august things

It's an odd month, August.

Never a favourite of mine I'll admit. It's kind of neither here or there really, winter grinds on... we hit term 3 running (even faster this year as the winter holidays were extended due to our 3rd Covid wave) ... the year is halfway gone, one ponders what one's done with it.

Little bit of midyear crisis perhaps?

Though honestly, crisis sounds far too exciting for August really.

I've been riding my bike. With an eye to possibly returning to gym soon(ish) and a desire to not be entirely pathetic when I do, I thought I'd better put some effort in.

What August does have going for it is the stillness - between winter storms that is - and when the bitter South Easter starts blowing again it'll not be nearly as fun out there on a bicycle.

I've been riding my other bike too. I had a fall last November, two actually, on a day out doing off-road motorbike training. Some bruising and a snapped front brake handle were the only two immediate casualties, but my pride was much more badly wounded, and my confidence. It's taken me a while to get back in the literal saddle, but I've ridden 3 different types of motorbike in the last month and that felt good.

We've spent a lot of time with Layla, Zahida's daughter. She and Stella are still thick as thieves, and despite having seen so very little of each other in the last 18 months they just pick straight back up again every time - there is no other friend Stella can spend as much time with, as easily, as her.

Layla and family are moving to the UK soon. Zahida's husband Sam has done so incredibly, wonderfully well these last few years, but he needs a change - and this is the one they've chosen. We're trying hard to be encouraging and excited, but we are sad, for us.

These two punks turned one on 20 August and my god we love them. They live almost exclusively upstairs when in the house, with their own secret routes down to the garden (ours and the absent neighbour's) to avoid the dogs.

Minnow (although Frieda insists she's Mino) is the house cat, always on a bed, always up for a nap with a human. She fishes hairbands out of a basket on my dresser (which naturally we keep stocked up just for her) and chases them around the rooms, she vocalises a lot, likes to drink from a tap, is soft and malleable.

Prince is 100% dude. Playful, curious, often out on an adventure, a total clown, straight-forward and uncomplicated. Not super affectionate - until he is, purring and bumping you and rolling and drooling - Prince spends his days collecting litter from the gardens and often the lake, bringing in 5-8 pieces a day sometimes, some dripping wet, some tiny, some big. Saving the planet is his important work.

August is dramatic skies. The acacia trees are coming back to life after winter and the sun on those green shoots against a brooding sky is one of my favourite things to see.

I have two friends who wrote novels during lockdown. Others who've picked up impressive new habits such as committed cold-water swimming, or weight-lifting.

Part of my midyear crisis was a small what-have-I-done-with-lockdown moment, until I reminded myself that I started a whole new job!

Events are dead (although I am also currently working with clients who are desperately trying to do one - March 2022 maybe...) so I am managing sales and marketing for a family business, a business I've grown up around and had extremely little to do with before, but I'm really enjoying being part of.

To be fair, August has allowed us some magnificent weather for outdoor socialising, which in the global scheme of things for mid-winter mid-pandemic, is pretty generous.

We have been for walks, and outdoor lunches and a couple of dinners - working around people's exposure and the national curfew - and lots of garden/beachside/roadside chats. 

Then last Saturday, a drive-in screening of The Witches, with cuddly car-beds and popcorn and candy-floss for the children and sneaky wine and hilarity for the grown-ups. 

It was bloody cold, snow on the mountains and frost-bitten toes, but the company warmed our bodies and our hearts and it was a good send-off for the month.

I will always be grateful for having so many loved ones so close during this shitshow.

And tomorrow is the first day of Spring, so there's that, but more excitingly - my second Pfizer shot, and that is a real turn towards the light.

See ya August, let's move on.

camera roll: August

August.

Crayfish curry - a taste of summer in the depths of winter.

Always with the rainbows.

Sunny, but icy cold.

My other kind of therapy. 

Crazy eyes found on my phone.

Hidden Cape Town spaces.

Weird Cape Town spaces.

A little bit of nature I left in the bustle of OR Tambo International Airport.

This made me happy.

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.

camera roll: June

June. Top and tailed by the sea.

June started with a job I was doing - hosting a group of Czech Roma activists in Cape Town, visiting with local civil society organisations to swap notes and strategies, exchange stories on how they fight for the rights of marginalised communities. Jeez, the Roma have it bad in the Czech Republic. Quite terrifying.

It was such an interesting gig for me. I work with the local organisations often, but almost always with them coming to events I'm organising - seldom have I visited them, and the sites of their work. It was educational, and stimulating to be reminded of all the amazing work happening here.

There was time on the schedule for a bit of social justice tourism and we took the group out to Robben Island. A beautifully warm (and thank god, still, day) for the 45min ferry ride out and tour of the island. I'd never done the official tour before and it was part-educational (we had an amazing guide for the bus part) and part ... I don't know, American? Too touristy, packaged, clinical.

