my year of bike

One evening in January I was on my second (maybe third, it was January) glass of wine when Husband saw a notice for a 'Small Bike Ride' the next day. Bikes under 250CC only.

That's perfect for the Madass he mused...

I messaged the organisers and signed up for the ride, woke the next morning feeling queasy and silly with apprehension and then got on the road and met a team of scooters heading south for coffee.

It was weird and nerve-wracking and I spent most of it feeling like a little old lady, but by later that day I'd had lots of compliments on my weird little Sachs Madass 125, met a bunch of fun people, and was on a whatsapp group of women riders.

For the next couple of months I joined them on the occasional Tuesday for a glorious ride after work, in the late summer evenings.

One of the most memorable taking us to Hout Bay harbour where we met this tame seal and the dude who wrangled him to pose with tourists or in this case, bikes.

In March, a bike weekend away! 150kms out of Cape Town - all tar - and with our friends meeting us there by car so they ferried our luggage - a cheat by real biker standards.

Getting more confident every day I more consciously started working bikes into my errands and meetings schedules - looking for those gaps where I could take a bike - a magical trifecta of no kids, no groceries, no wine...

I even, in a desire to improve my confidence off-road, got talked into buying a mid-size, lighter scrambler... turns out it's much too tall for me - even after adjustments - but weirdly it's still in our stable, being ridden by Husband and loaned to friends - and giving our eldest ideas...

Later in the year we took the Triumphs all the way (by trailer) to a friend's Karoo farm and I had some fun practising offroad and bashing around on the farm.

The best (bike) fun was on our return though. We had car trouble (not fun) and limped into town until about 15km from home, where we decided we couldn't push it anymore and pulled over to call for tow truck support before it got dark.

But we did have two motorbikes.

Leaving Husband with the girls I got my bike off the trailer and tore home through the traffic, to collect our other car to tow the trailer in and ferry girls and luggage home.

Mummy hero!

And then the best ride of them all...

Clarence Drive is biker heaven. A beautifully built, winding coastal road with a smooth surface and perfect design.

It was incredible riding it. Miraculously we had no traffic going our way. No cars to come up behind or anyone breathing down my back to get moving. I took every corner just the way I wanted to - fast or slow - and could really settle into the moment in all it's scenic glory. 

I feel like it was a moment I'll remember forever.

That ride was on the way to our raffle-ticket-win weekend away. 180km this time, a mix of fast, busy national road, beautiful coastal riding, through small towns and across bridges, and down a steep gravel section - me paddling down it at one stage, yelling at Husband why am I such a pussy??! while he giggled gently through our helmet comms and murmured encouraging words from the bottom of the hill.

We had luggage this time. Packed the bare minimum from home and stopped twice - once for a massive steak and then in the last closest town for necessities like milk, chocolate, beer and mince pies, before riding the last stretch through sunset weighed down with goodies, heading to our lux cabin in the fynbos for two days of bliss - all the cliched free as a bird biker tropes playing with the breeze through my helmet.

I've had my license since 2018, but just this year I feel like I got my wings.

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??

growth

Have you also spent this last month looking at your kids, your pets, your home, your things and thinking what the actual fuck would I do with all of these if we had to flee?

Then doom-scrolling some more about the devastation in the Ukraine, making a comment about Zelenskyy being the hottest short guy in the world right now and going back to living your hyper-blessed life in your own deeply problematic and damaged country on this here burning planet?

What a time to be alive.

Because we are. We are alive and the wheel turns in the same ways it always has - the tide ebbs and flows.

Stella turned 12!

She planned her celebration down to the last detail, the group and the activities and the timings. We went to an indoor trampoline park - and took this 'album cover' photo on the way out - and then home to ours for pizza and movies and cake and a sleepover. 

I realised halfway through the evening that she wasn't doing great but she fiercely batted away all my queries, only the next day having a big sob about how she'd missed us at her party (us who were there throughout but just in the background making pizza and beds in the lounge) and wished it had just been the family at home and felt sad about one day living without us.

