camera roll: July

For July I'm posting landscapes.

Beautiful big images which open the eyes and the mind. Which don't speak of the frustrations of trying to juggle school holidays and work - parental guilt like I've never before really experienced - feeling awful for being so distracted, feeling cross for feeling awful. 

A pedalo ride of a still, sunny afternoon by myself. A chance to get a different perspective. To collect rubbish floating in the water and feel like making a contribution to something other than just my and my family's own, persistent, needs.

A birthday hike to celebrate my man, their dad, our huge privilege for all being together - essentially healthy and well. To stretch our legs and our horizons. To walk off all that chocolate cake and enjoy each other's company.

A stormy day on the harbour wall. Big gulps of sea air and good friendship.

Big pictures for the most important big things - family, friends, beauty and privilege. I try to cling to these, even as the lesser things feel like they're dragging me under. I wish my head was as clear as these views.
We'll get there.

14

I got a kiss and a cuddle at 4 am before he left for the airport and a 3 day business trip.

I fell soundly back to sleep until 7 when the doorbell woke me. It was the delivery of my online wine purchase.
It seems vaguely immoral to take delivery of 12 bottles of wine so early in the morning, but in lieu of an anniversary bouquet? It'll do.

The kids are on holiday. I have to work.
There was a bit of juggling that and then a drive round the coast to fetch F's bestie and a stop at the harbour to stand on the rocks and watch whales cavort not 50m off shore from us.
A submarine, yes - South Africa's only submarine, chugged by in the background.

A Southern Right whale and a submarine in the same frame make for a pretty exceptional moment, were it not that we're spoiled rotten enough to see both on a regular basis.

Then home to work work work work work, interrupted only by my mother bearing celebratory poppies (what a wonderful mother indeed) and a puppy who needed a reassuring cuddle. I was happy to oblige.

Dinner out with a friend and a gaggle of little girls. It might seem funny to celebrate one's wedding anniversary with one's most freshly divorced friend but it was a pretty unconventional day as it was.

Home, girls in front of a movie, an hour long chat with my newly widowed sister-in-law. I confessed to her the Tom Selleck / brother-in-law dilemma of my youth and we had a silly giggle.

I finished off some more work, staved off some more puppy cuddles, had a dear message exchange with one of my bestest of friends, and will now go to bed where not my one true love awaits, but an elderly black cat who will sleep up against my heart and a small girl who told me earlier (as I tucked her into my bed tonight as a special treat) that she is so, so, so, so glad that I am her mummy.

I might not have spent my 14th wedding anniversary with my man, but I spent it full of the love that our lives together have created. And that made it a very special day.

colour blocking

This time last year I was doing this. And it hasn't really let up much.

To be honest the year has been brutal.

Sometimes one needs to hide ...

... and spend a day faffing the shelves.

I painted these shelves, turns out almost exactly 3 years ago. Must be a spring thing then ... sprucing.

It was so good to not think. To handle things which have a story for me - the books and the figurines and the things - to dust, to sort, to place. To use my eyes not my heart, my hands not my head.

Regaining control over some tiny corners of my life.
Let's go October.
Be gentle.

reasons I am not blogging ...

... in no particular order.

1. Game of Thrones. I started re-watching from the very beginning a couple of months back and am, to date, all caught up until S7E5 which drops tonight. 

Yeah, I know, it's not for everyone. But it is so very much for me. I'm already panicking about how empty life will be without it.

2. I am doing a 3000 piece puzzle. Lame right? But it so very much for me too.

There is something so calming, therapeutic for me about puzzles. Pieces fall into place, my brain relaxes into it and focuses. There is chaos, and then order - so unlike my life.

My only problem is that I don't have a table top big enough! I'm working on the bottom two-thirds and will have to ignore the top.

My completion problem tendency is deeply satisfied.

3. This.

Our long awaited and now much beloved wood-burning stove. I swore I wouldn't do another winter without one.

I swore that a couple of winters back actually, but this time I made it happen.

4. Life.

I'm finding life quite full-on a the moment. There is work, and there is home/kids/pets/school and in between all of that there is very little me.

I know to know that this is a season, a patch we're in. This is an inordinately busy work month, and I've not had one this full on for a while. The girls are busy and growing and living large. 

