#next up in working in tourism: customers and their children straight up not caring at all about your personal space!

[reyesstrand]

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[threemonthsincapetown]

Three months back in the UK

This time three months ago was our last night in South Africa after a three month stay in Cape Town. It was an amazing and life changing experience, and I still can’t quite believe it happened. I came home changed in many ways - my faith was challenged in a positive way, as well as my use (and waste)of water, and how much more could be recycled. I made new friends and renewed old friendships, all of which I treasured, and discovered a love of trail running, especially in the dark.

So, three months on, what have we been doing and what impact have those challenges and experiences had on my life here in York, UK?

For a start, it was great to see family and friends again, and we’ve valued the time we’ve spent with them since coming back. On our first day back at home we attended our granddaughter’s 8th birthday party, and it’s been great to share in the lives of the grandchildren, taking them to the pantomime, having them over for sleepovers, etc. We also met up with Sammi and other family members for her birthday, and she and Heather came to visit us when we went to Willersley Castle for the weekend with Joe, Lorna and Toby. And we’ve had the privilege of attending Mark and Steph’s wedding, a fantastic and very special event, and then having the children stay with us for a few days whilst their parents went away on honeymoon.  It was a shock to be doing the school run etc again, but we really enjoyed the time the children were with us.

Whilst I went straight back to work the day after we returned to the UK (the jury’s still out on whether that was a good or bad move) I tried not to rush straight back into all of the activities I was previously involved with, choosing to take some time to reassess where I might be needed going forward. Whilst this has been a welcome chance to have a bit of ‘me’ time and to try out new and different things, not immediately getting caught up in lots of busyness, it’s meant that I’ve felt somewhat detached from church and community life. I was glad to get back to the Aroma craft evenings and to explore some new ways of using craft to provide a safe space for people. I’ve also enjoyed having time to read, and for Rob and I to go on some lovely walks in the beautiful Yorkshire countryside, and we’ve definitely appreciated being able to walk around all over the place at any time of the day or evening without having to worry too much about security. But it’s been difficult to ‘slot back in’ to life in Haxby. We may look the same on the outside, but we are very different on the inside, having experienced life differently, and we want to make sure we process those differences and learn to find our place here as different people, not necessarily always doing things as we used to do before.

Having done so much running in South Africa, it’s been great to start regularly attending Easingwold Running Club training sessions on Thursday evenings, making new friends and starting to feel fitter. And it’s been fab to see how the Haxby and Wigginton Methodist parkrun group has grown and how much people are enjoying and benefitting from their Saturday morning fix. Rob and I have also done some parkrun tourism (Dalby Forest, Long Eaton, York, Fountains Abbey, Bakewell and New Earswick) as well as our regular Heslington course. Rob completed his 50th parkrun on the last Saturday in December. It seemed fitting that it was in Long Eaton, where our first house was and where we lived happily for the first 8 years of our married life. And we started the new year with a parkrun double, running the York course at 9am (with Rob getting a PB) and the Heslington course at 10.30am! This Saturday I had the privilege of running with Joe at his first 5k parkrun, which he says he enjoyed and wants to come again.

We’ve also done a couple of 10k trail races with the running club, and we’ve done three headtorch night trail runs - two in Dalby Forest and one at Castle Howard. Nothing can compare with the exhilaration and sense of achievement of completing a hilly trail run in the dark, not to mention the spectacular stars visible in the night sky (if the clouds deign to lift, and we dare to look up rather than watch out for tree roots, rocks, etc on the path!). We first experienced night trail running at Groot Constantia in Cape Town and entered the UK races while we were still in South Africa because we so enjoyed the experience. 

In terms of faith, I’ve met with Paula, spiritual accompanist, on three occasions and she’s been brilliant at helping me to talk and think through some of the experiences I had in South Africa, and also my sense of grief at leaving friends behind, and my feeling of confusion at where God might use me going forward. I’m still work in progress, but I’m so grateful for her wisdom and support, as well as for my friends in the PSD core group, and several other close friends. I think the time in South Africa showed me that God can use us in unexpected ways, so I hope I’m open to new challenges - the discernment is a bit more tricky though!

