And just like that, it is as though 7 months have gone by in 7 seconds.  And here we are drinking rosé in the evening sunshine, putting the world to rights again, but rather than in South Africa, we are in North Yorkshire.

 

When we parted in Cape Town, I had no idea what the future held; at the end of a desperately needed escape from my life in to theirs, I was in the depths of grief, despair and confusion.  But I look back and remember the how I found happiness in the darkest of times and found hope from a family who had lived through the worst of times and were living the best of lives.

 

As I close my eyes to the sounds of the Sunday night film, I hear Stephen Hawking responding to the question on his philosophy for life,

 

“However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.  While there’s life, there’s hope.”

 

There is always hope.  And I now truly believe in the belief that hope is the conduit for miracles. For when I touched down in the UK 7 months ago, I would have said it would take a miracle in order for my current reality be true.

 

But I never lost hope, that everything would be ok, in the end.