really truly?

We went for a walk on the other side of the lake this afternoon. I stood at the water's edge while Stella swung back and forth on the squeaky metal frame of a long-removed swinging dustbin and watched a coot clumsily take flight just in front of me and thought no, surely not.

Surely this won't be my reality in just a couple of months time? Surely it is not conceivable that I will stand on my lawn with the lake at my feet and watch waterbirds take flight?

Husband asks me if I've started thinking about where our furniture will go in the new house. I haven't. Well I have and once I've placed the obvious - 3 beds and a hideously huge leather sofa - I stymie and choke, not being able to imagine for a moment what we'll do with everything else. The vintage filing cabinet? The dog's special chair? The truckload of art supplies?

I mean, it's not like we really even know what the place looks like. One viewing, just one, and a bunch of mediocre photos and some very conflicting memories ('What do you mean there's a GATE there??').
I mean, we didn't even open a kitchen cupboard to sniff inside and check for damp.We didn't turn on a tap, flick a light switch, we didn't pace out the lounge or check the window catches or flush the loo's.

We walked around in disbelief and wonder that such a place could really be ours, we stood at the lake and watched waterbirds take flight and grinned stupidly.
We went back inside and sold our soul to the devil for a lot of money to make it so.

On Sunday we'll see it again. Let's hope we don't freak the fuck out.

tiny houses

Julochka had a post recently on tiny houses - a few ceramic miniature houses she'd picked up at a flea market. She also has the best Pinterest board full of images of teeny-weeny houses, it's one of those boards which represents the greatness of Pinterest - a deeply personal collection of absolutely exquisite creative expressions from all over the world.

All this reminded me of my tiny houses, and a weird coincidence, and how it all ties in nicely with my recent obsession - houses.

When my Grandfather died earlier this year, he left instructions for his grandchildren to divvy up his lovely collection of ceramic and glass figurines. We gathered together after his funeral and took turns to choose items which reminded us of him, of visiting his home as children and later with our children.

I was so happy to bring home this little row of porcelain Gault houses.

And especially pleased when husband and Frieda recognised them instantly and both said how they remembered them in my Grandfather's home. Perfect.

So imagine our delight when we spotted these ...

... a row of tiny houses (very possibly Gault?) on the bedroom windowsill of our New House (yes, that will be my New Bedroom View).

Another one of my portents and dreams I think. Another one which seems to now have come true.

I love my tiny houses, and I love that I'll be taking them (and the associated fond memories of my Grandad) to our new big house too.

in which I did some weird huru-guru hippie shit which didn't necessarily work but hey we sold so maybe it did

We sold our house yesterday.

Almost a month to the day after it went on the market. My FB time-line is full of congratulations that it happened so fast. 'Cos it did right?
Just because it felt like a million years to us doesn't mean it wasn't a short month in the real world, an even shorter month in the world of property sales.

4 show houses, about 15 other house visits, MEGA chocolate and ka-ching, it's done.

I didn't cope with it very well though. Insomnia, comfort eating, general crabbiness - wasn't my best month of the year by any means.

One day, after I had a little moan, a friend messaged me suggesting I consider a little 'house-selling ritual' that she swore by, citing examples of people who'd sold houses under dire circumstances after doing it. I'm not really into that kind of thing but I liked the basic premise of her idea - that one needed to let go emotionally, or 'release' one's home, before it would sell.
Considering I came home to this house as a new bride, invested so much time and effort renovating it, spent nearly 9 years here with my husbandguy, brought both our babies home from hospital here - ja, I've definitely been very emotionally invested.

So I gave it a bash. I gathered items which represented my home - frangi-pani's from the front garden, a lemon from the back, a splinter of wood from our beloved floors, a shirt both girls wore as babies - then, as per the instructions, I filled a basin with water and pushed the items in, holding them under while quietly chanting 'I release you, I release you, I release you.' My take on the alleged Islamic divorce practise of old.

Then I pulled the plug and let the water, and the ties that bind, drain away.

10 days later the house is sold. I can't really credit the ritual. If we'd sold the next day I would've been intrigued, but as it is I'm not wholly convinced.
But it did make me think about the house, and my relationship with it, and it did make me consciously try to let go. All of which is good, and necessary.

