A Spectacular Moment in History

Those of you that have already read the first book in the series are probably ‘dying’ to know when the twins will be reunited. As a New-Year’s tantalizer, I’ll let you get just a peek at the sequel that I am working on tonight. Don’t die completely because I think you will find it worth the wait, and hopefully worth its weight in gold. Remember if you haven’t read Two Mothers, Twin Daughters, yet you still have time before this hits the market which is coming as soon as possible!

        Suddenly there she was. Alice had to be that small frightened figure with the wildly flowing red hair and a smoke blue coat draped over her arm. She was standing on the steep steps of the plane and scanning the airfield. And shivering, because it was probably a lot colder here in Edmonton than it was in Switzerland.

        The first thing Randall did when he reached his daughter was to gently remove the luggage from her hand and place it on the ground. Then he took the obviously brand-new coat and helped her into it. But that wasn't all. Next to carefully lifted the hood over her wavy tresses and tied it snugly under her chin. Alice was so touched by his gesture of kindness she wanted to throw her arms around him, but she didn’t. 

        Randall stepped back and tipped his hat. A mischievous grin played around the corners of his mouth. He thrust out his hand and Alice timidly took it. His grip was warm and strong.

       “If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn that was Emily coming off the plane. I am so glad to meet you. Two beautiful girls as alike as peas in a pod. How much luckier could a man get? “

  

       A faint smile lurked in the corners of Alice’s mouth but the

very first words she ever said to her father, she later considered rather clumsy.

       “Where are the others?”

       “Wait and see,” he grinned. “Naturally, wild horses couldn’t keep them at home, but neither did your mother want to meet you at such a public place as the airport.”  

We're Losing Altitude...in Africa!

Ho, hum, what happened here? I thought I had sent off a post about landing in Johannesburg but where is it? Then this morning before coming to the library, I wrote one introducing y'all to our first trip into the African back lands---and it vanished! Well, it's time to hustle out another one! 
Here goes!! Maybe I'll even get two written!



As the plane loses altitude  and the African landscape rolls out before us, I am enjoying a very African looking sunrise. If you ask me why it looked more African than any other sunrise I can only say because the colors so closely resembled one in a picture I checked out in my online research.


After landing in Johannesburg we had to (guess what?!) go through customs again. There weren't as many blacks as you might have expected but many that I thought had a distinctly Africaan (Dutch?)  look. Not that that made them much easier to understand.


There was a bewildering array of exotic looking souvenirs that we scurried past on our way to our next flight.




As we hurried through the airport the gift shops were like a kaledoscopic blur

The plane that took us to Tate was the smallest I've been on in in a long, long time. I had an opportunity to chat with a man who regularly flew back and forth between Mozambique and South Africa because he worked in the recently developing coal mines.


Now I was sorry for trying to protect my son's brand new computer by squeezing it into a suitcase without completely removing the box. Those customs officers quickly got wise to the fact that it was a Brand New Laptop and wanted to levy a seriously hefty duty tax on it. With all the dilly-dallying and delays our son and the missionary finally were able to get through and help with the language problem. I understand that they wanted to charge us the equivalent of a week, or was it a month's wages for that tiny piece of wires and, and well whatever. There was a woman there that was willing to pay 200 Metcash for that slim, sleek looking piece of technology, but 'we' swallowed our ire ad paid the duty. I looked and listened carefully, but never once heard any remonstrance that I should have packed the laptop differently. Thank you!

The temperature was pleasantly comfortable when we landed, and would you believe we didn't hit a serious heat wave until we got back home to northern  Alberta?

"Goodnight" In the Air

“

Our next flight was three hours longer than the first one and was also an over-nighter. I’m really not great at falling asleep even at home, and this was no exception. How my legs did ache! Out of desperation I would get up and walk around once in a while. It is a marvel to behold how readily some folks zonked off. There were those that were snoozing with their chin almost on their chests. Did I envy them? Well, maybe a little, but I did wonder how their necks would feel when they woke up. One sweet, young teenager leaned over to talk to me as I trudged past. Our conversation was about this long: “You can’t sleep? I can’t either!” But it was a friendly connection in a sea of shadowed faces. On a different plane one man was asleep even before takeoff and slumbered almost constantly until he had to drag himself off the plane many hours later. Oh, to keep the record straight, I did fall asleep for a few seconds, not minutes on the flight from London to Johannesburg. On the way home I even slept longer!

There were others that were prowling around in the dark. One businessman (?) was doing knee bends to aid circulation and he and I got to chatting. These late night vigils gave me opportunity to exchanged smiles and a few words with more than one gentle-faced woman clothed in Middle Eastern attire.

I felt sorry for one Chinese couple, though. Off and on all during a certain flight their toddler was fussing. I wanted so much to go help them, but that just Isn’t Done and besides they may have not even known English. I saw “Daddy” in the back with a child but could offer little more than a sympathetic smile. When daylight arrived, I discovered that it wasn't one, but two toddlers that were having an unhappy flight. They were identical twins!

Maybe that’s enough for now. I feel ready for a nap!