Still astounding to be there though, and even in the bright winter sun the dread of those cold walls could be felt. 

History is important.

Another inspiring site of social activism we visited that week was this old provincial hospital - long abandoned - now occupied by lower-income families protesting the gentrification and urbanisation of inner city suburbs. Pushed out of their homes by rising rates and slumlords selling off to urban developers, this group have started their own community here - with strict house rules and infrastructure. Families living in old operating theatres ... very surreal and yet their everyday reality.

A story of hope in many ways, but as I type this with icy toes in the comfort of my home I wonder about them today, as the weather has turned seriously chilly.

My parents took me out for our now traditional but until-now postponed due to death and diversion birthday lunch - to Jonkershuis.
Bastion of white monopoly capital but shew, what lovely buildings and grounds. And what a delicious lunch. And what wonderful parents I have.

It was weird to experience so many of Cape Town's different faces and histories within a week of each other.

Proper winter now, and the aloes are blooming beautiful.
Rain, rain, rain - it's been bucketing down. Today it was announced that we've already surpassed 2015's entire winter rainfall reading (from April to September), and it's only just July!
Very good news for our drought-stricken part of the world.

On the subject of good news ... this lady is still doing really well. Fat and sleek on her new prescription diet (and no, I don't resent the extra cost for a second - I'll pay dearly to keep her here for as long as possible). 

Traditionally crotchety AF and only tolerant of a select handful of people in the world, there was a funny moment during Frieda's party when one of her friends brought Khoki downstairs in her arms.

'I found your kitty,' she said, 'she wants to join the party.'

Oh no she bloody did not! The look of outrage and disbelief on Khoki's face was a scream :-)

And then a little dash out of town this past, last, weekend of June.
A grayer sea (actually, truthfully, big lagoon), than the beginning of the month, squalls of rain and a very fresh, chilly breeze, but a beautiful retreat none-the-less.
Flamingos, family, steaks on the braai, a snuggly night sharing a big bed with my big girl, a rainy drive and the refreshment - body and spirit - of a little change of scenery.

It is beautiful here.

camera roll: May

Lol, these camera rolls get later and later each month ...

I started May with a day trip to Joburg. My first for the year - quite something after my bazillion trips up there last year.

It was nice to be back in the Big Smoke. A quick productive day of business and straight back home.
I was on a recce trip for a job which was due to happen there this week - but a few days after the trip it was postponed to August! Already my notes from this trip seem as hazy as this skyline ... eek.

It was my birthday - did I mention that? And what with going away and then losing my MIL and generally blah-ness it all become very disjointed and bitty - which was kinda crap but kinda great in that I kept being surprised by it - like this unexpected beauty gifted to me from the boot of a car at a kiddies party one week day afternoon ...

... I have always wanted this (can you tell by my face?) - telephone wire coat rack by Heath Nash. I have literally lusted after it for years. And dear friends remembered and said to each other 'Zahida was always really good at presents, we need to hit this one out the park' and bandied together, and DID.
The ribbon on a gift like this, is the knowledge that you are known, that your people get you.
And that was what I really needed this birthday.
That, and a telephone wire coat rack by Heath Nash!
That, and the reminder that regardless of everything - it is beautiful here.

But the hero story for May - the most wonderful (and oh thank god happy ending one) was this:

In the same week that my MIL died, this little old lady pulled a number on us too. Stopped eating, drinking - didn't leave my bed for 2 days. We were ... distracted, I'm ashamed to admit, so much else going on, and by the time we got her to the vet I was lambasting myself for being a bad mummy but when he got her out the carrier he was genuinely surprised that she looked so 'fantastic' for a kitty her age, and I felt hopeful. Khoki is 19 this year, but still soft as a kitten, strong and feisty.

She over-nighted at the vet, on a drip, the same night my MIL passed and I lay awake fretting - for Husband to lose his mum and his beloved cat in the same week seemed too cruel for words.

But she made it!

It's first stage kidney disease, it will take her eventually, but for now she's back - demanding and cranky as ever - and every night when she snuggles down between us (having yowled at us since dusk to come to bed) , I offer up the closest thing I have to a prayer - a message of gratitude to the universe - to her - thank you for staying with us a little longer. For all my concern for Husband, I don't think I could bear this loss too right now.

And then autumn, waning in all its beauty ... my mum bought this little broom and wheelbarrow for my little nephew to sweep the vine leaves on her stoep - but Stella clearly decided she's by no means too big for that herself yet ... segued into winter ...

... and the cubble got real :-)

camera roll: April

April. I like April, always have.

