end-of-year staff party for 1(000)

This year I'm throwing a staff party. I've not had one before, being just little ol' me (and the dogs) in this cavernous office filled to the brim with utter crap.

I don't get invited to Husband's either anymore - since 'the recession' most corporate do's are sans partners.

But this year I decided I especially deserve one, and so I've planned (disclaimer: not 'planned' in the professional sense, just in the sense of bought a ticket - in JULY I might add!) a little soiree ... just me, and about 1000 other crazy cats seeking oblivion and a serious change of scenery ...

Pic from Vortex website - I'll have my own soon :-)

It's been some years since I've been to an outdoor party - probably about 15 truth be told - but I'm sure it's like riding a bike right? Right?

And these days darling, I'm all about the creature comforts. No slumming in a badly-erected 2-man tent in the full sun with nothing but (cheap) vodka and (stale) Niknaks to sustain me. This time I'm creating a boudoir (or should that be a boud-car?) in the back of our Jeep: a proper mattress, throw cushions, fairy lights, I'm still thinking frothy white bedding although I've been told that I'm mad.

Something like this ...

A fridge for fresh milk and salads and beer (I'd love to take wine but there's a no-glass policy and I have standards these days, standards).
A stack of books, mozzie repellent and a good night cream.
A comfy camping chair, a parasol perhaps. A week's supply of wet wipes ...

If I'm going to be the old lady of the party I'm going to reap the benefits of my experience and spending power by being the enviable old lady - the one who is having a blast, and then retiring to her boud-car for an ice cold drink, a fresh little snack and maybe a nap.

This is how I envisage it anyway ... we shall see ...

pincushions + memories

We recently spent a weekend with all my family on the banks of a river which, I think, possibly makes up part of our DNA.

Thirty years ago we were the children immersed in this river, hunting tadpoles, logging hours of exploratory water therapy, learning to swim and navigate rocks and rapids and the boundaries of our own imaginations.

We know its wide still pools of quiet introspection, the deafening thrills of adrenaline-fueled rapids, the places where the reeds close in and the river fills your ears and you could be all alone on the planet with just the dragonflies and the occasional plopping frog for company.

We remember how just up from the river bank the air instantly warms, the scent changes to that of the heat-baked fynbos and ones ears fill with the buzz of cicadas and the wind through the proteas, the river a distant murmur.

Everything is still just as our childhood selves remembered it, but this time with a few additions.

New members - sisters-in-law and grandchildren - new family dynamics, and new cottages in which to dry out, refuel and suspend time.

My parents realised while we there that it was almost exactly the 40th anniversary of the first time we camped there - under a tarp then. Stories of leopards and friends and fires and floods, 'do you remembers' and 'who was that' and 'no I didn't!!'.

The river remembered us, we remembered each other in a different time. We beamed at each other over cheesecake and pincushions and, again, counted our lucky, lucky stars to have grown up in such a beautiful place. To be here still.

under the jacaranda

I've recently finished a monster of a job in Johannesburg.

I was contracted through a long-standing client to do the logistics on a high-level meeting of, originally, 80 experts from around the world. And by around the world I mean really around the world - Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, Macedonia ... 20 different countries all in.

Rapidly, as these things are wont to do, our numbers burgeoned beyond 80, making the group too big for the main auditorium in the venue we'd booked - the historic and poignant Liliesleaf Farm.

'But we have to have it there!' they cried.
'Well we can't bloody do it inside,' I replied.

6 weeks later...

Negotiating the precarious space between budgetary constraints and expected outcome I worked with the venue, engineers and external suppliers to put together a tented space on the grounds, under the flowering jacarandas, the territorial hadedas and the hot early summer sun.

It looked great on paper and when I flew up a few weeks earlier to do a site inspection it all mapped out well, in theory. But on the Sunday before the meeting, as the tent went up - more open on the sides than the pictures I'd been shown - and the plastic-tile 'floor' went down - on a bumpy lawn which had not in fact been mowed despite assurances that it would be - and the chairs were delivered - and unceremoniously dumped in a corner of the lawn, all 120 of them - and nothing was quite as it should be, far from it in fact - I stood on that bumpy lawn and wondered what to do first: throw-up, change my name, book a flight to Abu Dhabi .... I thought I might cry.

Instead I started unpacking 120 chairs, and vented my frustration at the first supplier who crossed my path, quietly informed my client that it was fine, but not ideal, and checked the weather forecast for the bazillionth time in 24 hours.

