anniversary reaction

Apparently it's a real thing, unconscious feelings and memories which come floating up to the surface as the world turns round the sun and you approach the annual anniversary of some significant life event.

In a few weeks time it'll be a year since we moved from Observatory. One whole year.

It took me a long time, and a little (teeny weeny) bit of therapy to adjust to the change of moving. I'm a bit wussy like that.
And while my house definitely feels like my home, and our environs grow more familiar each day, my roots are still just laying on the surface of this end of town - happy, well hydrated, but not rooted, not yet.

I suddenly find myself missing having my brother and sister-in-law down the road terribly again. Missing the easy access to friends in the area. Missing the throb and life of that wild 'n murky part of town.

I find scribbles in diaries and in notes on my phone which I've made over the last year ...
'Obs vibrant and ugly, here beautiful but static.'
'Surprising people versus surprising environment.'
'15 yrs in Obs to turn into a Town Mouse, now not sure what kind of cheese I like at all.'

We spent a fair bit of time there this weekend. We saw dear ones, celebrated a birthday, witnessed the aftermath of a mugging, navigated the tiny streets, had some junkies asking for handouts, laughed and reminisced and admired the pinky evening light against proud Victorian eaves. I loved it.
But it no longer feels like mine.

I guess that's okay - normal, healthy, important.

But I miss my brother.

And I miss this kind of thing, we don't get this in our new part of town ...

here's me

It sucks great big hairy donkey nuts that I'm not posting here anymore. I need this space more than ever, and I keep telling myself I've not time to be here.

Truth is I don't have time to be anywhere right now so why discriminate?

I've learnt and re-learnt some truths about myself in the last couple of months.

1. I can't relax if there's nothing pending.
I had this problem when I was free-lancing, but it made more sense then. If I didn't have a job lined up I couldn't enjoy my down time for worrying about it. As soon as I got a booking, my down time disappeared and I beat myself up for not using it more wisely.

But I discovered during the weeks when our house was on show and closer to perfection than it (or any house in the future) will ever be again, that I couldn't relax.
There was no piles of clutter requiring my attention, no shit-hole of a study spewing chaos into my head-space, no DIY project half-done and nagging for attention. Nothing but clear, calm, immaculately styled (well, relatively) space and I hated it. It made me restless, and nervous, and weirdly ... unproductive.

Suffice to say since the day we sold the that picture changed, rapidly, and now in the midst of half-packed, half-sorted, half-assed houseness, I'm zinging with creativity.
And have no time to indulge it.

2. I suck at change.
Yeah, this one wasn't really a surprise either. You know those anxiety attacks I had before Frieda was born? Yup, I had a couple more of those.
And although I could draw up a pretty comprehensive list of where the anxiousness was coming from, truthfully there was only one source: shit was changing and I didn't like it.

While part of me is glad this whole house-selling/buying, transfer, packing, moving process is a process, I can't help but wonder if it all happened in a week whether it wouldn't be easier on the emotions.

3. Living in Obs makes me feel cool.
And moving to an area which has a reputation for being exclusive and wealthy makes me feel uncool.
At the beach the other day (where we did this which was totally cool), I was hesitant telling people where we were moving to - concerned that they'd assume we were ... what? Wealthy? Snobs?
Then all the way home I laughed at myself remembering the few times I'd felt embarrassed telling people we lived in Obs - concerned they'd assume we were ... what? Hippies?
For fucks sake Molly, grow a spine.

4. I'm a soppy, nostalgic hoarder.
Seriously, you should see some of the stuff I've kept for years and years. I've been dutifully opening sealed boxes and sorting through them to ensure nothing surplus moves with us, and I've had a couple of good laughs at myself and shed more than a few tears at the things I've found.
(And I'm wildly excited to re-read a vast number of favourite books I've unearthed. In fact, I've packed them all into the same box - it's to go straight into our new bedroom and onto my nightstand.)
(Because of course we'll be unpacked and settled in mere days and then I'll have nothing to do but read read read.)
(Sob.)

5. Packing appeals to my neglected spatial awareness skills.
Many different sized boxes, many many many many different sized things. Throw both at me and I'll astound you with my feats of spatial manipulation.
I always was very good at Tetris.

floored

We bought them sight unseen.

My clearest memory of the show house was my husband walking from room to carpeted room bouncing gently on the balls of his feet.
'They're there,' he grinned. 'They're there and they're going to be beautiful.'

