Absence makes…

Here’s my Easter Monday morning view…

Motherland Flat White, two rounds.

I’m at a coffeehouse in a Johannesburg suburb breakfasting al fresco basking in the morning sun. As I sit taking in the streetscene of the outdoor mall, male offspring calls. His video feed shows that where he is snow is falling steadily on top of a metre plus of lying snow. He is anxious about getting from the cabin to the highway. This is to be expected in northern Norway on a northern lights roadtrip.

We are sharing a timezone but not a hemisphere. He has just passed south through the Arctic Circle, I am waaay south of the equator.

Shivering at his circumstance, I retreat to the pool.

Gratuitous pool pic, sorry not sorry

Hours pass and there’s a slightly startling call from Mrs B who has just awoken in her time zone: East Coast USA.

She’s in Massachusetts visiting firstborn at Boston College. She has not had coffee so conversation is a mite clipped. It’s six hours behind and the student has not arisen (much to her chargrin). I also may have nodded off following my 11hour flight “down” from London – hence the minor start, I was asleep – so we are mutually mildly terse, yet happy.

---

So our Easter Monday has the Beers far flung from each other.

Distance between father and son 10,000km/6,000miles

Distance between husband and wife/daughter 12,600km/7,800miles

Distance between siblings 5,600km/3,500miles.

Doesn’t feel like a small world today, but a wee WhatsApp video conference does its best to help…

It will be late May before there is a chance of us all being under one roof again.

I’m not sure if absence will make the heart do anything at all, but am sure that Team Beers life enriching escapades are warming my soul.