12 is hard y'all, that bridge between childhood and teen-dom is shaky and unknown and excitement for the future still so tightly bound to nostalgia for something which is not yet even really in the past. This photo was more prophetic than we'd realised.

Frieda - further along that bridge - went to her first big proper outdoor party recently, with DJ's and multiple dance-floors and cashless food trucks and (temporary) tattoo vendors. 

It was 13 - 18 year olds only, obviously no booze etc and heavily monitored (these parties are big business these days), but her first time alone in a big crowd with just her mates, her wits and (hopefully) her mother's voice in her ears ... 'trust your gut', 'stick with your friends', 'call me if you need to' and 'most importantly have fun'.

We were being very cool about it all, but as I drove away from dropping her off at a friend's to get ready I was surprised at how emotional I felt, and later - much later - when I'd fetched them from the party at midnight - hoarse, filthy and shiningly happy - and we were back home for tea and toast before bed she confessed to also feeling a small wobble as I'd driven away that afternoon.

The umbilical cord stretches, stretches very very far, but never breaks.

We rode off on our motorbikes last weekend for a grown ups trip up the coast.

As we packed the girls off to friends and grandparents for the weekend they both, separately, sincerely, and with no prompting, told us to have a really good time, to have fun, to enjoy the ride and the time away.

Is there any greater confirmation of parenting goals than your kids being lovely people - to you, their friends or themselves? I don't think so.

We spent the weekend at the edge of the ocean - reveling in the quiet and unstructured quality of time spent without any dependents, wondering at the luck of living in a place where even average middle-class folk such as ourselves can access places of such exclusive beauty, knowing that for the accident of birth us, and our children, could be leading totally different lives.

Watching the full moon Solstice tide ebb and flow, ebb and flow.. feeling tiny amongst the enormity of it all.

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!

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.

the ups and downs of October

This post is to filed under 'diary'. I need to record this last crazy month for myself, for the record.

I've come here so often with an opening line, a thought or an observation, but the back story has always been so enormous - October's stories have been enormous - that I've either shied away or the next thing has happened before I could finish writing/processing about the last.

Emotional ro-la-co-stah. I'm tired just thinking about writing about it.

October is a beautiful month (which month isn't really right?), but this one has brought some pain.

On the 1st of the month one of my very best friends was admitted to hospital after weeks of what we all then thought was 'flu.

That weekend, beloved English cousins currently living in the States woke to the news that their 23 year old son had died in his sleep.
Shock rippled around the world as we gathered in small digital huddles - on FB messenger, Whatsapp and eventually a Tribute Page - trying to cradle a family in unimaginable pain with words and images shared on these platforms, knowing that none of it worked as well as a hug, but that all the hugs in the world wouldn't heal their hearts.
When a healthy 23 year old guy dies in his sleep on a Saturday night there is one conclusion that everyone jumps to, and from the talk it does seem he lived a colourful life - partying and living it up in the film industry in which he worked.
But louder then that were the reams of words testifying to his gentle care of those he loved, his sense of humour, his intelligence, his diligence to his work, his magic touch with animals - all these words proven by the multitude of photos of him shared on the page, in each one of them he has his arms around someone.

I recalled so vividly the boys like him I knew at that age. Young, gorgeous, healthy young men who worked, had plans, took their jobs and their lives seriously, earned well, and partied hard. Those boys were the best friends a girl could have, watchful and caring, they were the most fun to have at a party, loud and gregarious and hilarious, they were generous with their love, their time and their drugs - and after a heavy night out they would go home to Sunday lunch and be the most attentive, genuinely devoted sons and brothers. They thought they were invincible.

So many are lost in grief at his passing.

On the 4th we celebrated our 13 year wedding anniversary.

It was a magic evening, warm and golden and still. We'd made no plans, but that afternoon I remembered two bags of prawns in the freezer, a bottle of very fine wine we'd been saving, a box of creme brulee magnum ice-creams I'd seen at our local store ... I lit the fire and watched the girls play wildly on the lawn as we waited for the sound of his motorbike arriving home.
We ate grilled prawns 'til the butter ran down our arms, washed down with sublime wine, and grinned stupidly at each other over our daughter's heads. 13 years.

