I made some stuffz

Okay, so I haven't just been watching crap TV and baking and building an empire and spending lots of time on Pinterest.
I have been doing lots of all the above (you know that thing about the more you do the more you can do? It's true. Also, the less sleep you get. Yawn.), but I also had one of those moments where you realise that there's no point in collecting lots of (p)inspiration and not doing anything with it. So I made some stuffz.

This bracelet, from Honestly WTF ... (I loved her colours)

...  this shirt ... (for a special occasion)

... and these, because why wouldn't I?

Don't say I don't ever do nothing.

'shrooming

Burp.

Dinner last night consisted of home-grown oyster mushrooms, sauteed in garlic and white wine, tossed with arugula (that's rocket to me), slathered in freshly grated pecorino and served over pasta.
Sounds pretentious no? And ... yummy.

What was not so yummy was watching these things grow. Unlike these gorgeous photos of mushrooms growing in the wild, growing them in our kitchen was a decidedly un-visually-appealing experience.
You'll thank me for not sharing any pictures.

Mushrooms grow from spores right? Spores being fungus, fungus being mold. Mold don't look so appetizing.

We got a Home-Gro oyster mushroom kit (go look at their pics - ours looked nothing like that) from a friend a month or so ago. We duly opened the box, sprayed the soggy hay inside with water a couple of times a day, moved it around the kitchen looking for the best light. Nothing happened.
Then the mold.
Then the fungus.
Then the spores and finally, just when I was ready to throw up in the towel, 3 trumpeting oyster mushrooms.

'You're not going to eat those?' asked Sylvia who works for us. 'Are you serious?' asked Frieda when I told her we would.
I wasn't so sure myself. But we did, and they were yummy.
Now we're 'sposed to turn the hunk of hay over in the box and start again on the other side but I'm not so sure.

As yummy as they were I think possibly that mushrooms, like steak, are best not grown at home.

c is for ... completely off track?

Ok y'all (ja, YOU GUYS, who are out there, reading this. The one's I usually shamefully ignore. The ones I seldom address directly. I'm going to lay this on the line for you ... )

So.

I started a new blog.

I started a new blog in answer to that beeg question: what would be your dream job? Answer: blogging.
I started a new blog as I don't yet have that Great South African Novel inside me but I just want to write all day.
I started a new blog in response to a need within myself to talk more about my children, and our days together.
I started a new blog with the intention to shamelessly self-promote myself, to whore around for as many followers as I can get, to monetize and SEO-itize and seduce advertisers and reap kick-backs and kick the butt of the (unfortunately pretty mediocre) other SA 'mommy-bloggers' I've encountered.
I started a new blog to get famous y'all.

And now I'm teetering on the threshold of showing my new little blog to the world and I find myself consumed with anxiety and uncertainty and ... oh my god, will they like me?

This is where you come in. And you're allowed to feel totally smug about this. After years of pretending you're not there, in some strange way I feel you're the audience whose opinion I value the most. You've been reading my writing, leaving me comments, encouraging me and supporting me in this writing business.
You share this space which is all about me, this space which will always be my first love, my safety-net, the place where I can swear and tell tales on my neighbours and blog out loud.

So now I want to know from you. Honestly and openly - I can handle it all, really - go have a look, come back and tell me what you think.

C is for ... completely off track?
C is for ... c'mon Molly, you can do better than this?
C is for ... crazy concept really?
C is for ... completely boring?
C is for ... cute with improvement required?
or
C is for Cape Town.

the most boring thing ever

Hearing about other people's dreams right? But here goes anyway ...

The other night I had one of those dreams which, in the clear morning light, was directly traceable to a number of experiences I'd had in the few days before.

In my dream I ...

- was married to a faceless man named Luke [ok, I actually don't know where this came from besides possibly a subconscious desire to seem more world-wise then a girl who's been with the same guy for nearly 20 years]

- was married to a faceless man named Luke but we totally shared our relationship with my real life husband [this obviously because having spent nearly 20 yrs with the dude I can't actually be rid of him commit adultery, even in my dreams]
[and, as an aside, when I proudly told real life husband about this the next morning he was not, as I kind of expected, bowled over by my dream life loyalty, but instead called me a filthy polygamist and when I asked him to help me open the peanut butter jar hissed that maybe 'Luke could open it for you'. Wow.]

- had a real bitch of a boss [she was the blonde incarnation of Tess from Burlesque which I'd watched a couple of evenings before]
[FYI - surprise surprise, crap film]

- whose husband violently disapproved of my polygamous lifestyle [he was totally the utter asshole Jerry someone-or-other from the rerun I'd recently watched of the Oprah show in which she returns to Williamson, West Virginia to follow up the show she'd done there in 1987 on AIDS sufferer Mike Sisco.]

- the disapproving husband had a mullet [again Mike Sisco]
[aside: what a guy. Mike I mean, not fictional disapproving mullet-wearing asshole husband]

- faceless dream-husband named Luke drove a Ferrari [I'd seen one in Obs - yeah, in Obs - the day before]
[oh wait, I'm getting why real-life husband is hating dream-husband so much, clearly not as much about me as I thought ...]

- here's where it gets weird (but still no doubt, very boring)

- dream-hater-husband-with-mullet chose to express his disapproval by leaving a lovely piece of embroidered vitriol on dream-husband (faceless, name of Luke)'s Ferrari. Yup, an exquisitely hand-stitched embroidery listing all the ways we were going to burn in hell for our repulsive lifestyle. With two or three different types of stitch, colours etc [and this, again no surprises, definitely came from spending far too much time on Pinterest of late.]