Once again, he was right. He has a good hunch for things.

We moved in a week before our wedding, and while I faffed with flowers and last minute arrangements, he channeled any pre-wedding jitters into tearing up the carpets, working late into the night before our big day.

the only - bad - before picture we have of this room when we first saw it

The next evening he carried me over the threshold, to a house filled with siblings and friends, flowers and joy and ... great big exposed tracts of glue-stained, dusty, hairy ... floor.
Extra-width Oregon Pine floor boards, gasping in the light they'd not seen for well over 30 years.

And so the work began. Carpet glue is a bitch. Ancient beetle-damage is a bitch. Sanding is a back-breaking bitch. But we did it.

And my god they are beautiful.

It's sobering to think we'll probably never live with such beautiful floors again. There are lots of wonderful flooring options out there for sure, and we're excited about experimenting with some of them (if/when/hold thumbs we move), but I don't think anything will ever come close to the warmth (to the touch and the eye), character, sound, feel, smell of original Oregon floors.
And I don't think we'll ever imbue so much love into flooring again. I'd have scoffed if anyone had ever told me I could love a floor, but I do you know. From the bottom of my feet.

This blog is about to get house-heavy. As we contemplate moving on, and look back at all we've done here, all this house has meant to us, I'm going to get sentimental. Brace yourselves.

not-so-super sleuth always gets her man

Seriously, this has been bugging me since October 2008 and I've finally got it!

I did a post then including some pics of street art from my neighbourhood. I love, love, LOVE the kids with the suitcase and I've finally found out who the artist is!

Gabriel Hope. Interview, and more pics of his work, here.

Some call him South Africa's Banksy. I say Banksy better watch out yo.

PS. Lynne, this one's for you.

walkies!

Colour me Katie did it first. And did it very nicely at that.



But the Balloon Dog is becoming a bit of an annual tradition for us too. Last year's puppy hung around for weeks, slowly deflating in weird and irregular ways until one day Frieda came to me with a small piece of shrunken brown plastic and declared it Time to Throw Balloon Dog Away.
An important milestone for a then 3 year old I thought.



Our new friend is however in his first flush of youth. Filled with exuberance and adventurous spirit he had his first walk around the neighbourhood this afternoon, checking out the sights and sounds of Observatory.
And the smells, oh boy the smells!
Much better than bobbing around the Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) stand at the Baba Indaba, that's for sure.

school fees

He started off with a random act of neighbourliness, a small gesture which clearly put me at ease and established him as a decent enough fellow.
And then, despite later discovering that there was a warning notice up at our local mini-mart and a number of items recently published in the local rag (which I never read), I fell for his routine like the famed fishie, and let him into our house which he left, 5 minutes later, with a cell phone. Not his own.

It seems he even used one of his standard stories, about needing to clear branches from the phone line behind our house. A brilliant tactic in the light of how harden we are towards tales of hard-times and hungry children, I never fall for those anymore but someone offering to make my life easier? Yes please.

He was personable, nice, pleasant to the kids. He spoke very fast, which rang a distant warning bell, but my charitable brain thought he was just a considerate guy not wanting to inconvenience his neighbours more than necessary.

When I reported the incident to the police I was told my report was one of three in our area this weekend - all sounding like the same guy. At least I'm not the only dumb-ass on the block, I'm in illustrious company with the chairperson of the Neighbourhood Watch no less. Now that's embarrassing!

School fees my husband calls it. The price paid for lessons learned. Sadly the lesson in this case is to be more suspicious, even of nice people.
It goes against my grain and I hate that it's a reality in my life.

Other realities of the weekend:
'Cos misery apparently does love company we also had no hot water for 48 hours  - bust geyser - and Stella popped 2 molars - no sleep for me.
But, because the world, and Observatory, is a place of eternal dichotomy, I was again reminded of how comforting it is to live in a community. I walked round to a friend's for a blissfully long soak in her bathtub at midday and lay there listening to the hum of her sewing machine. Later I walked the girls down to my brother's house to bath them. Every (legit) neighbour and friend we encountered was sympathetic and displayed that curious bent for humour we South Africans have developed for times such as these.
It's a funny old world.

