winter layers

 Winter layers - as in vest, shirt, jersey, scarf, coat you ask?

Nope.

Well, a little bit coats. If you mean multiple coats (and so many hoodies) laying draped all over the place as the temperature fluctuates and different weather systems require different weights on different days. Add to that an assortment of beanies, but also caps because the winter sun can still be hot and biting, so low on the horizon.

Shoes also, in abundance at every junction of the house. We can't pretend that this is seasonal, but in winter these shoes are heftier. 6 pairs of discarded flip-flops in mid-summer don't hold the same sway.

Sports gear - also bulkier. Winter bike jackets collapse out the hall cupboard, too hefty to remain on their slim hangers. Two different weight riding gloves in circulation, naturally always pairing with an incompatible partner, like some of those friends one had at varsity.

Winter is hockey, which is shin pads and different sticks, used too regularly to be put away properly - apparently. Even the smaller accoutrements - gum guards, long socks - clutter about the place adding to a smaller but no less insidious layer.  

Hand creams play a big role on the hall table. Lip balm also. Our skin is dry. One half-hearted bottle of sanitiser remains there, jumbled amidst half-empty (half-full?) water bottles, notes from school, discarded rings, spare keys, a motorbike glove (a 5th one, how is this possible?), ancient post to Return To Sender and, like a cruel joke, some pretty knick-knack which was supposed to look elegant and nonchalantly curated, alone on that surface. 

Let's move on.

Winter is a time for Projects. Ongoing projects. Projects for which nothing can be thrown away.

There is macrame, 3D scanning, tail-light rebuilding, cardboard construction, Lego, puzzle-building, clay sculpturing and collaging all going on in our living area RIGHT NOW. Of course no is actually doing any of these things in there right now (15:20 on a wintery Sunday afternoon, what better time one asks oneself) but apparently they are all Very Important and Vital Projects which must remain active.

I think you can imagine that layer.

Let's talk pets. Pets need thicker blankets, and more of them, at this time of year. Dogs ask to be covered in said blankets but then 5 minutes later burst from their nest to bark (generally at nothing) and leave their blankets strewn across the floor. We've tried to train them to drag them back to their beds but those of you who know our dogs will know how ridiculous this notion is.

Also shedding. Winter is all about shedding. We have FOUR pets currently shedding.

And that's not even LOAD shedding, just fur shedding. Load-shedding requires its own fair supply of crap. Rechargeable solar jars must be put out for the sun during the day, but g(l)o off (see what I did there?) to far corners of the house with various members when the lights go out, to seek their fortune in new layers of clutter upstairs. Boxes of matches, burnt and otherwise, adorn the place. Saggy candles abound. The fireplace has its requisite crate of wood dropping bark and twiglets around and about, the tongs are always active, firelighters in a tin inexplicably on the other side of the room.

In winter our cave gets layered-up to pull through the cold. Three weeks of school holidays spent largely at home, 4 busy people, 4 crazy pets. The 8 beings, trundling through their layers of clutter and crap and lots and lots of love.

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: 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 :-)

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.

winter holidays

The second term finally dragged to a close, all of us broken and semi-sick and deep bone-tired.

And maybe because we needed them so very, very badly, the holidays settled on to us gently and comfortingly, like a well worn cotton duvet on a chilly winters eve. Exhale ...

Winter mornings when the world seems black and white in its chilly serenity.

Winter evenings when all the colour from the day pools and deepens, dip-dying the sunset as the chill creeps in.

Winter days when despite clammy sand (and dirty fingernails) we still congregate on the beach for a late afternoon cone and a laugh before fleeing home to warm baths and early nights.

Winter is quiet, and measured and calm. Except when it's not of course. But when it is, it is just the balm for the weary mid-year soul.

one more for august

August is such a loooong month right?
I think it's for the benefit of those northern hemisphere dwellers, reveling in their last proper summer month, bracing themselves for September and autumn and back-to-school and all that.

Hardly seems fair that our equivalent, February, is the shortest month of the year. But I guess we have that sun all year round thing going for us right?

I used to dislike August intensely, many years ago back when winters in Cape Town meant weeks and weeks of incessant, drippy rain and grey skies and cold, cold toes.
Winters aren't like that anymore though, and now the all too rare winter storm is a magnificent, exciting event which gets everyone a-talking and posting photos of the damage on Facebook.

Now August has sunny days - beautiful still sunny days - and Spring starts to feel like a reality long before it should.

Looking back at some August posts I notice patterns: the return of the light (well yes because, seasons), and feeling restless (this current job is taking longer to get going than expected, and I am again a bit - I've been washing curtains!).
August was the month I announced that I was pregnant with Stella (7 yrs ago!), the month we were packing up to make the magnificent move to the lake (4 yrs ago!) a year since we said goodbye to our ginger kitty and, August was the month I started this blog - 8 yrs and very many very silly posts back.

Frieda in Augusts: 2008 - 2016

I don't dislike August anymore. I kind of miss it already. Bye bye 'til next year.

a weekend in tankwa

The morning after the post before I started my day in Durban, hungover AF, 27 degrees C, trying to keep my business brain about myself .... and many, many hours later ... ended it in Tankwa, 6 degrees C, with a cold gin in my hand and the most incredible experience of watching an aardvark snuffle down the road ahead of us fresh in my mind.

Lux accommodation with assorted dead animals.

This one was the deadest.

Love me some shale.

Big skies with tiny daisies.

And other beautiful flowers.

Free kids.

 It was our now annual weekend with these friends. Different venue, same epic meals, litres of wine, kakpraat and ferocious card games.
I spent the weekend in a post-Durban fug - weary and disorientated and slightly drunk most of the time - but so happy to be back with my people and off on an adventure.

weekending

Frieda stayed in her pyjamas all day Saturday. A couple of times we suggested she get dressed but she wasn't having it.
Pyjamas. Roald Dahl on audio. Colouring books. Toast. It was that day for her and I get it, I really do.

I decided recently on a title for my autobiography. You know, the one I'm continually living, I mean writing in my head.
'Pyjamas 'til Noon'
Sounds enthralling doesn't it. A MUST READ.

Also on the action-packed weekend line-up:

~ winter walks.

(you know, they speak of spring but where they get this thing I do not know because it has not sprung and winter's icy song is not yet sung)

~ 6 hour slow-roasted lamb.

~ hertzoggies.

Future title for autobiography, part 2: 'Baking 4 Eva' (gang sign with pudgy fingers)

Fuck you Monday.

winter weekend at summerhill

This gang. We went away with them for a long weekend to a beach house in a reserve overlooking a wild and desolate piece of coast.

Yes. It was as idyllic as it sounds.

Some of us got lost on the way there (and by some I mean them) and arrived just as darkness fell and the rain began, but that didn't put us off lighting a braai fire in a wheelbarrow and pushing it around the outside of the house as the winds changed direction and the storm grew.
Ribs, roast veg, immaculate wine, lots of laughter to kick off the weekend and drown out the rain, and the next day dawned sunny and chill.

This time we lit a fire in the designated pit outside, moved some comfy seating out and settled in for the day.

Literally.

Surrounded by beauty we talked a lot of shit, drank a lot of wine, ate some spectacular meals (how's this for a hangover-busting breakfast?!), had some epic croquet battles and just ... relaxed.

There was nobody there but us, and nowhere to be but there.
Bliss.