The pets are time-consuming. There is a puppy to watch and train and manage and a boy who is adjusting to a puppy and recovering from surgery - as we recover from the shock of his own brush with skin cancer (he's all clear thank dog). There's an elderly lady cat who needs assistance more than she used to, is adjusting to a puppy and is, we realised recently, stone deaf.

And there's still a Lego to mourn. I miss her every day.

Sometimes I can ride the hurdy-gurdy of our very full days. And sometimes I feel discombobulated and unbalanced by their pace.

5. Death.

Of relationships, of innocence. The very concept.

It's been hitting close to home of late, and it's almost impossible to put into words. Feelings of loss are the hardest to describe. What do you say about something which creates a gaping vacuum in your heart? A space which feels both empty and full to the brim.

This August is nothing like last year.

the gift of time

We came back from Tankwa to a house of chaos and mountains of laundry. My office was a tip - my hasty departure for Durban evident - accumulated crap from a week away strewn about the place.
I spent the first day back trying to make sense of it all, trying to catch up to myself.

The next event, a 3 day conference in Pretoria, was looming large and I needed to pull myself together and get on it stat.

And then it got postponed.

Postponed as in, it has to contractually happen before the end of October but new dates have not been set and therefore I. am. free.
For a bit.

Free to stop for rainbows.
To hang with my girls.
To make decent suppers, and lemon curd.
To read.
To create.
To hang with my pets in the sun in the mornings when hours expand and move slow.
To sort out some cupboards and update some shit and get photo albums sorted and catch up on my blog.
To lift the girls to school and spend time with them afterwards.
To catch up with friends.
To breathe a bit.

This time is a gift. It's not scheduled free time - a statement in itself an oxymoron. It's not 'ermahgerd will I ever have work again time'. It's time which will end in a big job, time which could end in a phone call, an email, any day now.
Time which is precious until then, and there's virtually nothing I can do which isn't exactly the right thing to be doing at the time.

adrenalin junkies

Two blonde ladies in their 40's, sharing a pot of Earl Grey in a Durban beachfront hotel restaurant.

Adrenalin junkies.

It's not often that I meet other people in my profession. Why fraternise with the competition right? But as the woman opposite me talked about how stressed she was - scribbling furiously in her notebook - how difficult it was balancing all her clients, how when she finally closed her eyes at night she had lists swirling over the inside of her eyelids, I began to suspect I'd met a kindred spirit.

And when she looked up and I saw the sparkle in her eye, I knew it.

'But you love it right?' I said.
'Wouldn't do anything else in the world' she answered with a big grin.

Adrenalin junkies.

The common ground between us sprouted flowers as we spoke.
How many people tell us they'd never be able to do what we do. Clients who get concerned at how calm we are. How inside we're screaming. Wearing so many different hats you can put your neck out whipping them on and off. The terror of the error, the thrill of the win. Behind the scenes and in front of the client.

The inevitable crash. The juggle. The struggle. The love of the game.

We spent 20 minutes together and I felt more debriefed than I had in years. More energised too, inspired and affirmed.

.........

Yesterday a friend reminded me how a few short years ago I was still angst'ing about what I was going to be when I grew up, and meanwhile I was there already. Life is what happens while you're making plans or something like that.

..........

To be an adrenalin junkie I reckon you have to either be over-confident or totally reckless. Maybe the 40's are the perfect combination of both. It's certainly working for me.

25 things about right now (including 3/5).

1. 3/5 didn't kill me, and it sure as hell didn't make me stronger. But it's done.
2. I hired an au pair.
3. I fired an au pair.
4. Life is too short for my kids to be unhappy. Especially not in the summer holidays.
5. Technically I have 2 days left of work, but I'm done.
6. So, so over it.
7. The big push tomorrow, the big 'putting to bed' of two, massive, growing projects until the new year.
8. The goal: out of office messages on the four different email addresses I'm managing - turn off push to phone for emails - no data use, just surfing on the home wi-fi. That's as off the grid as I can go.
9. And as I'm sizzling right in the middle of the effing grid right now, that's pretty far off.
10. I'm not sure I can do it in one day ...
11. I read this, and it reminded me to be wary of this in 2016.
12. I've developed a strategy, which presently puts me in exactly the same place I was this time last year - working hard, playing hard, pushing it. This year I'm working hard, playing hard, pushing it.