And. The weather has been wonderful, I'm in flip-flops at 9pm, we had Cesar Salad for dinner, husband realised a dream purchasing a 1976 Honda cafe racer, we finally got a new ironing board, there's a week of fun ahead. Silver linings hey, gotta keep your eye on them.

annoying on so many levels

So last night, in a freakish replay of last week's events, I heard a distinctively ominous BANG at about 9pm. Calling husband I threw open the front door in time to see a hooded figure run across our front yard and jump the wall, taking off down the road.

Seems he'd tried to force our front security gate, hoping to gain access to the enclosed porch in which we keep our bikes - admittedly irresistible bait to the small-time criminal - in the process rendering the lock useless, and us captive in our own house.
Cunt.

Security company was duly called, more for procedure than any hope of pursuing the perp, and then our home insurers to book a locksmith for the morning. At which point we discovered that obviously in order to claim for the damages we would need a police case number, which of course meant having to formally report the incident.
And so, in what felt like a massive waste of the already massively-strapped SA Police Force's time and resources, we had two officers in our lounge last evening, taking my statement about nothing, and a visiting detective and a finger-print guy here today, practically doing nothing, all so we wouldn't have to spend R500+ of our own money on repairing our gate.
And they were all so nice and helpful and sympathetic, which almost made me feel worse. And even more annoyed with the would-be burglar.

I'm annoyed that this pathetic little junkie/opportunist/desperately hungry individual (I added the last one to create the illusion of lefty-liberalism, sneaky hey?) got within metres of my sleeping daughters.

I'm annoyed that my feelings of security in my own home have been shaken a little.

I'm annoyed that we now need to find alternative storage for our bikes when the porch was just perfect for them.

I'm annoyed that the key for the new lock is ugly.

And mostly I'm annoyed that my BULL TERRIER slept soundly on her chair throughout the entire event. So much for that!

everybody needs them

Good neighbours that is.

Late one night last week I heard the ominously distinctive noises of someone breaking into the house next door. I leaped from my warm bed, peered out the window, just in time to hear glass, a lot of glass, smashing.
It was so loud it even woke Husband. Yup, that loud.

We huddled in the shadows outside the front door, whispering details and our address to the security company on the phone, watching aghast as two figures in hoodies brazenly moved about in our neighbour's front garden.

It was cold, really cold, but we kept our posts, warmed by our conviction that we were assisting in bringing some bad guys to book.

Just before the security guards arrived we realised in distress that the burglars were readying to leave. They carried bags out to a waiting vehicle, parked just out of sight.
Husband crept out from our hiding place.
'They're leaving,' I hissed, disappointed. 'Get the reg number but don't be a hero!'

The car started up, bumped off the pavement and sped away. Giving us just enough time to read the slogan on the side:
24h Glass Repairs.

ADT Security roared round the corner, adrenalin-fulled armed guards jumping out, 'Did they come back?' they were shouting.
'Er ...'

Turns out our neighbours were broken into (for realz) a couple of hours earlier. The intruder/s made off with a DVD player. The cops were on the scene in minutes.
We heard nothing.

Everybody needs good neighbours. Even our neighbours.

un~be~lieva~ble

I found the spider.

On our bedroom ceiling at about 11 pm the other night.

There followed a funny sequence of events in which Husband tossed a shirt up at the offending beastie (we have very high ceilings), gingerly stuffed shirt into wastepaper basket and carried it out to the perimetre of the property where, quickly and with great skill, he attempted to flick the spider out into the street.
Of course, as in all good spider stories, we then had that moment where he got spooked and, convinced that the spider was on me, on me omg it's on me, he let go of the shirt. Necessitating opening the gate and carefully retrieving his (previously crisp white) shirt from the road, hoping all the time that the neighbours were indoors.
In his defense he didn't scream like a girl once.

***

My sister-in-law left for work one morning last week and found a R100 note lying on her front step.

When she got home that evening someone had taken a dump outside her living room window.

***

I met a 3 year old today who is so lacking in any kind of sweet tooth (no cake, chocolate, sweets etc) that he doesn't eat grapes 'cos they're 'too sugary'.

***

Last night Stella choked on the medicine I was trying to give her for her sore throat. In her Dad's arms, in the dark, she made a retching noise and he started hopping around making disgusted noises.

I was a bit annoyed - man up dude, it's just a bit of baby barf.

Turns out she'd not puked at all.

But the cat had earlier, and he'd just trodden in it.

***

I've got social plans for the next three evenings. Plans which involve leaving the house, probably in make-up, drinking wine and hanging out with awesome people.

