I love everything Richard listed! Yes!! So I will add some of the small stories that have come to mean so much to me. At the time, not all of these made it into the blog, but that's just the way things go when traveling and living in the moment. Sometimes you don't even realize something's a story until it is. Later. All of these are stories I love because Richard was there with me, sharing the experiences, and now he's here sharing the laughs, sighs, and head shakes as we recount our adventures, talking and laughing late in the evening by the water over a drink and late-night snack. Our neighbors must really wonder about us.
1. Jock/Fitzpatrick's safari lodge in Kruger. We had such a good time with Richard's daughter, Alyssa, and her husband, Chris, and our dear friends Nic and Gil. And, I should add: the dormouse.
I should set the scene at Fitzpatrick's: beautiful safari lodge, elegant mosquito-netted beds, armoires, armchairs next to the sliding doors to the private deck with its private plunge pool...ah, and a sweet little bowl of strawberries left for us on the table next to the Champagne. A lovely first day and then into bed and air-conditioned, duvet heaven. I then I woke up at 2am with the horrible feeling that something very large had just run up my leg and scurried over my arm. Dung beetle -- I was certain. Yuck! They're huge. I batted at the duvet, smacked whatever it was, and tried to go back to sleep. 15 minutes later: repeat. Yuck! Eww. And Richard is still sound asleep. By the third time, I'd had enough, so I grabbed my phone and put on the light so that I could peak down from the bed and see what I had just batted off me again. I shined the light on the floor and up stared a tiny little dormouse with huge eyes. Aww. Ok then. He was cute. I was good with a dormouse. Fast forward to early morning conversation:
Honey, guess what? There was a dormouse in bed with us last night.
Pause.
No, I'm not hallucinating...
and so it went.
After our 5 a.m. safari and mid-morning breakfast, we napped.
Shortly: Honey, look who's napping with us!
Our cute little dormouse was under the duvet next to my leg. I caught him. (See! I told you. Some form of a sigh followed.) And then, perhaps unwisely, I put him in a cup and evicted him (the dormouse, not Richard). In retrospect I feel terrible that I put the little guy outside. He didn't want to go. He kept scurrying back into the cup, which he initially didn't want to be in at all. Snakes, birds... Poor thing. I finally dumped him out under the stairs leading down to the riverbed. We thought later, he had it pretty good in our room. Nice bed, duvet, warm human. And Richard asked me why I ate all the strawberries without sharing them. I didn't, I said.
I will post my nine remaining stories over the coming days.
Epilogue: I couldn't and wouldn't want to do any of this without you R. 💕
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