13. 3 nights on the jol last week: Thursday, Friday, Saturday - girls, girls, girls, wine, books, gifts, kids, food, clothes-swaps, G'nT's, laughing and food, and so much dancing.
14. And for 3 nights in a row I had some version of this conversation: 40 is fucking great. It really is.
15. But ja, burnout - let's not do that again.

16. Standing on the lawn in the dark with some mates, watching Kid TV.
17. TWO toad encounters in one evening and I didn't freak out! This is monumental.
18. Christmas started today. A family brunch as various people will be travelling over Christmas. (By people I mean my brothers, and by travelling I mean Thailand and Chile respectively. Bastards.)
19. We've gotten into the vibe at home too, in a nice low-key way. Mid-November. I thought this year I might just put those Christmas books out in a basket with the Xmas tree, but almost the next day Stella asked, with a sparkle in her eye, 'Are we going to open the Christmas books again Mum?'.
20. 'Of course my angel.'

21. We had 5 little friends staying over last night for the 'Slumber Party' the girls have been asking to have for weeks now.
22. My daughters' friends are becoming real people in my life - showing distinctive signs of the women they will become - I'm really enjoying it.
23. I was in a friend's teenage daughter's bedroom recently and I suddenly got so excited: teenage girl bedrooms - they are murky and marvelous, and I have two to look forward to! Secretly I still miss mine.
24. The last push - I'm going to whack it in 24 hours. I need to be on holiday. I. Must. Gather. Strength. for next year.

25. Must remain unfuckablewith.

2/5

Jo'burg for 3 days.

Jo'burg is hot at the moment. Still and hot and buggy. I spent a fair amount of time photographing ants and sending them to my Dad. He sent back sketches from his growing portfolio. My Dad's a myrmecologist and it's hard not to catch the um ... bug.

Winged things flew into my hair a lot as soon as it got dark. It gets dark early in Jo'burg, and at the same time, every night.

The first night we sat out late, on the stoep of our guesthouse, planning the next day and flicking bugs out of our hair.

Two days of meeting, 40 participants from all over.
Day 1 started with a ridiculously childish request at 5am (which I ignored), and ended with Baklava Cheesecake (it got my full attention).
Day 2 was soured by transport company fuck ups (I had to throw some toys - it wasn't pretty) but sweetened by a tour of the remarkable place where we were meeting.

It was sobering, in session, to listen to our participants speak of police brutality now in a place so representative of the heinous acts of the apartheid secret police service then.
But it was moving and evocative, out there, to visit the cottage where Madiba lived while posing as a gardner and forming Umkhonto wiSizwe. To stand in the living room in which the Rivonia trialists were seized.

A quick meeting for job 3/5 (it all starts again on Monday), and a terrifying foretaste of the drama which will be job 5/5, a mad dash to the Gautrain and a nearly full moon over OR Tambo Airport.

Home to my dear hearts.

A brief respite, and then I pick up the reins for the next mad sprint. Life is full, life is full-on.

the week that was

Big, crazy week of work work work, no childcare outside of school hours, total disintegration of house and home, complete neglect of pets and plants and laundry and really anything outside of the work and the most pressing of family functions.
(Apparently we must eat and have vaguely clean laundry and conversation every day - crazy innit?)

My poor children. Naturally with the Work comes the Guilt.

It's interesting how I'll happily tell my kids to bugger off so I can read my book, or have a shower, or cook a meal - I have no real problem with doing that (if they're happy and fed etc of course) because it's looking after me - which I think is good behaviour to model - or looking after the family - which is part of my job as nurturer. But I hate having to tell them I need space to work.
Then I'm looking after other people, and that feels like a betrayal.

It could not have been a better week to stumble across this online ...

.... how totally and terrifyingly true is this?