A couple of nights later we ditched the girls and went out for a proper grown-up dinner in our beautiful 'hood.

But still my friend was in hospital, and the news was not good. An inflammation of the spinal cord, a rare auto-immune condition, crippling pain and uncertainty about the path ahead.
Sobering updates as we rallied around her family, setting up an online meal roster to cook for them, a Whatsapp group to keep all those concerned in the loop.

I traveled to Pretoria for work. Twice.
Pretoria was hot, and dry, but magnificently purple.

Jacaranda trees were introduced a hundred years ago, blatant invaders from South America, for their beauty and their shade. They kind of hung around and once a year transform Pretoria from a fairly drab and run-down city to a psychedelic wonderland. Well played invaders.

The work was good, the people I met inspirational and fun.

Our country has had a hard month too. Our Minister of Finance is facing trumped-up charges of misconduct, leveled at him by a President fueled only by his greed. Our students are rising up to demand the education promised to them 20 years ago, and getting beaten in the streets by our dysfunctional police force. Our academics and universities are reeling from the damage - to their campuses and their careers. Our general public are split down the middle on a topic so complex that you can only see it in black and white if you're at the heart of a the struggle or being a total asshole. Their are a select few who are both.
It's a fucking mess.

The activists I was in Pretoria with were for the most part much younger than me, black and very active in education. We spoke at length about the current situation and it was so reassuring to me, a white, middle-class, (cough) middle-aged lady, to check in with them and find that we shared many opinions on these issues. It's easy when you live among your peers to believe that you're right. It's a gift to step out of that circle and find others, very different to you, who feel the same. I love my work for the worlds it opens up for me.

Back home and straight into a very special celebration. My Dad turned 70.

Which necessitated a party, with some of our dearest family friends, and a rainbow cake for the birthday boy, with ants on it - because he's all about the ants, about the ants, no spiders - according to one of his silly granddaughters.

And then another anniversary - a really BIG one.

On the 24th my man and I marked 25 years together - a silver anniversary - from bumbling high school sweethearts to married-up parents.
We celebrated with an enormous bunch of chinkerinchees, a bottle of bubbly and the gift of a vintage silver dollar from my parents. How exactly did I get this lucky?

And still ... my friend is in hospital. Still battling pain and an uncertain future, but still smiling when she can, still strong, still her.

This growing up thing is not for sissies, the realities of life and aging are hard and painful. But the love, the love just gets stronger and sweeter - and the knowledge that that is all that is important gets clearer every day.

This year has worn us out already - is it holidays yet?

24: our crown anniversary

24 on the 24th! Of October that was.

Yes, I know we just celebrated 12 years of marriage (if scones for breakfast, a walk in the woods and a Rooibos Chai ice-cream maketh a celebration - which in our world it totally does), but in October we also celebrate our real anniversary.

It all started here. (Well actually it started on my first day of high school but I've told that story before).
But the actual relationship started here, on this bench in September 1991.

And yes, I have a photo of The Bench - weird huh? Even weirder: I lifted it off a friend of a friend's Facebook page in September this year. The same bench, at the same time of year, 24 years later.
The dog has no significance..

Back to the story.
There was a beach party. There was a big fire and a big crowd, there was a boy home from his obligatory one year military conscription (this was 1991 remember?) and there was a girl who really liked that boy and was really hoping tonight would be the night he'd notice her.
He did.
There was a walk to the bench and an awkward silence and an awkward kiss and then some even greater awkwardness when a bunch of assorted friends swooped in through the darkness to tease the young couple. It was awkward and silly and yeah I'm cringing a little right now.
But I remember what he was wearing. I remember the sound of the sea in the blackness. I remember those white West Coast daisies scattered about like little stars underfoot.