A few months back in sleepless hell I'd not have believed this could be possible.

Life is funny. Funny ha ha and also funny strange.

there's an quote ...

... accredited to, amongst others, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya),

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.

I'm not sure who said it first,

Sign on massive church complex near our house.

But I think they were on to something.

street art

A new tattoo 'parlour' (why? why are tat shops referred to as parlours?) has opened in my 'burb. And it's causing a stir.

Located at the main intersection - renowned for moving in cred i bly slow ly - Tattoo has big open shop front windows, good lighting and all the action takes place right there, street side, so you never know what you're going to see while waiting for the light to change.

I'm told by those in the know that there is a back room should you not feeling like going under the gun in full public view, but from what I've witnessed in the last few weeks, there are many punters out there unabashed to be inked in public.
I did notice however, that soon after it opened the shop owners had someone put spikes up along the low external window sills, seems it became a gathering spot of sorts for the local indigent population keen on a bit of street theatre, I'm guessing there's a difference between being admired by passing motorists and leered at for the duration of your tattoo by a one-eyed guy smoking newspaper roll-ups and providing a running commentary in unspeakable language?

Anyhoo, it's a welcome change for us passing motorists after just having the one-eyed guy to look at for all these years.
I've seen some very special sights. No genital piercings as yet (though a friend saw a guy getting his nipple spiked - that's a traffic safety risk right there), but I've seen some nice work being done on some nice bodies. I've appreciated some rippling torso, a shapely calf or two, some very nice bicep. The tattoo artists themselves aren't too hard on the eye either ...
I've seen some serious slapper cleavage too though, a bit more cellulite than I'd like to while out buying the paper, not to mention some hairy shoulders. Eeeuuuwww.
Husband's still livid about the evening (tat shop's open from 1-10 pm) I saw a pretty young thing drop her shorts to expose a tiny g-string and a great ass. Now there's a fender-bender danger.

But my favourite sight was this evening's. A lithe young thing stretched out on the full length bench. Clad in jeans and a bikini top she was getting the colour-work done on a full back piece. She had two artists working on her, the shop's resident pit-bull (of course) sitting solemnly by their feet.
And just outside, hands clasped disapprovingly behind their backs, heads shaking and tongues no doubt cluck clucking, 3 elderly aunties, aghast at the antics of the kids of today, but unable to draw themselves away.
'What would her mother say if she could see her now tsk tsk tsk .... '

(wo)man's best friend

I'm not sure if this a southern hemisphere thing or just South African, but apparently someone (I have no idea who) decided in recent years to officially move the First of Spring from 1 Sept to 21 Sept, 'cos the weather's always so crap on 1 Sept that it was getting embarrassing ... (oh wait, I bet it was the Tourism Bureau who decided on the change, that'd totally be their style).

Anyhoo, after today I really can see why.

Still, warm, balmy, and at 7pm I took the dog for a walk in the gathering dark wearing Short Sleeves.

And here's where it's kinda nice to have a dog which looks really mean. 7pm. Gathering dark. Walking. Sadly not things a woman would usually do in my neck of the woods without a mean looking dog. And I wasn't alone.
I passed a number of women walking big dogs. Our eyes met. We nodded. Our dogs strained on their leads to touch noses. We were walking through the streets of Obs after sundown and we felt safe.

Sad maybe, but liberating none-the-less.

all over the place

That's me.

Did I mention I've been doing a second part-time job for the last few weeks? Too busy/lazy to read back and check, but I may have. 2 part time jobs (to be accomplished over 4 mornings a week), plus another Baby Show weekend (in Cape Town this time), plus a nasty, nasty winter cold, plus a cat who bizarrely got ulcers on the inside of her mouth due to excessive tartar build up on her teeth (have you ever ... ?), plus a toddler who decided to drop her daytime snooze (causing me to lose 3 hours in working time a week - don't try and work out how I got to that figure, it's complicated ... ), plus ... some other factors I'm not at liberty to divulge right now.

In short: fucking busy.

And even though I really should be doing something more constructive Right Now, I did a long overdue download from my camera this evening and found a bunch of random pics from the last couple of weeks. Pics not related to anything in particular really ...

Frieda and I have spent some rare sunny afternoons in our favourite place. The allure of the gardens has totally sky-rocketed after the discovery of the 'Elefint'. For some time now she's had an imaginary 'Elefint' friend - I think it's been embodied in this stone sculpture. We spend a lot of time talking about it ...