As I frequently mentioned in my blogs when we were in South Africa, last year Cape Town experienced its worst drought in 25 years, with fears that they would actually reach Day Zero where there was no water left. However, with rationing in place, very careful use of water, and some unseasonal rainfall the dams started to fill, although the water situation is still precarious. Whilst we were there we got used to only flushing the toilet when absolutely necessary, harvesting water in buckets when showering (and then using it to fill the cistern), only washing up once a day, only putting the washer on for a full load, wearing clothes a little longer than we might do at home, collecting grey water for the garden, etc, etc. Returning home we thought about how much clean potable water we must have wasted over the years and decided to adopt some of the practices we learned in South Africa as just because the UK isn’t experiencing drought it doesn’t mean we should continue to use as much as we like. So we now harvest water in a bucket when showering, and don’t automatically flush the loo every time. We also wait until we have a full load for the washer, and we’ve had a water meter fitted. So far we have saved £30 a month and expect it to probably be more as we continue to adapt, especially as we are in the process of having three water butts fitted to harvest rainwater.

Another thing we heard about in South Africa was Ecobricks. These are plastic bottles filled with compressed non-recyclable flexible plastic which can then be used in a variety of ways. In some developing countries they are actually used as bricks for building houses. In the UK schools have built greenhouses and other garden structures with them. I’m planning to have a go at making stools for the grandchildren with mine. It’s been sobering to see how much plastic we accumulate and the next challenge is to try to reduce the amount we actually get/use in the first place. It’s also been great to see so many other people take up this idea, especially our grandchildren and their friends encouraging their schools to get involved.

Another project we have always been impressed with in Hout Bay in South Africa is the Original Teabag Company. It’s amazing to see what beautiful and creative items people can make from a used teabag! We visited the teabag place several times on our last visit and bought many of our Christmas presents from there. They are always short of dried used teabags so we now have lots of people saving them for us. Could be interesting getting them all through customs next time we visit, but it does illustrate the phrase ‘one man’s junk is another man’s treasure’.

It’s been fantastic to keep in touch with so many of our friends in South Africa, and we are very grateful for What’s App, Facebook and email. We’ve discovered how difficult it is to post/courier anything to our friends, so being able to keep in touch through messages and photos is great. We look forward to the parkrun updates from the Bowers and Gearys on a Saturday, and to hearing other things about their lives throughout the week, and I love receiving news from Debbie, Zukie and Ncumisa about the school work and Langa Fellowship. I long to be able to just call round and see them, or to meet up for parkrun and breakfast, but then I remember they’re 5,000 miles!

Looking forwards, Rob and I have booked to go and visit my niece in Valencia for a few days, and we are planning some more parkrun tourism involving weekends away. Monthly Aroma craft evenings are planned, and I’m still exploring other new craft initiatives. Rob and I have both signed up for several runs with the running club, including a 10 miler and a tough hilly trail run, which will test our new fitness! I’m hoping to get my trumpet out after a six month break and start playing in the church music group again, and also to go back to volunteering as a befriender for the Refugee Council.  We have also been invited to give several talks to local groups about our experience, and this year’s Haxby and Wigginton Scarecrow Festival will be supporting the Common Good organisation (whose projects we volunteered in). We also hope to host the Gearys for a visit later this year, and hope some of our other South African friends might come and visit before too long too. Added to this we will host different members of our family for weekends, and spend time with the children and grandchildren.  

Lent starts next week, a time when we remember Jesus spending 40 days in the wilderness, leading up to the Easter celebration of His resurrection.

As we continue to travel through our wilderness of uncertainty, we look forward with hope to Easter.  Maybe by then we will be involved in some new things, and maybe we will have more of a sense of God’s leading, or maybe we will still be searching, I don’t know. But what I do know is that we will try to seize the opportunities that come our way, hoping to make the best of them, and in doing so seeking to serve God and come to know Him better.

[bookstattoosandtea]

Natalina Reis has a new MM Paranormal murder mystery romance out: “Of Magic and Scales.”

With a serial killer on the loose, the baffling mystery of Aiden’s past, and their tenuous budding romance, Aiden and Fouchard tread through a world of magic and myth on padded shoes, terrified to stir up something neither can control or defeat.