So now, eyes forward. And emotional reserves ready to embrace a lot of change - houses, schools, rhythms of our day. Now to think about establishing a new relationship, with a new house, and wondering what milestones we'll celebrate there.

Can you see her? Just peeking around the enormous tree, her jetty sticking out into the water? Behind the arb stranger standing fishing on the point? Looming quietly in the mist?

Hello new house.

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.

scrubbing up

As I've said to countless estate agents over the last few weeks, I'm not even apologising for this room:

I've shown you our 'study' before, guess you didn't think it could get any worse right? It has ...

There's a part of me that can't believe I'm sharing this on the interwebs, but let me assure you the rest of our house doesn't (often) look like this.
This room houses the overflow of busy lives, of hobbies and projects and inquisitive minds and discarded toys and too well-loved books now in need of repair, of too much tech and not enough time. It is home to bikes and parts of bikes and memories and hurriedly unpacked bags, unpaid bills, financial records, wrapping paper stashes and ribbons I can't throw away. In this room, if you had unlimited time to scrounge, you'd find fine wine and gadgets, power tools, a broken stool, photos, wheel hubs, motorboats, a fridge, a laminator, light bulbs of all description and ... so much more.
As I said before, this room is the reason we need to move, the irrefutable proof that we need more space.

But regardless of my attempts to justify this shit-pit, the undeniable fact is we couldn't let any strangers in here. Not real strangers that is.
And so ... they said it couldn't be done, they said it would take us a life time, they said we might not make it out alive.
But we did.

We packed and we cleaned and we chucked and we re-categorised and we did it. We did it and now the space echoes and sparkles. And we're bored.

There's lots of talk of a clean slate encouraging a creative mind but I'm not feeling it. With our minds and our lives in their current state of flux, I could do with a bit of stuff - chaotic, disorganised, familiar stuff to distract and comfort me.
Living in this sanitised show-house is all a bit weird.

I think it may be time for a new hobby ...

oh my god I hope he's right

Twelve years ago, lazing around with the weekend papers, husband turned to me and said; 'I think I've found our cat.'
We'd just recently moved into our own place, our first place with no housemates, and getting a cat seemed the next logical step.

The ad read: 1 year old black cat. Female. Half Siamese. R50.

This was the information he was basing his statement on, he couldn't explain it, but he was convinced he was right.
And he was. She was, is, and will always be, the perfect cat for us.

3 weeks ago, lazing around with the internets ('cos that's the way the world now works), husband turned to me and said; 'I think I've found our house.'
I sat up and took heed.

It's in a part of town we'd never before considered, it wouldn't make his commute to work any easier, it doesn't put us in the catchment area for any great schools, it would place us a distance away from some of our favourite people ... but it has a garden and a view and the promise of a lifestyle we just can't resist.

We emailed the agent and heard back the next day that an offer had already been placed, it was basically off the market.
We went there the following Sunday, looked at another couple of houses in the area on show. Then, just to rub salt in the wound, we drove past The One. As we got out of the car a fish eagle called in the sky above.
We sighed and drove home.

A week later, a call from the agent. You know where this is going right? The potential buyers were having marital problems, they might be pulling out.

We went away for 6 days, spent some of that time wondering about The One. Wondering whether it was thinking about us too.

Back home to discover the original offer had fallen through, but an English couple were 'very interested' in the house. Naturally they'd be paying pounds, cash. We couldn't compete.
We sighed.

Then, they decided not to place an offer. The house, The One, the one with the fish eagles and the lake and the garden and the double garage workroom and the staggeringly high mortgage, was officially back on the market.

Guess I don't need to tell you how we went to see it. How we laughed in horror and delight at how much it reminded us of our current place when we first bought it. How we thrilled at the potential and despaired at the kitchen. How we met, giggling, in the bathroom as the agent was taking us around and grinned at each other, husband whispering 'It's crap but I love it.'
How we stood in silence in front of the lake at the bottom of the lawn and listened to the water birds and in our minds, pushed off our canoe and paddled off into the estuary.