My fabulous friend treated me to lunch at Gordon Ramsey's new Cape Town restaurant a week or so ago. We had a super fun time being all snooty and critical - and giggling into our (frikkin yummy) breadrolls. In all honesty the Caeser Salads were the best we've ever eaten (and we've eaten plenty of caesers in our time), but the decor was crap - retro-Southern-Sun/Holiday-Inn-yuk-yuk-yuk - and the desserts? Tsk tsk tsk. Not up to scratch Gordon.
This was the exorbitantly priced 'Lemon Meringue Pie with Lemon Sorbet'. Yuk. Tasted like a microwave version thereof. The most exciting part was the meringue 'wand' you can see in the pic - how do they do that?

(oh but the good news is that Gordon's Caeser dressing recipe is available here - highly recommended ... )

And finally this, a note in a car parked facing the wrong way down our main street. It's quite sweet living in a 'burb full of students and hippies.

Best they hope they're luckier than that other car which parked in that same fateful space a few months ago ...

That's all I've got in me - one week to go 'til the second (and frightfully tiresome) job is over. One more week.

colourfast

Observatory is often referred to as 'colourful'. A nice word, a word used to paint over the exceedingly grimy cracks in this old suburb's facade. A bright and cheery word to describe a 'burb which could in all fairness also be called 'grimy', 'seedy', 'rough' and yup, let's be honest here: 'skanky'.
There are other nice words used by estate-agents and the like to describe this old Grande Dame of Cape Town ~ 'bohemian' is a favourite, 'diverse' is a nice trendy one, 'unique' is utterly transparent in its patronising glibness.

Obs is Obs, she embodies and defies all of the above labels, and warrants far more too, good and bad. But 'colourful' is the one she deserves the most, not least of all in the most literal sense of the word. Colour. Full.

 

  

  

  

 

She might not be no pot o' gold, but she's home. For now. 

pink garlic cake

And so Frieda's birthday celebrations begin!

The actual day is on Saturday, but as multiple celebrations are in order (her mother being a firm believer in The Birthday Week), we decided to stagger them so as to dilute all the attention/sugar/spoilings. Great theory until she wakes up on Monday expecting balloons and cake ... Oh well, I'm sure we'll have some leftovers ...

Anyhoo, so today the games began with Cake at the Park. Pink Cake as requested by Frieda's fabulous nanny, Sylvia. Sylvia only bearly tolerates that there's a very limited selection of pink items in Frieda's wardrobe, when it came to the cake I was instructed that only pink would do. So pink it was. With hearts. And sprinkles.

And garlic.

I think it may have been in the icing.
There's a small chance a knife, last used to chop a clove for supper, was inadvertently used to cut the butter for the icing. A tiny chance mind you, 'cos that's just not something a domestic goddess such as myself would do. No, never ...


No matter, cake was well received. Frieda had Happy Birthday sung to her in at least 3 of our 11 (eleven!) official languages and has gone to bed chattering non-stop about it all. Little does she know this is only the prequel.

I'm off to tackle those penguins ...

Oh and P.S. number 28!

'mutant' lemons

A little while ago I posted a pic of our fecund and burgeoning lemon tree, fat with fruit, ready for it's bi-annual explosion of more-lemons-than-one-(extended)-family-and-neighbours-and-random-strangers can eat.

That picture caused Julochka to comment on my 'ginormous mutant lemons'. That comment made me think about my lemons a bit more thoroughly, and that little think made me realise I got a whole post worth of lemon related trivia here. Brace yourself.

• our lemons are so prolific that my mother has been known to fill shopping bags and give them away to passing policemen
• I once lined lemons up all along our garden wall for passers-by to help themselves. They looked very pretty but few got taken. Do people really think there is no such thing as a free lunch?
• after Frieda was born we gave my obstetrician a 'Thank You Lemon Basket' - a gift purely of our own invention. It had a pretty ribbon on the handle
• we like to call our lemons 'organic'
• we suspect they could be that size 'cos they're growing over a septic tank
• my Mum says deep yellow lemons against a dark stormy sky is one of her iconic Cape winter images
• our whole backyard smells heavenly when the tree blooms
• our whole backyard smells frikkin awful mid-fruit when a bunch of lemons lie, rotting and inaccessible, on the roof of the shed
• our lemons have thick, knobbly skins so they're perfect for zesting
• this also makes them far superior to smooth-skinned, hot-house, shop-bought lemons
• those knobbly skins sure can collect a lot of grime
• our lemon tree has some mean-ass thorns and harvesting lemons is a hazardous task 

And yes, that's my one-of-a-kind absolutely divinely gorgeous Skinny laMinx bag in the background : )

writing on the walls

I've mentioned before how much I like living in a part of town where people paint on the walls. In a suburb of thinkers, students, activists and drama queens ~ many of whom seem to like to live out loud.

