London Calling…

Swazi Reunion... The Big Fella and I arrive at Francois's home to the northeast of London...

I left Borge’s place and headed up to London on the M25 motorway, riding through the Dartford Tunnel, where bikes don’t need to pay…!! Bonus…!! The tunnel runs under the Thames going north, and comes back over on a high bridge… An amazing piece of  construction…!!

I arrived at my friend Francois’s house by mid-morning, and after changing out of my riding gear, enjoyed a cup of coffee with him and his family… Francois used to be my Production Manager in our factory in Swaziland, and left for the U.K. to take up work here after two years in Pigg’s Peak…

He had made an amazing success of himself, and I am secretly proud of his achievements… His Polish wife Ania, and their two small daughters, Julia and Eliza came out to meet me as I rode up onto the sidewalk outside their beautiful home… Francois’s parents who I met a long time ago in Swaziland, were also there, and it was a happy reunion after 12 years since we had last seen each other…

I needed a pair of sneakers to stop my toes from freezing off my feet, as the only other footwear I had carried with me, besides my boots, were a pair of open toed Rocky Sandals… We rode down to a huge sporting goods outlet where I got what I needed before Francois dropped me off at a nearby station to take the train into London…

I tried hard to still my mind, trying to send my emotions into a place where they would not overwhelm me… It had been almost 18 months since I had last held my little girl in my arms, and we had not communicated very much over that period… With regrets piled high, I walked out under the gloomy skies of central London, crossed Oxford Street and saw her standing at the guard rail to the tube station opposite me… I thought my heart would burst out of my chest… Not only at the sight of Robyn, but also that from a distance she looked so much like her mother…

My Darling Little Girl... Meeting Robyn in Oxford Street, London...

We embraced for what seemed like the longest moment, and with my chin on her shoulder, I wished we were somewhere less crowded than Oxford Street, so that I could let my emotions run as wild as they were threatening to do… But maybe that wouldn’t have been a good thing…

We walked hand in hand down the road, ducking into doorways as we went, to avoid the rain that fell constantly… There was so much to say, and so little time to say it in… In keeping with our backgrounds, we decided to have lunch at Nando’s, and enjoyed a great meal together while I listened to all her news… My news was a matter of public knowledge for the most part, so I said very little about my journey so far, preferring to let her to most of the talking… Just listening to her voice again was amazing to me, and there was never a moment’s awkward silence that I had half expected there might be…

Kidding around on the wet streets... Robyn's laugh was still as infectious as I remebered it...

It was difficult seeing the young woman in front of me, and trying to match her with the little girl inside my head… While she spoke, my mind drifted to places far away, seeing her climbing Dune 7 in Namibia, roller-blading in the parking area behind the Riverside Mall, walking Amber (or rather being walked by Amber, her Rhodesian Ridgeback…) our walks in the bush and her playing in our garden… It all seemed so long ago and far away… And yet it was just a few short years ago…

After lunch we turned off the main road and waked down to a quieter road stopping at Garfunkel’s for coffee… Robyn had always been the gentler of our two children, and this part of her nature still shone through… We reminisced about the past a little, concentrating only on the happier moments we had shared as a family… I wished there was time to tell her the things a father feels obliged to tell his children, but I thought better of handing out advice with so little time together… All I could do was hope that her family would impart all the things that a child needed to hear before she set out to make the world her own…

There is always a South African connection in London...

I insisted on accompanying her all the way back to her “home” station on the Northern Line, feeling proud to have her at my side and listening while she spoke of her hopes and aspiration for the future… I so much wanted to be there when she set out to achieve them, wanted to be at home when she came in from College or Varsity, to hear her talk about her day, and offer words of advice that she could use or lose as the mood took her… These are the things that I will sorely miss in the years to come…

Robyn seemed to be coping well in her new environment, and was enjoying the hustle and bustle of living in London… I loved hearing her girlish giggle again, knowing that she was still young at heart and seeing the world through the eyes of her youth…

We stood outside her station cracking jokes and trying to make our last moments together be happy ones, and last as long as possible… We held hands, and as I looked at her, the emotion that I had kept under control all afternoon, broke free… I felt a shudder tear through my chest, and then the tears came, unbidden… One moment we were smiling wistfully at each other, and the next my vision blurred… I smiled at her through it all, wishing her well and making her promise to check her email more regularly…

Her words “I love you Dad…!” brought a silent groan to my lips and I watched as she walked slowly up the road, wondering what was going through her mind, wanting to run back after her and hug her one last time… All too soon she was swallowed up in the crowd, and lost to sight…

A final hug, then she was gone...

With my cap pulled low and my sunglasses on, I sat on the train and thought about what might have been, and what was now, and what might one day still be… I wondered what would become of my girls, and if their lives would ever be entwined with mine again… I wished that circumstances would allow me to do more for them one day… I reminded myself that this was just a moment in time, a chapter in our lives that we would look back on and learn from… But would there be time to teach what we had learned, because what is the point of learning if you can’t pass your knowledge on…?

The four hours I was able to spend with Robyn, was worth all the thousands of kilometres I had ridden to see her… I realized that being in London and seeing the part of my family that I had missed so much, had become a destination of sorts for me…

It was almost as if I now needed another reason to continue my journey…

©GBWT 2010