lucky draw

My Dad turned 76 today.

My brother is 44 next weekend.

We made them a half carrot, half chocolate cake to celebrate their 120 years of combined magnificence. 

Meat, potatoes, salads and wine. Cake.

Family.

These things that can be grounding, pedestrian, reliable, bask in the realm of miracles and wonder when you get old enough to understand how damn lucky you are to have them, to be here now.

Here. 

31 years down the line with my man.

He turned 50 in July, we've been married for 19 years this month, together for 12 before that. So many numbers, just numbers, but translated into years and months and days together? I mean, talk about miracles.

Keeps the home fires burning, makes it home wherever he is.

On the subject of numbers...

Two weeks ago I bought a raffle ticket at a local fair. Standing in the queue to fill in my details on the sheet I overheard two ladies behind me. One was very concerned that someone else would take her lucky number before she got to claim it on the form.

This got me thinking about what number I would choose - I don't really have a 'lucky' one.

I was handed the sheet open in the 40's. I'll take 47 I thought, it's my age this year so why not.

Then I heard the whispering behind me again and I turned to the worried woman: What's your number? I asked, so I don't take it accidentally.

47, she said.

You know that moment when the world just slows a little? This is so weird I thought. So weird!

Then I filled in number 48 and we joked about her winning and I went about my day.

This afternoon I got a phone call. 48 drew for the main prize.

It's a romantic weekend away in an amazing location.

I mean, what benevolent karmic gods of glorious fuck did I awaken with that one??

the hottest place on earth

Well, so it was predicted on Friday, a day when we couldn't really even comprehend of how hot it would get. 

It got incredibly hot.

This last weekend Cape Town surpassed its own hottest recorded temperature ever by 3 degrees Celsius and clocked in a whopping 45.2C on Saturday.

It's been confirmed that we were the hottest place in southern Africa and you know, we'll take it. No need to go into direct competition with mid Australia ffs - Saturday and Sunday were hot enough and scary enough, we don't need any more accolade than that.

It was a weekend for lying down and avoiding really. And that's mostly what we did. 

Lying down and napping with the blinds closed. Drinking litres of water and moving slowly and mainly trying not to think about climate change.

Our children might never live on the same planet as polar bears Frieda tells her sister over dinner.

Yeah but, people told us that when we were younger too I say, and you do. 

Now recycle that container and don't use too much water rinsing it out.

Balancing the messaging is hard.

Then on Sunday we received a clip from family in the UK, a short capture from The Green Planet - Sir David Attenborough's latest series on BBC. It features an interview with my little brother.

My little brother as a whole ass PHD on ecology change being featured in an Attenborough series. Five year old Frieda would have EXPLODED with wonderment and joy. Fourteen year old Frieda was pretty damn excited. As were we all.

The clip was on fire (our fynbos needs it) and particularly the fire lilies which lie dormant for years (and years) waiting for fire and then blooming within days of one - making themselves the only source of nectar for miles and guaranteeing pollination (seems rather dramatic but then, nature). The takeaway was that fires are getting more frequent, hotter, faster and fragile ecosystems like this are in real danger.

Sobering stuff. And yet also, miraculous.

As is life.

PS, while writing this post I came across this one, and it seemed an apt reminder that we've been at the brink of societal collapse before... and also, jeez we've weathered a LOT in recent years.

weathering it...

I cannot explain how much better the first week of January feels this year in comparison to last.

Last year there was so little light coming down the tunnel, so little reason to feel optimistic. And I'm not even talking about Tr*mp and the storming of the Capitol, just about Cape Town and lockdown and how we never thought we'd get vaxxed or back to any semblance of proper life ever again. We'd never started a year so glum and uninspired.

But here we are. Things are easier. And whatever fuckening might be waiting just down the road, I'm having a moment of deep gratitude for how far we've come and how much easier and lighter things have been this holiday season.

We spent two 4-day stints on either side of Christmas in our favourite Onrus with some of our oldest friends.

And Christmas, Christmas was glorious.

All the sweeter for having spent last Christmas all apart, for being our first time hosting, for everyone being well and relaxed and happy. Magic.

We've weathered this storm alright, all things considered. As have many of my dearest friends, who for a time there looked like they'd never come out the other side.

A friend who got retrenched back in April 2020 has found a new, rewarding, fulfilling, bill-paying job after nearly two years of hustle and high stress.

Another who was facing a failing relationship back then, exacerbated by lockdowns and general weirdness, is happily blissed out with a new partner, after a long time of heartache and self-doubt and pain.