I've also said how I love that South Africans have such a strong tradition of political commentary, often expressed through satire. This trait kept many people sane through the apartheid years, and I'm pleased the trend still seems to be alive and well.

This professionally printed poster went up in a random shop window within days of South Africa refusing the Dalai Lama a visa, and remains there still.

Ja, wtf was up with that?? 

And then, just days after we got our new President (he of a dubious legal past), these went up all over the 'burb. 

And I had to include this one, also a new addition. A simple Peace sign. Nice.

Of course I nearly stood in dog poo twice while taking these pics, and I drove from site to site 'cos I didn't want to risk walking with my camera on my own. And I got some broken glass lodged in my shoe. 

But hey, sometimes I think I'd still rather bear all that than live in a suburb filled with fake Tuscan architecture and whiny middle-class whingers.

the (not so) little doggie who could

Our (not so) little pup is proving to be a wonderful addition to the family. 

[Moment of gracious deference to Husband's foresight and good judgement.]

In fact, I may even be so gushy as to say that a dog really makes a family, and could even have a completely archaic un-pc moment whereby I say something silly like 'family = moi + husband + child + dog'. But then I'll quickly reassure you with the knowledge that my mathematical ability is non-existent and that I'm radically pre-menstrual, so I'm not even vaguely to be trusted to make any kind of equations or say anything sound at this time. And also I'm getting this look from another highly valued family member so best I just STFU and move on. Ahem.

But what brought on this emotionally-charged little puppy love-fest? 

Yesterday our sweet and loving family pet turned into a ferocious barking scary beast from hell. And just when I was starting to wonder whether she had it in her ... 

On Friday I mentioned to my brother that I was a little concerned that she'd not shown any signs of aggression or defensive attitude. Obviously this is primarily a good thing, but I didn't agree to get a dog just for the company - lord knows I don't need any more of that - and I was starting to wonder if we'd lucked out with the soppiest bull terrier on the planet. My brother assured me that if Lego (le pup) thought for a minute that her turf or family were being threatened we'd see what she's really made of, and yesterday she proved her mettle. Big time.

Allow me to digress a little ... you may remember the neighbour with the avo tree? I've been watching the latest harvest growing fat on the er, tree, for some time now, biding my time til the fruits are ready for some surreptitious midnight harvesting (much to the disgust of Husband who likes to pretend he owns the moral high ground but will feast on those avo's as avidly as me when the time comes so there). The avo's are nearly there, a couple more days and they'll be perfect. So imagine my shock at seeing one of my other neighbours creeping along our wall yesterday morning on a stealthy avo-raiding mission of his own!

Not stealthy enough! Oh no, my lovable family pooch, on spotting an unknown figure atop the garden wall, turned into a bristling rabid fireball of manic barking and spitting outrage. The avo-thief very nearly toppled into her awaiting jaws from fright, our illicit avo supply was spared and the Very Brave Pup was rewarded with mega puppy treats and lavished with praise. As soon as I was brave enough to open the back door. Man, she was s-c-a-r-y.

Yay!

And the perfect time for me to gain faith in her guard-dog abilities - as Husband is off to Pakistan for Easter. Yup, 5 days in Karachi on business the poor dude.

I don't have high hopes for Pakistan's Easter egg supply ... But at least I'll sleep easy while he's away knowing that Lego the Lion-Hearted is On Guard.

the dog debate

It's been raging in our house for some time.

Husband is keen, super keen. Me, I'm conceptually into the idea, but the reality... not so appealing. It's the logistics which concern me (obviously, as always, ad finitum blah blah blah); where will this dog poop? how often? who will pick up his/her poop? how often? where will this poop be disposed of? how often? ~ I think you can tell what my main cause for concern is? After 18+ months of literally dealing with someone else's shit, I'm oddly not that keen to take on another being who can't use a flush-loo...