The next day I was there by 07:00 and already things started looking better. With cushions on all the chairs and the big plasma screens in place and the fresh morning air - it felt serene and controlled. I watched from the lawn as the Big Boss arrived in her chauffeur-driven car ... she came slowly down the hill toward me as I stood there taking deep breaths, braced for whatever might be rained down upon me ...

'I love it.' She said, spreading her arms wide as she approached. 'Meeting under the trees, it's the African way.'
I thought I might cry again.

3 days of meeting in a dappled green, outdoor space, 3 inspiring days of ideas and information, people stepping out of the tent to stretch their legs and ending up stretched out on the lawn, still listening and engaging. Not a chill breeze or a drop of rain or a dusty gust to distract them. Just the creak of the trees, the occasional cry of the birds and the warmth of a few perfect African days.

That spirit went back to Jordan, to Indonesia, to Pakistan and after it was all over, I came home to Cape Town, happy and exhausted. I love my job, mostly ;-)

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.

hennie, aka tom selleck

Posts I've got in drafts:

- It's Spring and we've been in our lake house for 5 yrs!

- A week of Me and how I came back to life after the madness that was August!

- My Granny turned 100!

Post I'm writing instead: My lovely brother-in-law died and we are bereft.

Because life is weird and unpredictable and very, very strange. And we know this, but it hits home so much starker and harder when you lose someone in the very blink of an eye.

Hennie always knocked off early on a Friday. It was one of the perks of running his own business after years in super-corporate investment banking.

He came home early last Friday to mow his lawn. He always mowed his own lawn because he didn't trust anyone else to do it right, because he was particular about this (and very many things) and because he got great satisfaction out of it.

He mowed his lawn with focus and presence, possibly only wandering off in his thoughts to think about the pizza he'd be making for supper (he converted the whole family to homemade pizza, we've all been using his dough recipe for years, and always will), or the weekend ride he'd had last Sunday with his brothers and his niece (Frieda went as her Dad's pillion), maybe he had a chuckle at the latest hilarious atheist meme he'd messaged to his sister-in-law (me) the day before.

He mowed his lawn in the soft Spring evening air and just as he was finishing - edges perfect, minimal cuttings in the pool - a sudden massive stroke felled him right there and took him from us forever.

I met Hennie when I was 17. He was 37. In Afrikaans culture I should by rights have addressed him as 'oom' (uncle) because of the age difference, but being my boyfriend's brother closed that generational gap and I awkwardly called him by his first name, always feeling a little cheeky for doing so.

There was another reason I felt a little uncomfortable around him.

I'd only a few years back gotten over a teenage crush on this guy - Magnum PI - and my new boyfriend's brother, with his loooong legs, twinkly blue eyes, big mustache and cute giggle awkwardly reminded me of that only recently abated lustful interlude.

I'd had posters of both these images up on my bedroom wall for ages, along with MacGyver and Pancho - my other two tweeny heartthrobs. (Don't judge okay, it was the 80's!)

He was a difficult man then - painfully hygiene-conscious, hard, prone to ranting tirades about all the things he felt were wrong with the world (there were many), still the over-indulged eldest child despite being 1 of 4. All the family deferred to his wishes and as time went on and my position in it got more secure I started baiting him a bit, gently challenging him on issues and subtly telling him to STFU when he got too boring.

I remember once in a restaurant asking him if I could taste his guava milkshake - it seemed like an exotic flavour and I was intrigued. He was so taken aback he let me, and afterwards his other brother told me he'd never seen Hennie share a straw in his life.

Another time I accused him of being a pussy for making a huge fuss about a (smallish) spider, no one else would call him on his shit.

When we first moved to Observatory he commented that a 'lot of gay people' live there. I retorted that a 'lot of gay people' probably lived his neighbourhood too but just didn't feel as free to show it.

We disagreed on a lot of things, but strangely we liked each other a lot (and it wasn't just the Tom Selleck thing).

Hennie was a difficult man, but almost more than anyone else I know he changed. And he worked at changing.

He became less ranty, or at least would catch himself and laugh off whatever was supposedly offending him. He became far less bigoted and he and his wife regularly had dinner with a gay couple (who lived nearby!). He went through a long and measured introspective journey to embrace atheism. He started his own company as I said, and employed people from many different walks of life. He phoned his aged aunt every week for a long chat, he popped in for breakfast or lunch with his mum at least twice a week, he had her over almost every Saturday evening for a braai, or his famous pizza.