This week I have been reminded again how immensely lucky I am that this is not our permanent reality.
I work in these fits and starts, I work from home - and in some ways I think the broken rhythm of my work days might make it harder on the kids to settle into a routine, and sometimes I think it might be easier of I was gone - away in an office - rather than here and so very distracted.
But at least if I'm here I can keep contextualising for them what's happening - they can see I'm working, they hear me on the phone (while I glare at them to shut it), Frieda reads my emails over my shoulder and asks me to explain a movement order - and because I'm freelance there's an end, a point in the future in which I'll stop, push away from my desk and my phone won't ping every 5 minutes.

But for now .... 3 days in Joburg next week, new au pair starting 1 December ... 4/5 left to go!

1/5

It was never going to be a particularly easy day.

Husband had to leave for Joburg at 5am, and we'd both only be home after 8 tonight - him from up there, me from my first of 5: 5 events in 4 months.

Luckily (so, so luckily), Granny was on hand to help out - collect girls from respective schools, feed them, take them to swimming, feed them again, have them sleepover and then get them up for school tomorrow.
Last night we packed multiple outfits, snacks, the bizarre assortment of paraphernalia two little girls require to function over 24h.

We both worked late, we both struggled to fall asleep. But only one of us woke at 1am to a daughter with a sore stomach, at 3am to two dogs with full bladders, at 4am to a daughter (the same one) with sick in her hair, at 4:30am to fly across the country (okay that one was him) and again at 7 to a daughter (still the same one) with more sick in her hair.

What is that word, I pondered to myself this morning, for that thing where you have a massive, important work commitment and you find yourself scrubbing sick off a carpet? Oh right, I remember: motherhood.

And what is the word, for when you have to drop your grey and droopy child off at someone else's house because you have to go to work? Oh ja, guilt.

But in her words: 'Mum, if I can't be sick with you or Dad then Granny is the next best person in the whole world.'
Rare praise.

Poor lamb.
Apparently however, according to the text I got from Mum as my book launch babbled away successfully in the background, she rallied enough to eat some chocolate mousse before bed.

1 down. 4 to go. Oh and that thing called Christmas slap-bang in the middle. And still no au pair person.

Thank goodness I love my job!

the lurking disquiet

SCENE IN CREEPY MOVIE: heroine breathes a sigh of relief, puts weapon down on hall table and leaves room.

Camera lingers on weapon for a couple of seconds longer.

Not subtle message to audience: she shouldn't have done that.

SCENE IN CREEPY MOVIE #2: hero closes door and goes to bed.

Camera lingers on unlatched lock for a couple of seconds longer.

Not subtle message to audience: he should've locked that.

SCENE IRL: person leaves home to go and buy groceries. Gets to checkout, finds she doesn't have wallet.

Minds eye lingers on wallet lying on desk at home.

Not subtle message to self: asshole.

We've all done it right?

As mentioned I'm working 3 events. I have no formal childcare. The plates spinning above me are many and varied.

It all seems under control at present. Shaky, but under control.

But each day I imagine that loaded gun, that unlocked door, that forgotten detail lurking in a sent mail, in a note taken and then forgotten, in a commitment made but not recorded.

The potential for fuck up is huge here.

I hope that when I look back at the movie of these busy weeks I won't recognise the shot that was the harbinger of doom - the lingering gaze on that incorrect detail in black and white, that oversight, that one wrong digit in some VIP's flight number ...

I'm not a religious person, but if someone were to tell me right now of a God of Lists I might just have to revise that.

Because god, lists are currently my religion.

paddling out

Last weekend Frieda broke out her paddle-ski for the first time this season. A gift from a dear friend, her board took him to the SA championships many years ago, now it has retired to the lake, to be paddled around by small children hoping to spy coot chicks and other interesting water creatures.

I carried it down to the water for her and she hopped aboard - no life-jacket required this year - and confidently stroked out into the late afternoon sun.

After a while Stella asked if she could have a go - a first time request.

Firmly strapped into her life jacket (although she is becoming a very capable swimmer), she got her balance and managed to wield the heavy and ungainly paddle with no small measure of skill.
She very quickly set out into the middle of the lake - all on her own.

We started untying the pedalo. Calmly cooing encouragement to her as we hurriedly readied ourselves to launch and follow.

On Friday I had my 3rd upcoming event confirmed. That's 3 contracts I've currently got going.
There are another 2 waiting in the wings to be imminently secured.