And I will never forget how, a month later, he came home again, and phoned me at home on a Friday afternoon and asked if he could come over. How we went for a walk and he said he'd not stopped thinking about me since that night at the beach. How he asked me to be his girlfriend (it was 1991 remember??) and then came back to mine for dinner.
I remember my youngest brother (the one who got married this year) was little enough to be in his pyjamas at the dinner table. I remember (and still appreciate!) how cool and relaxed my parents were. I remember we had potato salad and there was an enormous bunch of chincherinchee on the table.

That was the 24th of October 24 years ago.

12

I only realised when I picked up my phone to check Instagram before getting out of bed that it was the 4th.

Charl had gotten up earlier with the girls (Sundays are my days to sleep in). I crawled into the shower where a small person found me and announced: 'Daddy's making scones!'

'Anniversary scones?' I inquired of him when I came downstairs.

He blanked, and then quickly recovered, 'Yes of course love, happy anniversary!'

So we had scones for breakfast, and mocked ourselves about how most people arrange weekends away and dinners out and fancy gifts for their wedding anniversaries.
We forget, and then recover and just have a normal day.
And then remembered that a normal day is the best kind of day to celebrate.

After scones there was some lawn-watering which turned into some child-spraying and screeching. Then there was some moaning and temper-flaring and wrangling into shoes and warm tops and collars and leads.
There was an epic forest walk with mud and misty mountain rain and coughing fits and dog shenanigans and poo on shoes and mushroom-spotting and pine-cone collecting.
There was some special treaty ice-cream after.
Back home there was a family Monopoly challenge which the girls eventually tired of and drifted off leaving he and I to fleece each other with much capitalistic glee.
Then there was TV time (for them), and meal prep time (for us).
There was gin & tonic and braai politics. There was an epic potato salad and another G&T and a salsa to which we may have added too many chilies to make it kid friendly. It was delicious.
There was sunset from the lawn with flying birds and cavorting dogs and wood smoke.
There was some hilarity over dinner which may have led to some vaguely inappropriate You Tube clips involving monkeys and smelly fingers.
There was hair-washing by Dad and hair-drying by Mum.
There was a small person who made a nest in our bed while her sister was being blow-dried and fell asleep there.
Later there was constructive input on my latest collage project and some deep and meaningful stuff about career paths.
There was some couch-potato-ing and some Monday prepping.

Last thing before I headed upstairs I freshened up the flowers I bought myself on his behalf last week. And while I did so I realised that it had been a perfect day.
A 'if-this-was-our-last-day-on-earth-it-couldn't-have-been-more-perfect' day.

A 'this-is-the-kind-of-day-I-dreamed-about-at-the-altar' kind of day.

It's been 12 years of days like this.

wedding in paradise: part one

part one: the getting there

10.
10 is the number of vehicles it took to get the 4 of us and our camping trailer/tent to and from my youngest brothers wedding.

Our Jeep literally blew a gasket 2/3 of the way there. Leaving us hot and pissed off at a small filling station late afternoon Friday. It felt bleak until we realised that the carloads of dread-locked ukulele-playing smiling people pulling in around us were going the same way - to the wedding!

We shared orange ice lollies and break-down stories and 'how do you know so 'n so's' until my middle brother and sister-in-law pulled in - unlikely cavalry in their small red car stuffed full of hired sound gear.

The garage was managed by a small town gem, a friendly guy who seemed to want nothing more than to get us back on the road. He quickly arranged for us to hire a buddy's big Colt bakkie for the rest of the journey and enthusiastically started helping to unhitch the trailer.
When his eagerness resulted in the jockey wheel coming off in his hand, he quickly arranged for another buddy to pop round with his welder, while Husband looked ready to blow a gasket of his own and my brother and I stifled an extremely ill-timed and unadvised fit of the giggles.
This was back when we were still laughing.

We elected to send the girls on ahead with my brother. We knew Granny was waiting at the wedding destination and as it was getting late and we'd been on the road for 4 hours by then we thought it best to get them out of the equation.
Thank god we did.

Having swapped the girls for all the sound gear they set off, the welder got to work and shortly after our back-up vehicle arrived.
It was ... dodgy, to say the least.
Back on the road we wiggled and jiggled, reminding ourselves that we didn't have much further to go, grateful for being back on the road.