He mellowed as he got older, he got gentler.

The last time my husband saw him he was wearing a t-shirt which said 'Normal People Scare Me'. Sheldon Cooper was his profile pic.
He was a funny guy.

He was only 62.

My husband loved him. As a brother, as a friend. They would spend hours on the phone talking bikes and cars. Hennie used to come and LAN game at our house once a week for years before we selfishly started having children. They'd go for rides together, fix things together, laugh at idiots together.
He shared a birthday with Frieda.
We joke he's the source of her long legs.
The girls loved him.

He was the most charismatic curmudgeon I've ever met. He was a gentle giant. For a grumpy guy, he made a lot of people happy.
RIP Hennie, we will miss you so.

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.

nacho :: starter portion

While I was in Joburg in May, working hard and mourning my Lego, I got sent this pic ...

... husband and daughters were hatching something.

At first I wasn't that enthusiastic, it felt too soon, I didn't think I was ready to start a new doggie relationship, and tbh the memory of puppy care was still fairly fresh in my mind.

But ... Orca was lonely, bull terrier puppies don't come along that often ... especially tan and white females, the exact kind we'd always jokingly said we'd like 'next', and she couldn't come home until mid June so we had a few more weeks to adjust.

And so, the day after Frieda's party, Nacho joined our family.

As if she'd always been here.

She's really just slotted right in. Quietly confident without being cocky. Smart, affectionate, feisty but calm. She's perfect.

And sometimes, when she sits next to me and puts a paw on my foot, when she cocks her head and grunts at me softly, when she leans into me and sighs - she reminds me of a girl bully I used to know and I feel sad, and very happy.

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.

10

It's July and I've not posted about Frieda's birthday last month!

It's been a rough couple of months with sad news from so many quarters and to come here with frivolity and fun has sometimes felt nearly impossible. But turning TEN is important business indeed and certainly not to be passed by without special mention.

The party was to be a Decadent Milkshake Dance Off extravaganza, which sounded fabulous in the planning stages, and increasingly exhausting as the day drew near. It had been nearly a week of fun and cake and spoils by then and even the birthday girl when I jokingly sighed 'Are we really having a party here tomorrow?' on Friday evening, rolled her eyes and mock-exasperatedly said 'Do we have to?' Yes, of course we did - I mean, look at the line-up!

And the playlist! It was lit I tell you.

We set up a big milkshake station and hit the ground running as soon as the kids arrived. A hot sticky 45 minutes later everyone was full and sweetened-up and the rest of the afternoon ticked over so pleasantly. The kids boated and bounced and hang out in the winter sunshine.

And then we did this really weird eye-ball-roll-inducing thing and made her friends sit through a viewing of this ancient You Tube sensation ...

Before presenting her with a disco cake complete with aforementioned squashed alien. It was one of her FAVOURITE clips to watch when she was half this age.

Hello 10, hello tweendom. I see you. And you're kinda cute.

Lego

I've postponed writing this, because I honestly don't need any prompting to blubber like a baby over the loss of my magnificent furry friend - I've shed enough tears over the last few weeks without having to look at pictures and write stirring words.

But she deserves her own special mention - she deserves to be cried over every day. And I need to get back to this space which I didn't feel I could without noting this moment first.

Lego is gone. Her cancer progressed faster than we'd believed it could - but right on schedule for these canine diseases it seems. The vet gave her 6 - 8 weeks from diagnosis, she made it to 7.

She came to us in January 2009, by air from Johannesburg. We'd seen pics of her with the torso and arms of a man in the background, and based on our assumption of her size we picked out a collar and lead, a couple of feeding bowls and some toys and went to the airport to fetch her from cargo.

A big wooden box came trundling out on the conveyor with a teeny-weeny little pup inside. Turns out the arms who had held her in the pictures belonged to a boy and she was much smaller than we'd expected, the collar we had for her much too large!

She and Frieda were firm friends from day one, up to all kinds of mischief.
Lego would nibble Frieda with her sharp puppy teeth until I felt a bit self conscious of all her scratches - Frieda didn't mind - and Frieda used to try and protect Lego from trouble by kindly covering up her illicit puppy poos with whatever was handy - even kitchen cloths and her own clothes!

