This has been another eventful week for me, although being in the media I cannot really remember the last time there really was nothing very much going on. As a matter of fact, as I’ve often pointed out, things are moving so fast these days that there often is very little time to absorb what’s going on let alone trying to figure out the meaning.

The one thing that is happening with increasing frequency is the number of people either getting sick or dying around me. Of course, this just goes to show that I am getting on in years or people are disappearing faster from the planet at a younger age than normal.

I was always never asked to go on family outings when I was a child, whether on a picnic or a trip of town, because I used to get terribly carsick. It was a bother for everybody else to have me along as at some point, despite the carsickness tablets, the plastic bags always handy and the occasional stopping of the car while I threw up and emptied my stomach at the side of the road, having me around in the car with my pale face and tortured expression somehow made the trip less fun for others.

Hence, while all the other children (namely my older sister and two cousins) would pack into the back of the American made Volkswagen with its left steering-wheel and flower power car stickers on the doors, chattering with excitement and so looking forward to going wherever it was my mother decided to take them to (my mother was the family driver), I would be either left behind or dropped back home (if I was in the car already) - waving goodbye, forcing a smile, pretending I was not disappointed or did not feel unwanted or left out.