The sun was properly setting as we turned off the tar and on to the winding gravel road - a good 45 minutes 'til we got there.
Maybe longer, we thought, as the Colt repeatedly jumped out of gear on the corrugated dirt, the trailer sliding and drifting alarmingly behind us.
Things were tense, and stifling hot in the cab, all the windows closed against the billows of dust, visibility poor and tinged blood-red from the last of the dusk. I was grateful I couldn't really see the immense drop at my side.

Up the last big hill, up and up, gears jumping, engine whining, trailer balking. We knew the Colt could do it but 'can you see the needle for the temp gauge?' Husband shouts above the rattle.
Up and up we push, both his hands on the wheel, mine on the gear stick, eyes jumping between the road and the dash. 'Where the fuck is the fucking needle??'
And then flatly, 'Nevermind' as clouds of steam emit from the bonnet, white and starkly visible against the orange and brown of dust and despair.

The Colt blew a gasket 11 km from our destination.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

I hitched a lift in with more wedding guests passing by and a kind uncle and hero brother went back to fetch Husband and the trailer.

My beloved mother had fed and bedded our children. Someone made us cups of tea and silently delivered them to us, pitching our tent in the dark.
Husband went straight to bed, deaf to the djembe drums and reminiscent laughter around the campsite.

I should have done the same, already on my first set of meds for pharyngitis and broken from the days challenges, but I needed to unwind a bit and instead walked softly around the campsite in the dark, gazing up at the stars, enjoying the soft mountain air and getting excited for the real business of the weekend: the wedding!

to be continued ....

how to torment your husband

The back gate is slamming in the wind.

It's after dark and there needn't be any conversation about who is to go out and secure it. Husband knows my fear.

But yet he's stalling, as the gate crashes closed over, and over. And over.

So it starts going something like this ...

Gate: SLAM
Me, on couch next to husband: 'Slam.'
.
.
Gate: SLAM
Me: 'Slam.'
Gate: SLAM
Me: 'Slam.'
Gate: SLAM
Me: 'Slam.'
.
.
Gate: SLAM
Me: 'Slam.'
Gate: SLAM
Me: 'Slam.'
.
.
.
.
Gate: SLAM
Me: 'Slam.'
.
.
.
.
.
Gate: SLAM
Me: 'Slam.'
Gate: SLAM
Me: 'Slam.'

This may be how domestic violence happens.

Luckily not in our household.

party on wayne

We didn't even unpack the car.

That's how hardcore we were.

We pulled up to the farmhouse late, our friend the Birthday Boy came out to greet us, we grabbed his gift and a bottle of whiskey and were swept inside.
A room full of friends, food, freedom and wine.

The next morning - after the lamb, the champers, the shooters, the laughs, after the speeches and glass breaking, the dancing, the laughing, the remember-when'ing and the ridiculous hugs - the next morning, after the coffee and the warmed-up roti's and the slow patching together of what happened, when and to whom, after we relit the fire and regrouped and rebooted, a couple of explanatory phone calls, surprisingly few (thank god) photos and some promises to Never Mention That Again - we walked back out to the car and drove home.

Those toothbrushes we packed, and night cream and undies and fresh pillowcases and alternative shoes and phone chargers - they spent the night in the car because we didn't need that shit.

It was like children were never even invented.

the gender divide

Funny story.

This last weekend, while my girlfriends (it is one word isn't it?) and I were gleefully sitting down to a magnificent salad-medley lunch while camping, and giggling at how unimpressed our assorted husband-types would be ...

... my husband-type, alone at home with the puppy, was sending us this text message.

Sometimes I wonder how heterosexual relationships can possibly work long-term. Culturally, emotionally, genetically - the differences between men and women seem so vast that on paper it seems like a very bad idea.

But realistically it works for so many of us, and surely acknowledging our differences, and making time to celebrate them apart, is one of the keys to that success.

notes from 1993

It seems a theme is developing. Building on my ample time to resurrect old memories while crippled earlier this year, yesterday I opened an old memory box and pulled out a bunch of diaries from the 90's.