Aiden Mercer’s life now centers around lounging on the sunny beaches of his adopted country with a beer in one hand and a coffee in the other while admiring the local male population. After a rough life as a respected detective in DC, playing it cool shouldn’t be too hard, right? With the magical community on his case and dead bodies piling up around town, the responsibility of finding their killer seems fated to fall on him and deny him of his easy living.

Then there is Naël.

Cantankerous merman Naël Fouchard’s life is focused on bringing up and protecting his little sister. When DNA found at the scene of the murders mark him as the prime suspect, Naël seeks out the help of Aiden, whose reputation as a detective grossly belies his lazy lifestyle and apparent lack of ambition.

The chemistry between the strong, stoic Naël and the easygoing Aiden is undeniable, no matter how many walls Aiden builds.

If this unlikely pair can’t come to terms with their feelings for each other long enough to catch the killer, their emotional turmoil might yet allow the murderer to kill them instead.

Hot Tree Publishing | Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon CAN | Amazon AUS | iBooks | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | QueeRomance Ink | Goodreads

Giveaway

Natalina is giving away a $10 Amazon gift card with this tour. Enter via Rafflecopter for a chance to win:

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Special Guest Post From Natalina

Why I Love Of Magic & Scales

As a writer, I love pretty much every story I write (why else would I write them, right?) but this one was special for a couple reasons.

First, it is set in my home country. Actually it is set in my hometown. Aiden, the main character owns a coffeehouse by the same beach where I spent many a day in my teens. In fact, in the exact location of his shop there is an amazing restaurant where I ate a myriad of delicious dishes in the past. It was so much fun revisiting all these spots. I haven’t been home in almost three years and writing this book gave me an opportunity to feel as if I was indeed visiting.

I fell in love with my two guys. Aiden is so clueless sometimes and lead mostly by his hyperactive sex drive. But he is also, as most of my characters, a misfit, someone who never felt as if he belonged. Naël is just what the doctor ordered in more ways than one. Aiden may very well find balance and happiness in the strong arms of his merman.

Excerpt

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I’m not sure what I am, but I certainly know what I am not. I know I’m not a witch because—well, I’m male. I’m definitely not an elf, since I have no sudden urges to hop onto somebody’s shelf around Christmas. Vampire I am not. My perfectly straight teeth have never once turned into fangs, neither have I ever had a sudden, strange craving for human blood. I’m not a werewolf either. I do have hair on my body but nothing that would qualify me as a wolfman. Besides, I am still pretty much myself during full moons.

But I am not a regular either, because unlike most normal humans, I can see magic beings. By “seeing,” I mean I recognize them as such. Anyone can see them, unless the magicals choose for them not to. I, on the other hand, can always recognize them, unless they purposely hide themselves behind a special magic charm.

I don’t remember not having the ability, so I’m guessing I was born like this. Whatever this is. Good thing that I’m used to it, because seeing magical beings for what they are can be a pretty traumatizing experience, as it was the time I freaked out during a trip to Greece, when I had a close encounter with a minotaur. Nice chap as it turns out but not a pretty sight.

I’ve lived a pretty normal, average life running Bicas R Us, a coffee shop in a small coastal town in sunny Portugal, for the past year or so. After an incident in Northern Virginia that put me on the pages of the local news—don’t ask; it involved a pretty handsome elf and his irate troll boyfriend—I thought it would be better to start again somewhere new. I had visited the tiny nation some years before and fallen in love with its never-ending beaches and kicked-back lifestyle, so I packed my bags, contacted a real estate agent and the immigration office, and got myself a brand-new life.

I had played with the idea of buying a coffee shop on the beach, but I figured it would be a mother to keep the place—and the coffee—free of sand. So, I bought a store nearby in the town square, a short walk from the beach. Portugal is littered with three things: tourists, ancient churches, and coffee shops. Nobody would notice me, the brown haired, blue-eyed American who came to explore the locals’ passion for the hot brew.