At the beginning of the month I astounded myself - and a few others I think - by passing my motorbike drivers licence on the first attempt!
My learner's licence would expire in June and I was determined to get my drivers before then. Buying a gorgeous new bike was very motivating (more about that later) and while I was still not working to any extreme deadline and had the time I decided to get it done.
3 hours at the traffic department to book the appointment, a 3 hour training session with a highly-recommended local motorbike training school, another hour or so arsing about in the road outside our house practising emergency braking and stuff - and I got it. Yippee!

Awetumn continued in all its magnificence. I don't think I'll ever tire of taking photos of this view. I've been thinking I should be collating them somehow ...

My wee nephew turned one. Actually he turned 1 in March but everyone was away and his party delayed by a few weeks. My sister-in-law asked her mum to make a sugar-free cake - and this was the utterly amazing result!
All the elements came to his beach party in various tupperwares to be constructed on site - watermelon, sweet melon, pineapple, dragon fruit (totally tasteless, but very pretty), kiwi, grapes, gooseberries, naartjie, strawberry, pomegranate. It was so delicious and indulgent, and very, very impressive!

Frieda and I squeezed in another night away with my parents in Betty's Bay. We'd so enjoyed our stay there before that we had to get out there again while they were still in residence.

We left on a Saturday morning - the plan was for both girls to go with me -  but Stella was dragging her feet, still sloughing around in her pajamas when I was ready to leave. 'Actually I think I'll stay with Dad' she declared. And so she did. We split 50/50 and I had a great time with just my big girl, Stella and her Dad an equally good time without us. Funny that we hardly ever think to do that, but so good for us all. 

23 April - first fire of the season! It was lovely (especially for dogs) and got us all excited about cooler days and wintery delights.

Of course being Cape Town that didn't actually mean it was winter yet. We've still had glorious still sunshiney days.

A national bus strike left me without childcare for a week or so, necessitating doing the school lifts myself, and reminding me how fun it can be to kill time between pick-ups with just one daughter and a slushie at the harbour down the road from the school - spotting seals and boats and cheeky seagulls.

I'll never need to be reminded of how lucky we are to live here though, and be able to do these things on an arbitrary Tuesday afternoon.

And then some REAL rain, bringing joy to all our hearts. The 5000l rain water storage tank we installed in mid December is finally nearly full! It's only taken nearly 6 months ...

Apparently good rain in April sets the tone for the rest of winter, we're holding thumbs this is the case!

And then, just at the end of the month, this little girl turned 1. Nacho the Naughty she is - from a very mild-mannered puppy she's become quite headstrong and stubborn, chewing furniture and any unattended toys. We've had to be very vigilant of late, but we still love her to bits and she's a real member of the family.

camera roll: January

January really does feel like the longest month of the year. At 31 days it's not any longer than a bunch of other months but wow, it really encompasses a LOT.

31 days ago we were on holiday, nursing our hangovers with a long walk beside the ocean, a soft-serve, a swarm of bees and later, fortifying red wine as the first full moon of the year bathed our optimistic new year selves in warm golden light.

Then home, to the reality of the drought - hitting hard - and a dawn patrol of police helicopters, looking for an elderly man who went missing in his canoe. His body was found later that morning poor chap - a suspected seizure while out on the water. Not a bad way to go really. I got a text from my Mum saying 'Hang on to those unseaworthy craft of yours. Dad and I will take a spin in a few years time.'

The only part of our garden I care about keeping alive - my succulent babies doing well on rations of dishwater and leftover dribbles out of the family's water bottles ...

Good eating in January. The glut of fruit and fresh abundance, and the time to prepare and serve pretty, healthy things. All the indulgences of the holiday eating magically remedied (or so we tell ourselves!) in lots of fruit and salads.

Not such a great month for Nacho ... lil' pup finally got spayed after I won the furious puppies v no puppies debate. She was down and out for a couple of days but bounced back remarkably and was soon back to her mischievous self.

On the subject of babies, and mischef ... early beach mornings with my delicious nephew while my SIL and my eldest daughter played at surfing.

Even after Husband and I were back at work we successfully kept the holiday vibe alive (and cheered Nacho up no end) by procuring a second-hand sofa for the stoep. Perfect for lazing and dreaming and pretending we still have endless days for such ...

Goddamn that light is ugly...

There was even a teeny-weeny bit of rain!

And I discovered that the sound of water running into our storage tank actually brought a lump to my throat.

It doesn't take much to bring a lump to my throat lately.

My last pic of January 2018. Little old lady cat in the afternoon sun. Deaf as a doorpost, as cranky as always, only happy when she's lying tight up against me at night. Still my sweetest first baby.

31 days later the full moon rose again, but this time we weren't watching is ascend all chilled and wine'd up with buddies. This time we were chasing deadlines, and children to bed before school. A brief glance out the window, roused in the night by a glare to the eyeballs.

Same moon, same month, feels like a long, long few weeks in between.

And now, as experience shows, the year starts galloping along. Shew this crazy life.