At first I thought my weekend would be consumed by them, but after randomly picking up a 1993 edition and immersing myself in my 18th year, I think I'll work through them more slowly.
So much to remember, so much to learn.

21 years later, that Molly, the 1993 version, has shown me ...

That she would be so, so happy to know that she is now married to Charl. That they have two little girls and a wonderful life.
In 1993 I'm still counting down our anniversaries in months, and my weeks hinge around seeing him again.

That I have always been creative.
I know that obviously. I have my means of expression (birthday cakes being right up there), but I've also always had friends who create for a living - beautiful handmade things - and I suspect that has prevented me from taking myself seriously, or made me vaguely apologetic for the very homemade nature of my handwork.

That I spent very few weekends and holidays at home. As an adult daughter, and a parent, this sobers me, but I have also been reminded about so many good times with wonderful friends ... foundation-building times, for friendships and myself.

If I'm bored I don't make the effort. I've often regarded this as a character flaw but you know what, I've always been like this. My school results from first quarter 1993 will confirm - winging it in English and History, barely scraping through the rest.
Life's too short you know?

I'm always telling a story. There's a narrative, a bunch of sub plots, character definitions, scenery, atmosphere to every experience I have. I'm telling myself as it happens and I rewrite and hone in my subconscious for long while after.
So why the fuck aren't I writing this stuff down?
There are clippings for writing competitions stuck all over 1993, I don't recall entering anything to any of them. Have I been carrying the same writer's block for 21 years? No wonder my fucking ankles are going.

That I was happy. As grown as I felt, I can see now that despite being 18, and world wise and clubbing and going on road trips and wearing big girl pants, I was still at school, living with my parents. From 2014 I still look very much like a child.

But I was strong, and confident and adventurous too, and this pleases me. My god, 18 was fun.

sad and sticky

I'm not ready to talk about Mandela.

Friday was a big day, and I've spoken about my sorrow here before. When I remember that he's gone my heart feels like a balloon, hollow and tight, a feeling I thought was reserved for losing someone closer to me.
Turns out he was that close, to us all.

It was a weekend of comforting things, I'm glad for that.

Husband has a fantastic relationship with food. He loves to eat it, but more especially (as Stella's nanny used to say), he loves to make it.
He cooks, or bakes, to relax. To experiment, to learn, to laugh. To eat.

He grew up in a house in which home-made was a matter of fiscal and domestic pride, his parents were great canners and preservers. They were into food too.
One of my favourite stories from his childhood is how my in-laws used to make their own stash of individual pies. A towering stack of silver foil pie dishes were procured, and a great pie-making project begun - everything from the crust to the filling made from scratch, the completed products stacked in the freezer with pride.
Mostly made from the foods they grew, reared, or ... caught.
Apparently tortoise pie is not to be recommended.

But home-steading's in the genes and over the years he's perfected his bread-making skills, researched and made exotic things, and 'put by' a fair amount of goodies - from pies (pork and fennel for us thank you), to jams and relishes and currently, ginger and buchu beer.

After brewing it all weekend, we bottled it up a couple of hours ago. A couple of hours later, and we've just finished mopping up our sticky kitchen and releasing the pressure on the remaining bottles.
It's fiery stuff this ginger beer.

Making stuff, using our hands, filling our bellies - this is how we find comfort.

caffeine fix(ated)

Our coffee machine died a few weeks ago. It was our first co-habiting appliance, bought in 2000 - it had a pretty good run.

Over the years, as our coffee appreciation grew, we'd started using a stove-top Bialetti to make the brew, and kept the great black behemoth of a coffee machine out purely to steam and froth milk.

Then it packed up and we were without The Foam. This was a BFP (big farking problem).

And boy, did it open a can of worms.

In the last few weeks I kid you not when I say we've spent more time talking about coffee, coffee machines, how to get the best head (shut it), beans v ground, latte art etc, than anything else.