She was a handful at times, raising her was challenging in places - she was our first dog you see, and firstborns are firstborns really. But she fit with us so well, she was so loyal and so stoically and devotedly there. I trusted her implicitly.

And she trusted us. Which is why, after her diagnosis, I promised her we would never take her to the vet again (she hated trips to the vet) and why, when she was so lumpy you couldn't touch her without her flinching - gently and apologetically 'til the end, we made the decision to call the vet and when he came, we held her in our arms, in her bed, and whispered love and reassurance to her as she slipped away.

The neighbour played violin in the background. I kid you not, that really happened. [Edited for clarity : at her house, next door, completely unaware of how bizarre sad violin was for us at that moment.]

I miss her. I miss her grunts of communication which were as clear (if not clearer) than most of my children's communications with me.
I miss her watchfulness, I always felt safe with her around. I miss her companionship, she slept at my feet for most of her last few weeks. I miss her love.

I've got some people in my life going through some hard shit. Cancer, divorce - massively disruptive and sad life events - and I've felt badly, in the midst of all this, grieving for my dog. But as one of my wisest friends said, 'Family is family, no matter the species'.

Lego was part of our family. She is gone and we miss her.

42

I'm in Joburg, working, and it's hard to talk about home. I'm halfway through a 6 day stint here and missing my people, but the late afternoon slump is hitting hard and I can't let my birthday go by with recording it (and looking busy is preferable to pinching myself to stay awake right now!).

I have exactly two photos from my birthday weekend available to me here ...

... pretty much sums it up.

The weekend was full of all my favourite things: gin, (nice) surprises, love, girlfriends, cackling.

Celebrations kicked off with my, now annual, birthday lunch with my lovely parents on Friday. I do love those guys.

On Saturday (my actual birthday) a friend's kid who I share a birthday with had a 'disco party' - conveniently situating lots of my favourite people in one place with no effort required from me. I took a couple of bottles of fizz in exchange for a fun evening - a surprise birthday cake, a wildly generous spa voucher to cash in when I'm home, a personalised set from my favourite DJ-mate and a chance to shake my booty to it with my daughters and friends, and lots of cackling.

Sunday was tea gin and cake with more girlfriends - my specials, my hearts.

So many lovely gifties and messages - most of which were packed away again in a hurry on my departure and are waiting to please and delight me all over again when I get home - and this ...

... not that boy, I've had him for a while and he pleases and delights me every day, but that magnificent Nguni cow skin he's lying on.

My friend, my magnificent friend, back in March acquired this skin and as much as she loves it, she just can't with a dead cow on her floor. I, luckily, don't have the same sensibilities and OH MY GOD she gifted it to me! I've always wanted an Nguni skin. I've always wanted an Nguni too, but a skin - and such a beautiful one! 

What a gift.

Apparently 42 is the answer to everything ... let's see!

right now

It's hard to blog when all the big things happening around me at present aren't my stories to tell.

Big things happening to people who are big in my life - filling me with sympathy, sadness, fear and fragile feelings of maternal tenderness.
There's a lot of them - people I love at whom life is throwing some big curve-balls.

WTF life??

The things I can write about are a mixed bag ...

... my Lego is failing fast. When the vet said 6 - 8 weeks, 6 weeks ago, I kind of scoffed. How could he be so sure when we've no idea how long she's had the cancer for? Turns out he knew (being a vet and all I guess). In 10 days time I go to Joburg for a week ...

... Joburg for a week to run logistics on a fab project. It'll be a week of hard work and hard play - my favourite kind. Johannesburg is interesting this time of year - icy cold nights (way colder than CT ever gets) and still, warm days. Good people, some of whom were with me in Durban last year, and interesting work. I'm looking forward to it, were it not for my ailing furbaby.

But in other news - we finished our bath renovation!

Well, besides for a small snag list ...

But it's lovely, very 'executive' as my brother called it (i.e. black and white and sleek), and now of course - totally different to the rest of our house.

It's been about 6 months in the making - the old bathroom was ripped out in November - and we've had the work done slowly as we've had the cash, or inspiration. We're 'hashtag blessed' to have had other loo's to use in this silly big house of ours. It's been fun, and we're hoping to keep up the momentum. We've been reminded that we love doing this, and I think we're quite good at it.
Photographing a bathroom is hard though - thank goodness for that massive reflective shower screen!

Life is hard, life is beautiful, life is relentless. What would we do without it?

in time of drought ...