I really got to start doing something else with my evenings other than watching crap TV and surfing Pinterest.
As Oprah would say, dreams are a means of changing your life from the inside out.
Maybe I'll go looking for that Ferrari ...

the best thing(s) about a childfree morning

... jaywalking.

... talking aloud without having to explain myself.
(mumble) 'Damn, I should've turned there.'
'What did you say Mum?'
(slightly louder) 'I said I should've turned there but it doesn't matter, I'll take the next one.'
'The next what Mum?'
'The next turn.'
'This one Mum?'
(deep breath) 'No, the next one coming up.' (mumble) 'Damn, that's a one-way'
'What's a one-way Mum?'
(little exasperated) 'Um, I can't explain right now sweetie, could we just not talk while I work out where I'm going?'
(small pause) 'Are we lost Mum?'

... eating chocolate for breakfast. And not having to share it.


... not carrying wet wipes (though this can sometimes be a disadvantage).


... listening to Dr Eve on 567 CapeTalk.

tres leches cakepudding

After the resounding inter (and intra) national success of The Rainbow Cake I think I've been suffering from baking-fatigue. Or maybe just feeling a little intimidated-slash-porky?

Husband even baked his own birthday cake in July!

But last month I got the call again: I had to bake.

Tres Leches Cake has been on my To Bake list since, well since back when I used to read The Pioneer Woman. You know, back before I decided she can't be real and must be a product of Harpo Studios (don't laugh, I'm not the only one who thinks so), and back before frankly I found a whole bunch of other much better reads!

Anyhoo, it was time. And with the enormous number of new and breast-feeding mums I know out there (in real life and the blogosphere), I thought a Three Milk Cake was kinda appropriate.

I used PW's ingredient list, but moved closer to home for the method. Nook Eatery is a gorgeous little food blog I've been enjoying lately and their method produced a lighter cake, more delicious for refrigerating overnight.

You know I'm a lazy slag when it comes to actually writing out these recipes, does this look like a food blog to you? But I can recommend visiting the links and making this yourself.

Served with whipped cream and fresh fruit it's almost more of a cakepudding. Three-milk-cake-pudding-cake. What's not to love?

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.

ghost

I was sorting through some old video footage and suddenly there he was. Crossing a beach towards me, carrying a bottle of champagne, saying something silly, lit by the most gorgeous end of perfect day light.
And it made me cry.

We haven't seen him for 3 years, but he used to be a very special friend. He's not dead, he's not even very far away, he's just gone, and there's nothing we can do about that.
It's not that I even want to see him, he's caused so much pain and been such a silly, stupid stupid person that the friendship, the fondness, the intimacy we had no longer exists.
To see him now would just be upsetting, ethereal and pointless. Like a ghost.

In so many ways it would be much easier if he was. If he'd died we could've mourned him. We could remember him, the times we had, without the hurt and the anger. If there was a grave or a memorial place we could visit it and laugh through our tears. We could share memories with the others who knew him, some of whom carry a much greater hurt, we could reclaim, untainted, that part of our lives we shared with him.

As I looked at that body that, for never having known (in the Biblical sense,) I knew so well, as I looked at those hands which played music, made beautiful things, remembered the texture of that crazy hair, heard the voice with which I'd talked and laughed so much, for the first time in 3 years I no longer felt just anger.
I just felt sad.

Ghosts walk among us. I felt the presence of one today, and after all this time I still can't help wondering if he ever feels mine.

to be perfectly honest

Sometimes when things feel particularly bleak in this bizarrely beautiful and contradictory country of ours, one finds oneself dreaming longingly of a 'safe' existence.
You know, a life of low (if any) fences, unbarred windows, walks after dark, disease control, weapons restrictions, order, compliance, efficacy, accountability, normalcy. A life in say, England, or Norway, or Canada ...

Am I allowed to say that when the shit hits the fan as it has in London there's an element of relief in it for me?
Am I allowed to use the word relief in it's broadest sense and with no intended implication of schadenfreude or unkindness?
I hate what's happening in London, I'm battling to understand it and vacillating between horror at the unruliness of what seems, to my 3rd-world trained eye, to be a bunch of already well-dressed, well-fed kids breaking into high street stores to steal sneakers - as someone mentioned on face book nary a placard or political slogan to be seen - and sadness at a generation which seems to be so ... angry? voiceless? bored?
I'm concerned for my friends, concerned for the implications these events will have on their lives.
I'm disillusioned, worried, appalled.

But the lesson that people are people are assholes are victims are oppressors are dissatisfied are trying are failing are learning e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e, is a valuable one that I need to re-learn often.

Today is Women's Day here. We celebrate women who've gone before and done the work to give us the rights we have today. We think about women's role in our society and try to honour that.

We walk on the mountain, and watch our little women survey their kingdom. We go home and eat cake.

We're not uncaring, but for today the shit splatters in another part of the world, and we're completely happy to call Africa home.
Tomorrow may be different. I very much hope it is for the UK, I'll be quite happy if it's not for me.

NO I'M NOT PREGNANT!

Just busy with stuff I can't blog about right now but I know saying that here is the blogosphere equivalent of throwing up on my shoes and claiming I can't drink 'cos I'm on antibiotics and candidly looking at maternity wear catalogues and suddenly wearing sensible bra's and all those other signifiers we're so quick to spot and get all over excited about so NO, I'M NOT PREGNANT.

Just busy, and taking a blog break.
Mwah.