Friends who very nearly lost their home are clawing their way back up the credit-rating ladder, finally able to relax their jaws slightly and step back a bit from the daily anxiety of trying to keep their lives together.

The girls are back to full class, full time, in person school in a couple of weeks. Our curfew, the last of the Covid restrictions, was lifted on 31 Dec. Our National State of Disaster, 666 days old today, is most likely to be lifted soon.

Cautiously, cautiously, optimistic.

careful what you wish for

 I will not let this year turn without a final word here. But where to start?

I don't feel I've done enough to document it - as in, historically. So fundamental an experience will no doubt require much reflection, stories for the rest of our lives. I'd really like to have a timeline of events to reference back to. Time itself has had such a weird quality - no real benchmarks or junctures, just the Long Weirdness ...

There were important dates - the WHO declared Covid-19 a global pandemic on Stella's 10th birthday.

Frieda was the first grade back at school, 1 June. She was also the first of us (and to date, the only) to have a Covid test, in mid November - negative.

Stella went back 6 weeks later, on Charl's birthday. in July. We joked that a morning home with no kids was the best gift ever ha ha.

Who can remember the day we got 'released' from hard lockdown and allowed to exercise outside the home, for a mere 3 hours from 6am (still in total darkness) to 9am, the streets around our house packed with grumpy and nervous people, no one making eye contact.

Our first legal walk at the beach in the middle of the day (still unclear if we were allowed ON the sand).

My birthday 'party' of 4, sitting on camp stools far apart in our driveway, drinking revolting black market wine and getting a big fright when we thought we'd missed the 8pm curfew - we hadn't.

Distributing rolling tobacco illegally for a friend, one of her customers a hairdresser, working under cover. Smuggling wine wrapped up in our overnight bags all the way to Calitzdorp when we were allowed to travel again, but booze was still verboten.

That disastrous 'girls weekend' in Calitzdorp which we thought would be our salvation and was instead a comic tragedy.

A weekend in the Cederberg with my parents which literally saved our souls, and our relationship with one another.

And inspired by that newfound feeling of adventuring together, a sneaky spontaneous 8 day holiday through some beautiful country, to visit with elephants and find all the inspiration, optimism and peaceful transience we'd been missing for so many months.

Then just a few weeks ago, as the dreaded Second Wave rose up in the background, a careful but joyous and largely outdoor few days away with friends - the mountains and river and company a balm to our exhausted, end of year (x1000 like all things 2020) hearts and bodies.

Christmas spent alone - just like last year when we thought the concept so novel and cute - my parents in isolation after possible exposure (it seems they've luckily dodged it), brothers scattered to family bubbles not our own.

But we got kittens! A long-awaited request from the girls, a source of some anxiety for me, an ongoing slow introduction to the dogs continues... but how completely impossible is it to feel gloomy in the company of kittens? We LOVE them.

Now we're back in lockdown. Two weeks from today of no alcohol sales, 9pm curfew, no gatherings, and worst of all - no beaches. No beaches, no rivers, no parks and no waterways. No knowing if two weeks means two weeks or more weeks or... no one knows.

But I do know one thing, after this heinous and deeply weird year, I am so proud of my lockdown crew. Consistently we've amazed each other with our resilience and perseverance. We've laughed, and kept the home fires burning and remained, mostly, loving and kind. We've allowed each other space to have our moments - to be weaker or stronger - to wallow in sadness or frivolous hysteria. I'm proud of us.

At the beginning of this year we said we wanted to spend lots of time with the girls. To that I say, careful what you wish for.

Please, no one let me write a post like this for 2021 okay?

update on the 'sabbatical'

What have I been up to?

Well, not blogging clearly. Dammit.

But lots of actual things in the world with real people, which is good right?

I've spent some time with my little nephews. At nearly 1 and nearly 3 they are both just delicious, the older one chatty and funny and busy - the baby still baby enough to have a good cuddle. These are probably 'my' last babies until grandchildren and it's been wonderful to have this time with them.

I've been working out - 4 times a week at least, sometimes even getting up before 7 on a Saturday for an extra class (this is totally unheard of for me). 

I've made some progress on clutter and sorting out my home office and bagging stuff up for donation etc, but not as much as I thought I would.
Ditto personal admin. I've not been great on that. Turns out it's still as utterly boring as ever, I just don't have the same excuses about not getting round to it. I've done some good work on generating more though - namely reversing into my friend's car outside our own house a few weeks back! Ack.
Ditto website updates, inbox clearing and filing - I've spent very little time on all that rubbish.
Because really, do I want to spend any time on my laptop when I don't have to? Fek no.
(See also, reasons I've not been blogging.)

