
Great Introduction Sam and Thank you for the mention
Thanks Jaxson :-) You deserve more than a mention! The beneficiary rewards will keep rolling in to you for all that you have done for me.
Dont even worry about beneficary awards, cancel them, I get so much more seeing you do well.
Honestly, you are doing great and I appreciate your support more than any rewards.
Just keep doing your thing, thats reward enough.
I appreciate you saying that but credit where credit is due :-)
Whatever you think is best pal, but I help you because I have been there and its nice to have someone that understands the frustration.
Rewards a nice, but too many people on the blockchain focus on them too much rather than engaging in a thoughtful way.
Plus you have been very helpful to me also. So Thank you.
Welcome and kudos for such a great post
thank you for taking the time to stop by and read it. I appreciate it :-)
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STOPWelcome Sam and great job with the introduction! You can explore the communities that you may like in this post: OCD Communities Incubation Program.
If you are looking for tips and information as a Hive newbie, click here: newbie guide. If you have questions or concerns, you can hop into OCD's Discord server and we'll gladly answer your questions.
Thanks! I'll check out the guides too. I've found the community collaborative and supportive so far.
Welcome to Hive @samsmith1971! 😃 Your intro post was such a fun read as I could clearly picture how you described your childhood adventures which then grew to having bigger explorations of other parts of the globe 😁 Cheers to more stories you'll be sharing around the communities!
D.Buzz is a great place for you to freely express what you want with our microblogging platform. Feel free to make an introduction post and let the community know who you are. 🐝
thank you. It's great to be here :-)
Hi there Sam... pleasure to meet you. Thanks for the follow, hopefully i'll write enough to get you entertained with my post every two month or so. 😎 And welcome to the Silver Bloggers by the way! 💫
hi Dan! I saw your interactions on Nickydee's posts and enjoyed reading them, so I was going to come to your blog last night but I was unable to leave Nicky's lol. I spent ages catching up there. I plan to visit yours this evening :-) and thank you for the warm welcome to silver bloggers... You know what it's like... so many communities on Hive lol... but I saw a few people I follow, posting to silver bloggers and decided to take a better look at what type of content was permissible and encouraged in the community. I also really like the composition of the team running the community. So... there we go. I'll catch you later 🤗 !ALIVE
@mondoshawan! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @samsmith1971. (5/10)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want.
I just read this, finally! So awesome. It reaffirms why I love you so much. We share so many of the same values, you're brave and kind, and determined to honour yourself and others as much as you can. You're well travelled and well educated, and care to continue both. I was delighted to read this. I'm glad you had it pinned to the top! (Oh, speaking of... how do you "unpin" something? I've worked out how to a post but can't for the life of me work out how to unpin it!)
!LUV !ALIVE !LADY
@samsmith1971! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @consciouscat. (1/10)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want.
@consciouscat(1/5) gave you LUV.
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aw thank you Caroline 💗 I love you too!
To unpin? Click on the 3 little dots on the post and then select unpin from blog ;-)
!PIZZA !ALIVE !hivebits
😘
I wish mine showed that! For some reason, it doesn't. I looked for every single simple version like that that I could. I have found it nowhere! I'm going to switch to a different interface and see if that works...
It worked! I realised I published it on peakd (which I rarely use) and so when I looked on ecency, which is my default interface, I couldn't see it anywhere. But your comment made me think about how you could see it so easily and I couldn't. Thank you, roundabout way, but now problem solved!
Ta Da!!! hehe well, I'm glad it helped !LOLZ Yeah when we switch between the front ends all the time it becomes tricky... why don't they all have the same good stuff??? hahaha... They should each pick the best from each other and replicate it 😂 Hope you've had a lovely week and gearing up for a relaxing weekend. It's getting colder here in England at the mo... I actually popped the heating on for an hour earlier just to take the edge off, otherwise layered up a bit as we usually do over here. It always amazes me how quickly the summer falls away ('scuse the unintended pun which just made me chuckle) ... It's like one day we are in the mid 20's and then it drops 10 degrees and although the sun is still there, she is lower in the sky and not warm at all... in winter I love to drive in the sunshine with my car heater on haha... Tricks my brain into thinking it's still summer 🤣💗...ok must work... catch you later x !LUV !PIZZA
@samsmith1971(4/10) gave you LUV.
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Steal her blanket.
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@consciouscat, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of @samsmith1971
Are You Ready for some $FUN? Learn about LOLZ's new FUN tribe!
(1/4)
Front end! That's the term I was looking for when I said "interface". Thank you 😁
Yes, I'd love it if they just replicated the best of each other's and did the same things but in their own way. 😄
!LOL Made me smile as I saw you point out the pun (which I would have otherwise missed since we never call it fall but rather, autumn). 🍂🍃
Haha. !LUV it 🤣
@consciouscat(2/5) gave you LUV.
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But you can't piano a tuna.
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@samsmith1971, I sent you an $LOLZ on behalf of @consciouscat
Are You Ready for some $FUN? Learn about LOLZ's new FUN tribe!
(1/8)
@consciouscat! You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE to your account on behalf of @samsmith1971. (1/10)
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want.
$PIZZA slices delivered:
samsmith1971 tipped consciouscat (x2)
@samsmith1971(1/15) tipped @makorirobinson
I'm just amazed at the life you've lived. South Africa is very far from me, but seems like a fascinating country.
I'm very happy I met you. I'm grateful for the people I continue to meet on Hive. I don't use any other social media, so this is my only digital connection to the outside world. I wouldn't have it any other way.
This paragraph describes what I've come to really value here. The rewards are great when they come. But making that the only reason really sours ones experience here. I just hope I continue to meet people like you. Take care.
Aw, thanks for reading my intro post... feels like a long time ago although it was only last year. Life in SA certainly was interesting... in a lot of ways, it will always be home to me, as I grew up there... but it is a juxtaposition of beauty and horror, joy and fear. My hubby and I started our own family here in the UK and this is now the place we call home. I've been to California twice this year to visit friends, and have another trip planned for the latter half of next year. The flight time from London to LA is similar to that from London to Durban, about 11 -11.5 hours. Although last time I flew into Phoenix and then onward to a regional airport and the delays both to and from London were horrendous, turning a 16 hour journey into a 29 and 40 hour journey respectively. In future, I fly direct into LA hahaha.
Glad I ran into you too! Take care and catch you soon...
Make sure you leave the world better as much as you can for posterity. You found it beautiful Sam.
It is a beautiful world. I do not doubt that. He made it so 💗 Thank you for dropping in on this intro post of mine. I'm dropping by your blog now and seeing you have only recently become active again :-) !PIZZA