Our completely amazing and reliable nanny/au pair quit at the beginning of the month. (She was offered a chance to manage a small office - orders, book-keeping etc - a position she's totally ready and capable for - I'm so happy for her. Sob.)

I'm taking all the work.

I'm blithely and confidently paddling out into the middle of the lake - trusting my skill, hoping my balance will hold, hoping the paddle doesn't become too heavy for my arms.

By the time we caught up with Stella she looked very small indeed, drifting far off shore - she was sitting still, one hand trailing in the water, seemingly enjoying the sunset and the water lapping gently around her.
It was only as we drew alongside and she turned to us that we saw the big heavy tears rolling down her cheeks, and realised her stillness concealed pure trembling fear.
Out of her depth and terrified.

Let's hope no one finds me in a similar state in a couple of weeks time.

the other side

And just like that ... I'm here.

Back out the other side of a phenomenal week, a phenomenal job, a massively exhausting yet totally exhilarating experience.

300 delegates for 5 days in arguably the busiest week of the year in Cape Town.

(Truly, a few days before I tried to find 4 rooms in the city for some visiting guests (as a favour to one of our funders). I phoned THIRTY-EIGHT hotels, guesthouses, B'nB's - there wasn't a room to be had!)

The week was amazing. Filled with its share of challenges and near-fuck-ups and moments of glory.

We marched through the streets of Cape Town protesting unethical mining practises ...

... we went to great lengths to get the Group Photo ...

... we hosted one of the greatest women in Africa, Madam Graca Machel ...

... and we listened to the SONA chaos at what felt like the edge of the world.

There was the usual mix of divas and dramas, of scheduling crises and hysterical giggles. There was even a hilariously sad tale of a lost delegate, but I'm planning on doing a podcast about that.

And this past weekend there was a joyful return home - to two small girls who'd missed their mum, and a husband who was a total daddy hero, two mad dogs, two grumpy cats, a lake full of coots and a house full of laundry.
We're on the other side, and it's nice here.

25 things about right now.

1. I spend all my days logged into the Other Google Account.
2. The one with The Work and The Questions and The People who need me all the time.
3. My life could not be more different to this time last year.
4. As the conference I'm working on draws near (9-13 Feb), I'm feeling The Thrill. It's a good feeling.
5. I'm working with such a diverse group of people.
6. And seriously have to watch my foul potty mouth - probably not a bad thing ...
7. Also, I was in a meeting this week with 5 other people who were all 5 - 10 years younger than me.
8. Just, wow.
9. RETRACTED
10. Unrelated: if I want to send a Glitter Bomb I need only sweep my study (aka the Art Room) floor.

11. A Glitter & Dog Hair Bomb that is.
12. Seriously, our dogs have the worst life.

13. And on the subject of Lego, there's been a bit of building around here - it's a great work distraction.

(I only noticed the cat/eye thing when I downloaded this.)

14. LEGO building is also fun by lamplight, during load-shedding, which is back.

15. I'm extremely lucky to have a LEGO Fairy Godmother. She's been keeping us in steady supply.
16. Oh wait, there's more LEGO...
17. Somebody has started meticulously planning her birthday party in March.

18. These are all the items which will appear on her cake .... apparently.
19. Not pictured: a fluffy leopard (which I said would have to stand alongside because icing) and a ninja (because invisible).
20. I sense I'm going to have to relinquish control over this one. And that's okay.
21. There's nothing wrong with a LEGO-Leopard-Dinosaur-Ninja 5th Birthday Party at all. We welcome diversity in this house.
22. My brother and sister-in-law are moving into their new house (much closer to us - yay!) RIGHT NOW. We're standing by with supper ...
23. My other brother is getting married NEXT MONTH!
24. Family for the win.
25. Now what the hell am I going to wear for 5 days of formal conferencing??

all the crazy

I'd written the final To Do list on the back of the in-flight sick bag flying home from Joburg one evening earlier in the week.
Reading through it made me feel vaguely ill.

That Friday I was on fire. Tearing around town with my hands-free plugged in - taking calls, sending docs from Google Drive, answering queries and mails, the pre-event Whatsapp group trilling like an insistent baby bird.
All hail the smart phone.