You Tube clips have been watched, product reviews have been read. Emails have been sent, experts consulted, machines have been bought and returned, arguments have been had and coffee-drinking habits have changed significantly - all this in pursuit of the perfect cup of home-brewed coffee.

Because it seems this is the most important thing happening in our lives right now.

This afternoon, when I called Husbandguy from the shops to consult (yet again) about which type of coffee I should buy I commented (yet again) on the ridiculous amount of time and energy we were putting into this. Never mind that we're facing A MAJOR MOVE in 10 days time.

His response? Some people have religion to get them through stressful times. Some smoke, some do crosswords, some knit and some game.

We, it seems, have decided to deal with this particularly monumental moment in our lives by immersing ourselves in the dark brew.

Besides, we wouldn't be sleeping well now anyway right?

Blink. Blink.

4/10 things I lovetohate that you do

Many years ago I blogged the process of rehabilitating the fireplace in our house from it's gold-gilded, knick-knack besmirched existence to what I like to think is a much more stylish picture altogether.

It's a pretty fireplace but alas not a functioning one, when we bought the place we were told it was boarded up. I recalled something about the chimney cladding being damaged, I remember being horrified at the cost of chimney-sweeps, I even remember some ha-ha conversations about acquiring a monkey with a webcam to go in and assess the damage.

So imagine my gobsmacked surprise when last night, right in front of my eyes, eight winters later, the dude calmly removes the board blocking the flue and lights a fire.
Wha ... ?

I nearly lit a fire of my own.

Apparently every time he's suggested trying to light it in the past I've vetoed the suggestion for fear of filling the house with smoke and ash ... this I don't recall as clearly.
What I do know is that sitting in front of our own fire last night was heart-warming.

Thanks babe.

WARNING: BIRTH STORY! TMI! FOR SERIOUS!

[You know who you are: read at own risk.] 

It was nearly a year ago I got home from waddling round the mall to find my brother playing ball with Frieda in the front yard. I jokingly looked at my (non-existent) watch and told him to stand by for my water's breaking at 5pm.
Ha ha ha.

They did.

At 5pm my water's broke as I was frying sausages for Frieda's supper. I called my husband, on his way to get a haircut. He asked if he had time to get it done anyway, this being our second child of course I said yes.
I called my Mum to come and collect Frieda. Standing there leaking, sausages burning, I looked over to see Frieda standing in a puddle.
'I had a wee Mum.'
This should've been my first clue that I was soon to learn the real meaning of 'multi-tasking'.

By the time my Mum and husband got home I was contracting, seriously enough to be unable to talk while in the middle of one, grinning inanely and trying to pretend everything was dead normal for Frieda's sake.
We kissed and hugged our first baby goodbye, brimful with the knowledge she was completely unaware of, next time we saw her there would be two.

To hospital, contractions close and getting stronger, this much I remembered from last time.

But again, once we got there, the disappointing news that I'd not dilated at all. However this time we knew we wanted to stick it out, and we did.
The next few hours were ... interesting. If I can say that the most uncomfortable experience of my life was also one of the most precious to share with my husband, that I've never been in such pain, but also laughed as much, that I've never been so scared while simultaneously so excited, then I'd be telling a true story, but a weird one.
We worked in 15 minute increments to pass the time until my next examination at 11.30 pm. 15 minutes in the bath, 15 walking, 15 on the labour ball. During contractions I needed to be held, inbetween I wanted to be left the fuck alone. My husband was amazing.
Oy those contractions. The scariest thing about them was the inevitability. With period pains or stomach cramps one sometimes feels one starting, only for it to taper off or not be as bad as you expected. With labour pains the first twinge means it's a-coming, and it's going to be as bad as you anticipate, if not worse.
A rubber mallet swung at full force into your spine while a knife blade is plunged and twisted into your stomach. There's no position you can find to alleviate them, nothing to do but breathe. Breathe and try to find a calm place within the onslaught, relax your shoulders, breathe into the pain. Truer words were never spoken.
And then it stops, and you're totally ok. Like have a chat, have a wine gum, make a joke ok. Crazy shit man.