We placed an offer. It's been accepted. We have to sell our current house first so we're not there quite yet. But we're closer than we ever thought we'd be.

There's a 13 year old black cat purring on my lap. I think she'll like it there.

I look to the hills

It was a scene so photogenic, so visually powerful and mystical and ... strong.
Art directors the world over would weep.

That field in the background is deep and wide and golden with the setting sun. That mountain range behind it is blue-grey and long and high and portent. The clouds to our left were heaving and black, to the right fluffy and white, and just off frame, half a rainbow dipped down from the heavens.
That minister spoke, those two people pledged and all the while thunder rumbled in the distance.
And just as they came to the vows, so came the big plop-plop of the first drops of thunderstorm rain. By the time they were man and wife we were nearly drenched.

I attended two Christian religious ceremonies last week.

One took place in a church. Surrounded by the trappings of culture and ritualised belief, protocol and decorum and stand now and sit now and say this now. I understand some people take comfort from that.

The other, in a place far more holy than the first. Free, true, tangible, fresh, dusty, exposed, timeless. It was still not my god, but it made much more sense to me there.

things from the day

Realising, during the eulogy, that you can know someone your whole life and not, by any means, know everything about them. Not at all.
Coupled by the instant stab of pain at how much you didn't ask them when you could have.

Sitting in the front pew (we came in late) knowing my whole extended family was right behind me. Hearing a cough and recognising it as my mother's, a whisper from a cousin, a nose-blow which could have only belonged to a man.
Feeling the presence of all of them behind me.

The young undertaker's assistant dropping his small change all over the carpet in front of the coffin trolley. My uncle's look of resigned disdain.
The knowledge that it wouldn't have bothered my grandfather as much as it did his eldest son.

The pallbearers - my father, flanked by his older and younger brothers. Opposite each of them their eldest son. 4 of the 6 wearing ties from the same prestigious Cape Town boy's school. A momentary pang that I have no sons, no men to stand, proud in their grief, in formation at my funeral.
A momentary respect for patriarchy.

Changing the meaning of the minister's words in my head so that each time he mentioned god I substituted my grandfather.
He is good, merciful, kind. He brings us comfort. We are here to honour Him.

The strange, yet oddly comforting way the minister followed behind the coffin, still preaching, accompanying my grandfather out to the hearse.
The heavy thud of the vehicle's door punctuating the end.

The ribbons on the hymnals fluttering in the breeze ...

Later, in my uncle's study with all my first cousins. 10 present, just one missing. We're here on my grandfather's bidding, complying with instructions he left in his last days. 10 adults - all married, most of us parents, most of us with very little else in common - all briefly reminded of days gone when we tumbled on our grandparent's lawn at Christmas-time, tussled over the coins in the Christmas pudding, performed Beatles songs for a family concerts.
Days when we frolicked through family gatherings filled with happy adults and so much love.

Even later, exhausted, sitting outside with my man, a ridiculously bright and spectacular shooting star shot across the sky.

These are the things I want to remember from that day.

got air

We're just back from our annual family retreat - the 7th year we've been back to the same house out near Hermanus for a birthday celebration weekend in March.

My Grandad passed away last week. My sister-in-law's been really ill with glandular fever. Our baby turned 2 last weekend. It's been a busy, emotional time.
But despite all that, the weekend was light. Easy. Fun and relaxing.
'Cos that's what family should (mostly) be.

a tally ...

... of my recent injuries:

On Friday I got kicked in the face. By accident naturally, during a wild pre-bedtime game of, um ... Kick Mum in the Face as far as I can make out.

Lesson learnt: those little heels are hard and also, never get in a bar fight. My face hurts.

On Saturday I stubbed my toe against the edge of the exhaust pipe for Husband’s ‘project bike’ which was on the floor of the study because, um ... that’s where it seems to live now? I lifted a big flap of skin and may or may not have said bad words in front of my children.

Lesson learnt: buy house with garage, make Husband live in it (garage) and also, fuck.

On Sunday I moved the dog’s bed (made of a repurposed 4x4 tyre) and managed to drop it on my foot. I think I crushed one or more small bones. I may have said some more bad words.

Lesson learnt: get a chihuahua.

And also, feet are over-rated.