Meetings, collections, ego stroking, deliveries, putting out fires and lighting new ones.
It struck me I'd never felt so alive while at the same time wanting to die.
That's what event work does for me.

At home the madness continued. Wedding cake prep, food for the kids for the weekend, must do something about my toenails, deworm the dogs, email, email, email.

And into the next morning ...

Kids to my Mum's, frantic working until the very moment of departure - cake and accouterments in the back, me in the middle with lists, dogs scattered about, glad rags carefully packed.

We were off.

Emails and texts from the back seat, bull terrier drool on my contact list, car sickness and an over-riding impatience to just BE THERE.

Finally I sent the last text, we dropped the dogs off at the boarding kennels .... and we were free.

Free to watch our friends commit to each other. To laugh and play with some dearly beloveds. To soak in this view at sunset and moonrise while celebrating life and love.
That's some freedom right there.

Later there was The Cake - so unexpectedly yellow, but so delicious -

- and dancing and margaritas and night swimming and stumbling home to our chalets in big white fuzzy robes.
There was waking to birdsong and a hangover breakfast which couldn't be beat, and a swim in the ocean on our way home.
There was this brief respite before ....

A dawn flight to Johannesburg on Monday morning. A totally moving tribute to the work of the Treatment Action Campaign and a couple of personal tears for the memories of working with them nearly a decade ago - how far they've come, how far I've come!

Work hard.
Play hard.
Nostalgia.
Loved ones.
Back to me.

These are the recurring themes for 2014. It's been such a good year.

the best of times, the worst of times

It's a BIG month of affirmation and freedom for husband and I.

I'm working like a maniac and being appreciated and affirmed daily for the job(s!) I'm doing.

Husband is hooking new clients, building relationships and laying the foundation for a new future for his company.

I had that marvelous girls weekend ....

.... he's still recovering from a wild bachelor weekend ...


I had an exhilarating, exhausting, misty, death-defying, amazing walk up Table Mountain to celebrate a special friend's 40th yesterday ...

... and we've still got The Wedding to look forward to this Saturday. The best of times!

But at the same time ... Frieda's had her tonsils out and it's been a rough week for her the poor, stoic, darling.

The op was last Tuesday and she's still in so much pain ... hardly talking at all and writing the most heart-breakingly sweet notes.

Twelve words to tell me the puppy was looking at her yoghurt. The child clearly misses communicating.
She's missing school, and her friends, and jumping on the trampoline - but she's also been a total hero; colouring next to me while I work, playing games on the tablet, watching lots of crap, thinking, dreaming, cuddling with the cats. She's really handled it so well, but it's not been fun.
The worst of times.

It is weird that we should all be having these vastly different life experiences right now, but it's even weirder that we're able to - that the bonds of parent and child have stretched just that much that we can be experiencing different things, while still being so close together.

With babies and young kids when they're miserable, you're miserable. When they're not sleeping, you're not sleeping. The boundaries between your experience and theirs are virtually non-existent. Now slowly we're able to live our own lives, parallel but individual.

Interesting times.

watch this space

The last watch I owned I was given for my 15th birthday. I wish I still had it. I think the plastic strap eventually perished and snapped after languishing in a drawer for many years.

I'm not a watch-wearer.

Until now.

This morning I bought a watch (the simplest one I could find from the second shop I went into - I'm not a watch-connoisseur).

My reasoning is two-fold:

1. My time management sucks.
2. I'm trying to escape the tyranny of my phone.

We've all seen the campaigns and memes and photo essays about us all becoming zombies, staring at our phones instead of interacting with our fellow human beings etc etc. I don't really buy that too much yet (but we'll talk again when my kids have phones...), and I deeply appreciate how much more flexible my life and my time has become since I'm able to get emails on my phone etc.
When I see someone with their nose in (on?) their phone I like to think they're reading an interesting article, firming up plans to get together with their best friends, rearranging ballet classes so they can have more time with their kids, or checking the time.

Because that's what I'm doing 70% of the times I look at my phone. Checking to see just how late I am.

And, to be completely anal, I've timed myself - to find my phone in my bag, turn it the right way round, wake it up, check the time, turn it 'off' and put it back takes at least 8 seconds. Doesn't sound like a lot of time but it's about 8 times faster to just glance at my wrist.
And then I'm not that guy, the one staring at her phone while the children plead 'Muuuuuuum' and shoppers judgingly veer around us.

