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.

and what I've been doing with it ...

All this free time that is.

Yes, there's been lots of productive practical stuff, but there's been lots of indulgent fun stuff too.

I joined a gym (which falls into a category somewhere in between the two above), and I've actually been going!

I finished an embroidery project to gift to my SIL for her birthday.

For which I also made Nutella Cheesecake, among other things.

I lost an hour or two to Seinfeld clips on You Tube.

I may have lost a couple more watching endless movie trailers on the same channel.

I might even have watched a couple of episodes of Ray Donovan one morning while everyone else was at school/work. Although I'll never admit it.

I started some washi doodles on the large expanse of living room wall which we're kind of flummoxed as to what to do with. We can't hang anything framed there (damn lake is so reflective) we'll probably (hopefully) bash a large section out of it in the near future, I had a lovely piece of fabric up there which it turns out husband hated - so it's become my sketchpad, on which I will doodle in totally non-permanent and forgiving washi tape, because blank wall is just .. blank, right?

We sneaked in another long weekend away, the Cederberg this time, with my parents and assorted extended family.

And just this last week, I've been nursing this poor Tiger. Chicken pox yo.

Then this afternoon, the call. Dates are set, things are back on, and as of tomorrow I need to start easing back into things. Work things.

It's been a magnificent hiatus. I think I'll open a bottle of wine this evening and eek out the last few hours.

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.

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.