... drinking ants in ones tea becomes less reprehensible than emptying and refilling the kettle before boiling it.

... the amount of ice blocks in ones drink becomes a question of conservation, not taste.

... the merits of paper towel versus water play through your head as you wonder whether to wipe or rinse a greasy pot. You can drive yourself mental playing this 'which is worse/better' game.

... your loo can look like the scene of a horror movie as you resolutely flush with bath water despite your daughters predilection for garishly coloured bath bombs.

... you add, to the other multiple lists in your head, a roster of which plant has received grey water when and which is more deserving.

... the sound of a sprinkler is arresting, and out of place. One instantly harshly judges the sprinkleree.

... a dirty car becomes a badge of honour.

... other people's hysteria about the water shortage weirdly makes one feel calmer?

... small people worry. She brushes her teeth with an inch of water in a cup and when she's finished, swills the last drops around in the bottom and asks, 'What shall I do with this Mum?'

... and when there is rain - it's only happened about twice this year - everyone stops what they're doing to watch it, and all the pot plants go out to play. And everything feels right with the world again, for just a minute.

the hard stuff

A friend who is battling cancer did such a good Facebook post this week.
Couched in a wry, humourous story about her kids, she subtly updated her broader friends as to where she's at in her treatment.
For those who hadn't known she created a light space in which to reach out with their love and concern, for those that did, some light relief from the heartache of watching a good friend go through this.
There was no pity party, no drama, no big announcement - just a gentle 'this is my life now and it's hard but still full of love and laughs and we carry on'.

It's hard to tell other people when you're having a shit time. You feel self-conscious about ruining their day or happy mood, you feel like you're trying to illicit sympathy, but it's more about needing people to know - this is what's up with me, it's not that great.
Be gentle.

What's up with me is that my doggie is dying.
Lego has lymphoma and the prognosis, 4 weeks ago, was 6 - 8 weeks.
She will be 9 this year. She hates going to the vet. Her liver is affected, her lungs and possibly her heart. For these reasons, and others, we're not going to attempt chemo.
We're going to keep her comfortable for as long as we can and then one day, soon I fear, we're going to phone our lovely vet and ask him to come here and put her to sleep in her bed, in our arms.

She knows. She's slowing down for sure, still eating and being herself, but slowing down. Yesterday she didn't come outside when I was throwing bits of wood for Orca, usually a game she'd get involved in, just watched from the door with a waggy tail and a sad eye. She's always been good at the sad eye my Lego, there's a reason we sometimes call her Eeyore.

She sticks close, wandering in with her 'don't mind about me' demeanour, to plonk herself down with a grunt and a nudge, and sleep at my feet. In the evenings she comes to tell me it's couch time - time for TV and a cuddle. In the night she wakes me with an apologetic nose, to let her out or fill the water bowl which is no longer lasting 'til morning.

She knows and she's saying goodbye.
I know and every chance I get I'm saying, in the ways in which she understands, 'I love you Lego'.
This is what's up with me, it's not that great.

easter happened

I was woken Easter Sunday morning by a small child shaking me.

'Pinkie-swear Mummy, pinkie-swear you're not the Easter Bunny.'

Hungover AF (we were in Hermanus, with friends, we'd celebrated a 50th the night before, there'd been a very excellent Taiwanese whiskey), I groped through my remaining brain cells.

'Pinkie-swear Mummy!' 

Little finger crooked in my face, big earnest eyes - this was serious.

I examined my conscious, and made a hasty decision. Actually yes, I could pinkie-swear I wasn't the Easter Bunny.

Was I fluffy? No. Did I zoom around the world planting chocolate eggs? No. Was I a fictional being? No. Although the whole experience did feel a little out of body tbh.

I wrapped my little finger around hers and shook it. 

'Pinkie-swear', I croaked.

The situation was nearly as awkward as a bell jar crammed with bunnies.

None-the-less, back home Easter happened in a far more adult and tasteful fashion.

ex-spike

For nearly 3 weeks I had a dead hamster in my freezer.

Spike, the innocuous grey and white dwarf hamster Frieda got for her 8th birthday, succumbed a few months short of the 2 years we were warned hamsters usually last.
I ... didn't really get the hamster thing. He was kinda cute, very soft, but more likely to bite one on the sensitive web of skin between your thumb and forefinger and leave a string of turds down the front of your shirt than anything else.
His cage ponged and his wheel squeaked all night.
We had to keep the girls bedroom door closed all the time for bull terrier and cat risk.
Except for the couple of times we didn't.