I've done some quality appreciation of this beautiful place I live though.

A cycle tour through the City on a magnificent blue and gold day. From the touristy bustle of the waterfront, up Adderley street in the heart of the city, along pee- and dagga- smelling pavements outside the Station, past City Hall (where 1 year ago I was in the THICK of a massive project), through the serene Company Gardens, up cobble-stoned streets into the Bo Kaap and then down through Green Point and back to the sea.
This city will never, ever lose its allure.

Then the first leg of a summer project to swim in all (25?) tidal pools the Cape Peninsula has to offer. We managed 4 on a very blustery and overcast day, with plans to conquer the rest before the summer is out.

St James tidal pool, pictured on a very different day!

I've been a really great friend.
I've lifted kids and baked birthday cakes and helped arrange parties and run errands and delivered wine and covered bills and been (very freely) available for drinks and hang outs.
This all sounds fairly smug, but I don't believe in altruism and will happily admit I've gained so much from all this. Not self-satisfaction, but genuine happiness in being of service to those I love.

My people have been so solidly there for me the last few tumultuous years, all while going through some pretty horrible stuff themselves. We're all juggling so many balls, all feeling like we're dropping most. It has been such a gift to have the time and resources to help catch some, to do small things to help, to do big things to share.
How lucky to have beloved people in your life to do things for?

I've fostered an appreciation for the small things. How a weekend can be a weekend when you're not spending it catching up on everything you've not been able to do during the week. How dinner prep can be so much more satisfying when you're not slamming it together too late and too distracted to do it properly. How chats on the couch with my girls can wander on uninterrupted into all kinds of topics when nothing else is calling me away.

It's been so lovely to be here for them, my sweet girls. It's been so lovely to be able to give them the best of myself. Well, most of the time.

And finally, excitingly, some real progress on our planned home renovation! We have an architect. We have plans. We have moments of utter weakness at the challenges of packing this place up and subjecting ourselves to dust and builders and massive logistical challenges. But we have progress, and 2020 is set to be the year of the house.

Exciting times.

summer holidaze ...

On the last day of school I took a gang of 9 girls to the water-slides for the afternoon.
The last day of school, the first day of the long summer holidays, and the first day in absolute ages that I was just a mum.
Just a mum with a cooler fill of juice, towels, sunscreen, hot chips and my book. Just a mum in the shade taking pics and admiring tricks and enjoying watching her kids and their friends having a ball.

After months and months of desperately juggling work and parenting - trying never to let either job impact on the other, it was a gift to be just a mum, and a fun mum at that.

Then it was me time - my now annual retreat to Vortex. Last year it was everything I'd hoped it would be and more, this year just as great with more friends and the boud-car improved upon to attain peak comfort.

Favourite moment: A well meaning young thing remarked that it was 'so nice to see mature ladies at an outdoor party, how long have you been coming to Vortex for?' 

My friend deadpanned in response: 'Since 1997'

Old dog = old tricks.

On the way home from Vortex we stopped off for another little forest adventure - a picnic under the trees for a bestie's birthday on an old established wine farm on a hot afternoon.

And home in time for a shower and Christmas carols under the bridge. See? Fun mum.

The first of our 3 trips out to Onrus. This one highlighted by Jeremy Loops live at Stanford Hills!

The girls loved it so much - their first 'rock concert' of someone they really like - dancing and singing along like crazy. Such a jol.

Home for Christmas Eve - pool, food, pressies and family. Every year I'm more grateful for them.

With nearly half of my poor man's family gone in the last couple of years that side is all a bit disjointed now, scattered around and not really sure how to regroup. Christmas Day resonated with the loss of his Mum, none of us could face trying to muster Xmas cheer without her, so we headed straight back to Onrus, to spend it with his chosen fam.

And to CHILL. Just to bloody well stay still and chill for a minute.

The holidays are over, the girls back at school, work is picking up - but it's still summer, and the good times are far from over.
Hello 2019.

cake and life

For his first birthday without her, I made him a cake like his mama would've made it.

