There’s something about the African sun

That beats from a sky much bluer than ours,

Heat scorched grass and roaring lions,

The cocktails will flow at the Tiki bar

As the boys all dance and drink and smoke

And that sun sinks down as the fireflies light

You caught my eye over a tin of beer,

Little did I know that we’d never be split

As the animal snarls close in on the camp

And a heat rises up between two drunken bodies,

Tanned from the day and tired from the night.

And that was how Africa changed one girl’s world

From a stiff British lip to a woman who roars.

My dad went and cleared out the last of the house yesterday and he brought some bags of my stuff over today. Most of it was a load of old rubbish that is going straight in the bin or to the charity shop, but every so often I stumbled across something that just lightened my mood.

Surprisingly the most powerful things I found were the photos. There were so many from when I was a teenager and I used to take a disposable camera everywhere with me. And that includes the summer that I went to South Africa, all on my own.

I ended up meeting my future husband and Noah’s dad and I found a photograph of us in the piles of junk. It reminded me of times that I had pushed to the back of my mind for so long. At the time they were really painful memories, but stumbling across them now has just made me smile.

It’s reminded me that distance between now and then really does ease pain. The more time that passes, the easier it is to remember those times. In fact, now I am actively enjoying looking through those memories. I can only really feel the good feels; the funny stories; the love.

Much Love,

Rachel xx