Basia Unleashed

A friend of mine, well actually, my cocoa pop, has some photos of himself being a snow angel and it brought back memories of snow and Finland and snow. And more snow. It’s all I can remember of the year I spent there, wading through snow, falling over a lot in snow and drinking some weird flavoured vodka to keep warm from the snow. Honest guv. The snow started on my birthday, in October, and finally gave up it’s icy grip sometime the following mid May.

Of course, it being Finland and therefore Scando-paradise when it comes to the council doing what it should, no one suffered from snow attack. Not like back home where three flakes constitute a national emergency. The buses all came at the precise moment they were supposed to, no matter how much snow fell overnight it was cleared from the roads by morning and generally even though it was often -40C during the day (and your nostrils stick together when you breathe), it was beautiful with clear pure air and skies (and icicles like Excalibur waiting to pang down on your head).

I did, however, venture into the snow one night, well, it was probably the wee small hours actually. Ever heard the saying that God looks after drunks, kids and feisty women? Well I was all three of those that night - the night I was a snow angel.

Apparently I just flew from the house, strangely snatching the housekeys as I went (thank you Lord), wearing very little, urged on by the power of Stolichnaya. While everyone else was struggling to put on their boots, I was already out there, in a massive pile of snow, waggling my little legs and bare feet and getting snow hair.

I arrived back breathless and snowy only to find no one else had moved apart from trying to put their boots on in their drunken fug. You have to make your own entertainment on the long snowy nights in Scando-land…..

Posted by Basia at 8:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

nothing really matters love is all you need, everything I give you all comes back to me…well do you believe it or do you not? May not surprise you at all, but I do. So you’re probably wondering about all the bad stuff that comes to me, you know, the health scare stuff, the so-calleds who chase after your man or your woman, the people who lie, the people who’re fake, the people you give your heart to and they use it to stab you in the ribs, you know, the kinda peeps we all meet every day of our lives, you’re wondering, what’d I give out to attract that?

Honey that’s a good question. The minute I point the finger, the road of my life, sang Bob Marley, becomes rocky. The second I criticise someone, someone else is judging me. I think about this everyday and I think about pulling back that heavy curtain made of solid velvet jealousy to let the light in. But it’s hard, dammit, it’s so hard not to slap a sentence on some fabulously famous rugby player who won’t sign a photo to save a terminally ill three year old when other people are offering blood from their bodies for her….it’s not just a full time job to not judge, it’s a lifetime’s work.

But so we get to the real crux of this post. Leah. Three years old, heart like a lion, strength of one too. Got leukaemia. Bad. I mean, BAD. To her, it’s just her sore leg. To everyone else, she is something we struggle to understand. How she can endure lumbar punctures (yes plural) and hours and hours of chemo everyday and still smile for the camera; how it’s all just a bit of an adventure even though it hurts a wee bit; how she still has spirit and we throw ours to the void in the face of her adversity.

BKS was started out of a love of Leah. And the desire to help her family, who had to give up work to be with her throughout her treatment (and as I write this it’s still ongoing). And the subsequent desire to help other children in the same situation. BKS is something I think I have been waiting my whole life to do. It is not easy yet at the same time it feels like I was born to do it. But I struggle with those who ignore requests for help and we don’t ask for money. And I try not to judge. But it happens.

I may be as weak as a ten day old kitten when it comes to personal relationships, but when it comes to Leah and kids like her, I’m Marley’s lion. BKS may be just one more foundation out there trying to help kids, but this one is born of love. There are people around the world who have never met Leah who are turning themselves inside out for her because I asked them to. This is not the time to condemn those who don’t or won’t help. This is the year of the lion, the iron zion lion. This is it.

Posted by Basia at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)