11.30 pm check up. Nothing happening.
Nothing where it should be that is, plenty was happening outside let me tell you. By now I was losing my sense of humour, spitting wine gums across the room, cursing, whimpering, caught in this thing over which I had no control, no way but forward, no way of knowing what the time-line looked like, the only certainty being we were nowhere near the end.
12.30 am. Nothing happening.
Oh except the vomiting. And the exhaustion. 'Til now I'd been trying new positions for each contraction, trying to stay active in the moment. My husband, my dearest, my light, showing limitless creativity in his suggestions of how we tackle the next one. But now I was done. I couldn't get up, I couldn't spend one more minute on that fucking labour ball, I didn't want a chair, I didn't want a bath, I just. wanted. it. to. stop.
Or start for that matter. Let's move on, let's transition, let's have a frikkin' baby already!

That's when I heard the magic word: epidural. Hallelujah praise baby jesus yes fucking please.

Peace.

A weird peace. I feel nothing but I'm cold. A distant tremor like a train passing far away, a look on the monitor reveals a massive contraction, my toes tingle.
Husband dozes in a chair, I feel ill, disembodied and, inevitably, guilty. I can see from the baby monitor that my girl is in there, now working alone. She's riding those waves while I watch from the shore.
The nurse comes in and puts another blanket over me. 'Try get some rest,' she says, 'we'll check again at 3. Try get some rest my dear.'

I think I must've dozed off for I wake with a start. And a panic. My legs, totally immobile, are flopped together, I need to move. I need to move my legs. I need to move my legs!
Panic rising in my throat, I put all my energy into keeping my voice steady, calling for my husband. Poor guy wakes, totally disorientated, and by the time he gets over to me to adjust my position the nurse has arrived too.
She examines me and grins. 9 cm dilated! Game on! My heart surges anew with adrenalin and enthusiasm. I'm transitioning, my body's caught up, we're going to have this baby!

But then, an ominous beeping from the monitor - she's in distress.. The nurse calls my doctor. It's 4 am. The four of us, him on the other end of the phone line, wait and watch the monitor. Her heartbeat dips again. Doc says he's coming in and through a haze of emotional overload I realise he's asked the nurse to call in the standby theatre team.
He's there in minutes, examines me himself, checks the monitor readings, gives us the news.
I'm well dilated.
But she's not engaged.
And she's not happy.
And as I've had a c-section before, he thinks it's time to call it quits.
Though I'm sure he didn't actually use that word.

5 am by the time we got up to theatre. The hospital was still and quiet. My long-haired anesthetist joked that he thought he'd sorted us out hours before with the epidural. Then he noted, just for interest sake, that my heart seemed to miss every 4th beat. Funny guy. Not.
But they were a nice team, put us at ease and, as is always the case with c-sections, it felt like mere minutes after being wheeled in that they were passing me a funny, creamy, oh so warm little thing with one wild rolling eye-ball and a deeply suspicious expression.
Apparently I turned to my husband and said, 'Aw let's have another one.'

Nearly 11 months later I most definitely do not want to have another one, but I can still recall the feeling of each moment of that wild, wild night. The pain, the fear, the excitement and of course, the joy.

And now I've finally gotten it written down for prosperity. Sorry y'all!

27 dec 2010

One last Christmas present,
~ a few hours childcare from my parents
~ a bike ride round the Peninsula with my babe
~ an exquisite seafood lunch
~ a reminder that I live in a beautiful place, and am loved by beautiful people.

21 dec 2010

He's been wearing glasses for as long as I've known him. He got his first pair when he was 11. Today we got him new eyes for Christmas.
And his first ever pair of sunglasses.

2/10 things I lovetohate that you do

These boots. Can we talk about them?

These reinforced steel-plated biker boots exclusively designed to protect your toes.

Can we talk about my toes? And the semi-permanent damage done to them by falling over these boots countless times?

Can we talk about putting these goddamn boots AWAY? Like, in a CUPBOARD?

Thanks babe.