The other perk of living here was that magical creatures were not spotted as often. Vampires were virtually nonexistent because of the year-round sunny weather, trolls and ogres were limited to the mountains in the north and, unless you visited the nearby mountain of Sintra that crawled with magical activity, the only thread of magic on the coast was the sporadic water sprite and the beachcombing witches who sold their wares in local shops. All in all, a pretty placid place for someone like me to live in.

I enjoyed today’s cool breeze blowing from the ocean, sitting on a chair in my small esplanade under a red umbrella with a glass of cold beer in my hand. Yes, in this sunny paradise I was allowed to sell and buy alcohol in my coffee shop. Behind my light pinewood counter, the wall shelves were covered in bottles that held more than coffee flavorings. What a great nation this was.

While Cristina, my only employee, was busy serving the few customers who loitered inside the café, I could enjoy the local fauna as they hurried from shop to shop or headed out to the beach. Summer hadn’t quite arrived yet, but the sun had warmed the air enough for the locals to shed their wintry clothes and don more relaxed apparel. From behind my shades, I followed the trek of three young men, all shirtless and in swimming trunks. Hot. Not the weather, the guys—tanned, lean and muscular, shorts low enough on their hips to reveal that sexy vee—

“Olha para ti, a salivar como um cão por um bife.” Cristina had sneaked up from behind and interrupted my yummy thoughts.

“Speak English, woman,” I told her, sliding my glasses down my nose to look at her over the rim. “You’d think you’re Portuguese, or something.”

She slapped me mercilessly across the back of my head and plopped herself on the chair next to mine. “Idiota.”Without so much as a may I, my small Portuguese friend and employee grabbed the glass from my hand and took a long swig of my beer. “Are you going to sit here all afternoon watching the hot guys walking by?”

“And what’s wrong with that?” Cristina spoke flawless English but enjoyed confusing me with spurts of Portuguese once in a while. She pulled up another chair and placed her feet on the seat, her legs crossed at the knees. “What exactly did you call me just now?”

“A dog salivating over a steak.” She took another swig before I could retrieve my beer. “Don’t you have more important things to do with your life, Aiden?”

I wiped her foam mustache with a finger. “Not really. Why do you think I moved here from Virginia?” She blinked her eyes at me, pretending not to know what I was talking about. “Easy living, sunshine, and hot, half-naked guys.”

Cristina laughed, her face turned to the sun. She had skin the same color as the cork in a wine bottle, a honeyed brown made darker since the early spring weather replaced the cool air of winter. “You’re something, Aiden. You have no other dream or ambition? Just basking in the sun and ogling sexy men?”

Not quite correct but part of the truth. “Are you jealous?”

The skin crinkled around her green eyes as she turned her gaze to me. “Only if you flirt with guys I have my eyes on.” She spotted a couple of newly arrived customers and hopped to her feet. “Customers. Unlike you, I have some interest in making a buck here and there. I enjoy having a roof over my head.”

As she walked away, I yelled, “No need. You can always sleep on the beach.”

Author Bio

Natalina wrote her first romance at the age of 13 in collaboration with her best friend. Since then she has ventured into other genres, but romance is first and foremost in almost everything she writes. She’s the author of We Will Always Have the Closet, Desert Jewel, Loved You Always, and Lavender Fields.

After earning a degree in tourism and foreign languages, she worked as a tourist guide in her native Portugal for a short time before moving to the United States. She lived in three continents and a few islands, and her knack for languages and linguistics led her to a master’s degree in education. She lives in Virginia where she’s taught English as a Second Language to elementary school children for more years than she cares to admit.

Natalina doesn’t believe you can have too many books or too much coffee. Art and dance make her happy and she is pretty sure she could survive on lobster and bananas alone. When she is not writing or stressing over lesson plans, she shares her life with her husband and two adult sons.

Author Website: https://natalinareis.com/

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  Blog Tour, Guest Post & Giveaway: Of Magic & Scales by Natalina Reis Natalina Reis has a new MM Paranormal murder mystery romance out: "Of Magic and Scales." With a serial killer on the loose, the baffling mystery of Aiden’s past, and their tenuous budding romance, Aiden and Fouchard tread through a world of magic and myth on padded shoes, terrified to stir up something neither can control or defeat.