A South African in London soon misses the familiar chaos of home, writes Kyra Tarr. Yes, even the potholes...
England is like a helicopter parent always looming over your shoulder. It's not the first time I've had this thought since arriving in London almost two months ago.
If the tube station intercom isn't telling you to "mind the gap" between the train and the platform, then your soda bottle will have the word "twist" written on the cap, just in case you were planning to gnaw the lid off of your Fanta.
Which, by the way, is a murky yellow colour in the UK and not the vibrant orange we're accustomed to in South Africa. I can taste the missing colourants and I don't like it.
I'm sitting on a bench in Richmond Park, London. Home is 14 000 km south of here, but right now it's my proximity to the North Pole (4 300 km away) that's more of a worry.
It's late winter in 2017 and although my jacket from Coats for Africa in Cape Town is trying its best, it's not what you'd call snug.
Still, I refuse to admit defeat. I've survived a night in Colesberg in the Karoo during mid-winter.
There, you have to wear your boots to bed if you have any hope of retaining your toes. That's survival. This is merely freezing.
"Molly, let's go!" I call to my nine-year-old charge, who is building a fairy garden in the snow a little way off.
I came to London as a favour to Molly's mom Sonja, who works a gruelling schedule as a doctor in Windsor, about an hour outside the city.
Sonja needed someone to watch over Molly during the Christmas break while she was at work.
Since I was on university holiday, I had time on my hands and I happily traded in my Cape Town Sevens rugby ticket for the glittering lights of Oxford Street and a Michael Bubl -inspired Christmas.
London never seemed real to me before I saw it with my own eyes. It felt strange to stand in front of the Royal Albert Hall, imagining all the people who had attended concerts here since its opening night in 1871, with Queen Victoria in attendance.
Since then, everybody from Albert Einstein to Muhammad Ali and The Beatles have appeared here, in one capacity or another.
Although I was taking care of Molly, this was her world, and she was the one who showed me around with the frightening know-how young children seem to have these days.
We did all the "London things", as Molly called them. We traipsed through the bustle of Covent Garden, danced under the light displays on Oxford Street, pored over second-hand books in Notting Hill, drank our way through litres of hot chocolate, tried on punk-themed outfits at Camden Market and walked along the Thames as rowers hauled their boats up and down the river.
We watched Mamma Mia on the West End and explored the length and breadth of Kew Gardens.
When it snowed, we baked ginger biscuits and went ice-skating outside Hampton Court Palace, the historic residence of King Henry VIII who beheaded two of his six wives.
In London, you're constantly sharing your personal space, be it on the tube, in coffee shops or on the pavement.
Space costs money, so instead of the gardens and yards we enjoy in South Africa, the citizens of London go to parks for their dose of (meek) winter sunshine.
Sharing space comes with its own code of conduct. Plugged-in earphones on the tube mean, "Don't approach me for any reason"; a polite smile means, "Please stop talking"; and a nod from a stranger is considered downright exuberant. (Odds are that the nodder is also a South African.)
One day, after a telephone conversation with my mom, Molly turns to me.
"What is a wilde taxibestuurder?" she asks. Two seats down, a woman bursts out laughing. I turn, astonished. People don't speak, let alone laugh, on the tube.
"Suid-Afrikaans?" she asks. "Yes," I admit, reminding myself that the British capital is crawling with South Africans ready to pounce on the first person to utter "Ja, boet" in their presence. This lady is from Swellendam, of all places!
"Soms mis ek daai taxibestuurders. Almal hier is oor die kop geslaan met re ls," she mutters. Indeed, everyonehere is obsessed with rules.
Space costs money, so instead of the gardens and yards we enjoy in South Africa, the citizens of London go to parks for their dose of (meek) winter sunshine.
I'm brought back to the present by a tennis ball that lands with a thud at my feet. Richmond Park is renowned for the fact that it isn't neatly manicured, like Hyde Park, for example.
Rather, paths wander haphazardly among copses of trees, and grass grows tall in the meadows.
A red-cheeked boy sprints up to the tennis ball with a cocker spaniel short on his heels. As he runs, I notice he doesn't stray from the path; instead taking the long way around the field to get to his ball.
"Molly, if you wanted to get to that family," I say, pointing to where the little boy has rejoined his parents, just across the snow-covered meadow. "How would you get there?"
"I'd follow the path," she says, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
I fly home a few days later. As I'm stamped back into South Africa, the customs official looks up and smiles at me: "Welcome back, sisi," she says, I float through the exit, overemphatically smiling at everyone, but nobody clutches their bags tighter; they smile back.
My dad is milling about at the back of the expectant crowd in the arrivals hall. For someone who swears he is as patient as the day is long, waiting is not his strong suit.
"There you are, Zip!" he says. "We've decided to put a whole warthog on the spit for you tonight." I
t's an old joke, and one that always greets a family member when they've been away for a while. I bundle into the ancient Landy as dad struggles under the weight of my suitcase.
"Good grief! Is it filled with stones?" he grunts, slamming the boot shut.
In the car I tell him about London: Big Ben, Westminster, Buckingham Palace…
"Everything works," I finish off. "But that doesn't make for much adventure. People have to actively seek excitement in London; in South Africa we just need to wake up in the morning."
"Nanny state. Imagine a South African equivalent of ‘mind the gap'," he says, shaking his head as he casually swerves to miss a monstrous pothole on the N3.
"Back there would have been a sign: ‘Mind the axle-snapping donga!'"
The welcoming party back at Folly Hill, our Midlands smallholding, consists of five panting Labradors, both of my sisters, their respective husbands and kids, my mum, my dad and his wife. It's chaotic.
Tim, my brother-in-law, finished dipping the cattle today and one of my small nephews fell into the dip tank, narrowly missing a one-tonne bull swimming towards him.
The boy relates the story to me with gusto.
"He nearly got taken out!" his father says, beaming with pride. All the kids brandish scrapes and muddy clothes from the day's activities.
I can't help but compare their world with the sanitised one I left behind just yesterday. Tim regards my pale skin sceptically.
"That Pommie winter has left you quite pasty, hey?"
When my father asks the inevitable question five minutes later - "How about a braai?" - I know: It's good to be home.