Spike's most noteworthy achievement, in his small life, was to not once but TWICE ward off attack by voracious bully. Orca just couldn't resist that little guy.

#hamsterwatch

Very possibly the stress contributed to his shortened life span. Spike got steadily more crabby and less lovable. His fur lost its lustre and that wheel didn't squeak as energetically at night. One morning I realised he was really not happy. I called the vet to warn him I'd be bringing in a hamster for euthanasia, I prepared the girls (home for the holidays and remarkably - worryingly? - unfazed), I kinda berated myself for not being butch enough to just hold a ball of socks over the little guy's face until it was over, but call me 21st century soft if you will, I just couldn't do it.

And by the time I got upstairs to fetch him it was basically all over. He was lying in the sawdust, in a coma I think, occasionally a limb twitched but he seemed peaceful and that to move him would be more traumatic than to just close the door, tip toe away and come back later.

No more caged pets please.

Husband felt we needed a proper burial and so, in a box and a bag, into the freezer went Spike.
And then we forgot to bury him.
And the next night we all got home too late.
And the next day is was raining, or something.
And then it was rubbish day and I informed the family I was going to send Spike off in that great wheelie-bin to the sky.
And then I forgot.
And then the next rubbish day was Easter Monday and we were away.
And then finally, today, after that box had been opened a couple of times by morbidly fascinated children, after I'd shuddered more than once getting ice for a drink or scratching around for supper makings, after we'd had a very naughty but delightfully squirmy imagining about a ... hamster smoothie ... I managed to get him out, in time for rubbish collection.

RIP Spike.
No more caged pets.

lately

Our new (to us) Flying Dutchman sail boat is moored off the lawn, all the shiny bells and whistles clapping in the wind. Well done, well done.
Husband spent the WHOLE of Sunday rigging it and at 18:30, as the evening drew in, we set off on our maiden voyage - a fast clip around the lake. And this in just a light breeze! We LOVED it!
Nearly 5 yrs on and life at the lake still has adventures in store.

I could do without the tinkling though, we're going to have to do something about that ...

Our little dog Lego is in tatters ... she went under the knife yesterday to have two cancerous growths removed and she looks like she's been in a dog fight with a hatchet :-(
We've not had the pathology results yet but we're hoping the vet got it all and that we still have much more time with this sweet furkid.
She really looks like Frankenweenie now ...

Recovery includes treats with her meds, grated apple served to her in bed and lots and lots of snuggle time on the couch (which means I've been watching a lot of TV!).

There's another new baby!

He's not a blood relation this one, but as close as ... first son to some of our dearest friends.

We're coming to the end of the first school term of the year. It's been a long one and the girls are tired. So am I. Not that there's a holiday in the works for me, I'm got an event on in Joburg in two weeks time, but ... just the not having to wake early on these ever-darkening mornings will bring some relief.

But we did get out of town a couple of weekends back - a short mums and kids camping trip to one of our favourite places. It was hellishly hot and the time flew by in a haze of endlessly refilling juice bottles and reapplying sunscreen but we spent a lot of time in the softest, most delectably gentle and soothing mountain river water I've ever known, which made it all worthwhile.
I took no photos.
We've done this a few times before, no-husband camping trips, and I must say we love it. Not that we don't love camping with our partners, but there is something simpler about girl-camping - feed the kids, eat crackers and cheese, go to bed early with our books. OR feed the kids, eat crackers and cheese, sit up late 'round the fire drinking wine and cackling.
My favourite thing about it is showing my kids that we can. Pitch tents, light a fire, handle a massive thunderstorm and unexpected rain (that happened). That we can drive off-road and jump start a car and you know, be ballsy. Except is it not the most unfeminist thing ever to think you have to prove that you can? I'm so tempted always to tell the girls: Look, look what we're doing, aren't your mum's awesome? But I don't.
Far better to just do it right? To just let this be a normal thing for them.
I do hope they remember though, I hope taking their kids on road trips and camping without waiting for a man to be available to accompany them, I hope this will just be a normal thing for them too.

Oh and one last thing, a Pixies concert.

A throwback to our wild youth on a magnificent summers evening in the most beautiful garden in the world, surrounded by many friends - from then and now - listening to a bunch of aged rockers as tight and magnificent as they were then.

There was magnificent merch too.