Sjokolade-oilie-koek. In Afrikaans it rolls off the tongue, in any language it slips happily into your belly.
The recipe is written in pencil, on an old discoloured page, in her distinctive hand.
The sugar came from a massive vat of it we discovered in her cupboard when we were packing up her flat. 'How long do you think this has been here?' I asked him, and when we got home we found slip of paper buried in the white crystals 04.01.2018. Why would she have dated it we wondered?
The vanilla also from her tiny pantry, a mere fraction of the kind of supply cupboard she would've kept for most of her life.
The cake tins, well-scrubbed, a bit battered, tins which must've baked 1000 cakes. No, really.

I messaged him while baking it.

Cherries? Caramel filling? Instant coffee in the icing?

I wanted to make it just right. After all these years there are still things I don't know about him.

His response: No chuckles, no sprinkles, no dips, no cherries, no candles. No coffee, no caramel. Just icing. Maybe the thinnest smear of apricot jam. Maybe some choc shavings.

I hope when he bit into it he thought of her. I hope I made it right but not so right that he wouldn't feel nostalgic for hers. I hope that I did it justice, but I'm sure he felt that missing ingredient.

Life isn't great right now. We are feeling our losses and struggling along with our burdens of stress and general boring adulthood.
But we are struggling along together, which is the important thing, we are being gentle and kind and helping each other out where we can.

And today we ate cake, and climbed a mountain, and celebrated life. Because we have it, and it's beautiful, even when it's hard.
And there's also gin!

una

That birthday post was very delayed.

We came home that Sunday evening in a (very clean) glow of love and family to the news that my dear mother-in-law had gone into hospital.
Four evenings later on the 24th of May she quietly slipped away.

It's the way we'd all like to go I think - fit as a fiddle until 85, then a quick decline and a relatively comfortable passing - it was the right way, although there is never a right time, especially not for those left behind.

The numb feeling of loss is horribly familiar.

For my dear Charl especially - losing his mum so soon after his brother last year. Becoming an orphan. Feeling the family become smaller, more disjointed. His closest brother, and now his mum.

The following weekend we had a farewell tea for her at the retirement village she's been living at for the last 18 years or so, for the family but also for her friends.
As a recently bereft friend my heart ached for this sweet group of little old ladies. Walking frames, sensible shoes, stout winter coats smelling faintly of mothballs - they embraced us all and told us what a wonderful woman she was, a 'proper lady', and how much they'd miss her.
We will too.

Cake, tea, all her family and a slideshow of photos spanning 80+ years - she would have enjoyed it all so much.

I love this picture of her and Charl's Dad, who I never met. The dress and the 5th Avenue Cold Dark imply it was Christmas, or a party of some sort. The dessert in his hand ubiquitous, the giggle and squeeze so very sweet. The safari suit!

She was always an older granny for our girls, but she loved them dearly and they were so fond of Ouma.

The last time we saw her, on Mother's Day a few weeks before she passed, we lined her and Frieda up back to back - and had a laugh that Frieda had overtaken her. We teased her as to how she'd created this family of giants. 

She was a little lady, but with a big heart, and she gave us our husband and dad - and for that we will always honour her.

43

The week before my birthday someone said to me in the morning, 'Hey, it's your birthday soon - what you going to do?'
I spent the rest of the day in tears.

I couldn't conceive of a birthday celebrated without Zahida. She was good at birthdays that one - good at gifts and thoughtful gestures, always up for a party or some related fun - but mostly just genuinely, warmly, utterly happy. I don't feel like I've felt that for a while now.

The next day I spent a couple of hours hunting online, until I found an available, dog-friendly cottage to book for the weekend. My birthday would be spent away, with just the fam, and a glorious deep, hot outdoor bath!

It was the BEST.

Just that patch of super green lawn made our poor drought-stricken hearts sing.

Add to that majestic mountains, a superb steak fillet, one chilly day to stay indoors at the fire playing Settlers of Catan, one warmer day to explore the farm and collect wind-fallen pears and get lost on a hike, my 3 favourite people in all the world, my 2 favourite dogs and - the proverbial cherry - a magnificent birthday 'pulla' baked by my man in the teeny little cottage oven ... it was the very best way to spend this birthday.

And ...

... this bath. Filled with rainwater, heated with solar, set away from the house with a view of the mountain. Deep. Hot. Guilt-free. We all had a turn, wallowing in water therapy, high on hydration, muscles relaxing and softening as they remembered: a bath!

Good for the mind, body and soul.

It was only when we got home that I found this line on their website: The mountain cottages are tucked away at the foot of the mountain, far away from any rush or noise. The setting certainly helps most people to feel their sorrows dissolve…