And then - where will it sleep, what will it eat, where will it go for walks (and again, how often?), who will walk it, who will keep it from eating the cats, who will stop the cats from brutalising it, who will keep it from slobbering Frieda to death, who will keep Frieda from pulling it's ears until it's enraged to the point of maiming her for life. I think we all know the answer to most of the above questions... [clue: he/she works from home...]

But I do like the concept. We always had dogs when I was a kid, I love the companionship, I think Frieda will love one (once she's worked out the parameters of acceptable behaviour) - she's getting too strong to romp with the cats so a puppy seems the next obvious step - and then....

... I was awoken early this morning (light already, about 6am) by the sound of someone trying to get through the garden gate outside our bedroom. I crept through to the lounge and looked out the window to see the head and shoulders of a man on the inside of our wall, trying to get out. 

I called the amazingly efficient Police Sector Patrol, the perp got over the wall, I stood in the window shouting 'I can see you, you fucker!' (as one does), Husband roared out the front door and chased perp down the road, me hot on his heels shouting 'DON'T BE A HERO!', perp dropped the box of stuff he was carrying and shot off, cop car screeched round the corner seconds later and took off in hot pursuit, Husband came back shaking and adrenalin-pumped... 

The cops didn't catch the guy unfortunately but I don't think he'll be back around here in a hurry, and thank god the box of pickings weren't ours - we subsequently traced them back to a lodge 2 houses away, seems the thief fence-hopped through to our backyard looking for a way out - but after we'd all calmed down and secured the perimeter etc, we turned to each other and said: 'We need a dog.'

Watch this space....

packing my briefcase

Or I would be, if I had one. Luckily I'm not that kind of girl.

Off to Joburg tomorrow, to spend the night with dear friends - yay! - and do some business, then on a 06h50 flight to Swaziland on Monday morning. And yes, apparently as it's an international flight, I have to be at the airport 2h beforehand. Plus a minimum 45min drive to Jhb International and I'll let you do the math - it ain't pretty.

Monday - Wednesday in SZ prepping for the job, meeting the team, scoping out some venues and meeting some bigwigs in the Swazi Health Ministry. Hopefully staying in a very nice B'nB with a big bath, the availability of broadband doubtful, and I'm not getting my hopes up about riveting TV, but it'll be quite something to have some quiet time to myself. However there's always a chance the MSF office there are a rowdy lot and we'll be out clubbing 'til dawn....I wonder if the Why Not? is still there? And I wonder if they still won't let you in without a man in case you're soliciting? 

What I can't believe is how much prep work has had to go into this 4 day trip! Never-mind familiarising myself with the ins and outs of the organisation and the (sketchy) brief I've received from them, never-mind the 2 other smaller jobs I've done some work on this week, never-mind the shopping and ironing and planning to get together a decent working wardrobe (it's been a while ok), or even booking flights and airport shuttles etc - I've been very very busy sorting out logistics for a certain young madam of my acquaintance.

Frieda will be in the infinitely capable hands of Husband and my Mum, plus one day with her beloved nanny, but still, as her primary care-giver for the last oh, nearly 18 months (shock gasp), I've had a million little details swimming through my brain the last week or so. A million what-ifs? and how-will-they's? and... ok, so it's not a million, but a very high number, all of which boil down to one thing: the slow-dawning of the realisation that she's of an age where she doesn't need ME to be the person who provides her with everything. She can be just as capably cared for by others who love her, just as happy and well-nourished and warm/cool in those hands.

It's wonderfully liberating, a little like stopping breast-feeding all over again, but it's paired with the lovely thought that all she really needs from me, is to be her Mum. Which I'll always be ....as well as Internationally Respected Consultant!

It's going to be a fun few days. But I will miss the little widget something terrible!

Last thing, this weekend's been the annual Obs Fest - a weekend of music, stalls, performance and general whackiness in Observatory. The Fest has a reputation for being somewhat grimy, and we're fairly jaded about it by now, but we took a walk through this afternoon and were pleasantly surprised by the much higher than usual standard of organisation. The whackiness remains however (and thank goodness for that), as illustrated by this - the Love Goddess, stark naked, being paraded through the festival to promote peace and love. And have a zillion (and this time I'm not exaggerating) photos taken of her gold-painted breasts!