So I'll give this watch thing a go.

I probably won't be any more punctual, and I'm sure to get eczema under the strap just like I did 24 years ago, but let's see ....

into the weekend ....

Midday Friday.

I've banged out 4 hours work without shifting in my seat once (that's a lie, I've gotten up to let at least 35 bull terriers and 27 cats in and out), and now I'm done.

I want to pack all these people in my computer away until Monday. I've done caring for them, organising them, resizing and reframing for them. I've put my thing down, flipped it, reversed it and now I'm outta here.

I turn around at look at my home. It desperately needs hoovering (Albert's still in Malawi!), decluttering. I need fresh flowers, clean laundry and maybe (but who am I kidding here), fewer bullie nose smears on the sliding doors.
Home needs some attention, some love, and it reciprocates so nicely if I give it some, making us all feel welcome and at peace.

It'll be a full weekend - 3 birthday celebrations! - a night out tonight, an art party tomorrow and a family lunch on Sunday, and I'm so looking forward to it.

Time with real people, talking in real life, looking into each others eyes. I need that after a week of screens, screens, screens.

Over and out.

hu-hooooo

As Husband pulled into the garage I was waiting, dog leads in my hand.

'The girls have eaten, they need to get in the bath and I need to take the dogs for a walk.'

It had been a long day at home - Frieda has tonsillitis and I have SO MUCH work.

My multi-tasking skills are pretty damn hot, but trying to code HTML while mediating sibling squabbles and work through the rider for South Africa's most famous drag queen proved just a little too diverse for me yesterday ....

The dogs and I set off at a fast trot. It was an unusually still evening and I enjoyed the neighbourhood sounds floating past us - ice tinkling in sundowners, baths running, dinners cooking - I enjoyed not being part of any of that (even the drinks!), moving quickly through the cool air.

Not being encumbered with small people we walked faster and further than usual, finding ourselves in streets and cul-de-sacs I'd not walked through before, and being later than the usual dog-walking set, we were alone.

Or so I thought.

Hu-hoooo.

An owl, somewhere close.

I slowed and scanned around the growing dusk, the trees and bushes strangely in sharper relief as the light faded.

Hu - hoooo.

Of course he'd spotted us before we saw him. A-perch a branch only just above my head we stared at each other for a long while, totally motionless and relaxed, then I left him to his evening hunting and walked on.

It was getting darker as we headed home. The shady pathways we'd come on felt closer and more mysterious now, the dogs stayed close, all of us breathing hard.
Those with some sense kept their mouths closed as the clouds of spring midges gathered. The dogs sneezed and coughed.

Approaching home I could see darkness in the upstairs windows, the girls weren't in the bath yet. Half an hour before that would have infuriated me, now it was totally fine.

We burst in the door in a gust of crisp air and renewed good humour, and smothered them in hugs and laughter.

A necessary walk. Thank you owl. Thank you dogs.

*African Eagle Owl pic from flickr*

restless

You know, just another magnificent rainbow. Le sigh.

Two years ago, when this house was flirting with us and we were hanging around down this end of the world a lot and hoping and hoping everything would work out, it was during the season of rainbows.

And each time I saw one I chose to think of it as a sign, a new beginning, a pledge, a promise of magic and dreams come true.

It is this time of year, indecisive and restless, which brings them.
The days can't decide if they're sunny or rainy, winter or spring with sudden bursts of full summer, catching us unawares and flushed in wintery layers.

The world feels restless, and so do I.

That big job has spoiled me for this more sedate life. I loved my break at the end of it, the winter holidays with the girls and friends and home projects - the general catching up.
But now they're back at school, the money is spent (mostly all wisely - I'm such a grown up, yawn) and I'm ... restless.

This morning I decided to do something about it. So I scrubbed the shower. And the inside of the bathroom cabinet. And sorted out my shoe cupboard. And you know, I can't stand to admit it, but I feel better.

The heavens herald the sunshine after the gloom with a mystical arc of light and energy. I heralded mine with a scourer and some elbow grease.
Same intention, less impressive execution.

We do what we can right?