contemplating my navel

A Self-Indulgent Little Yarn!

2011-08-27T02:26:00.000-07:00

Thought I should rather write here than in my handwritten journal. There’s the two plus-sides to this : I can keep y’all updated with what’s happening in my complicatedly happy little life – as well as preventing myself from self-pitying bitching in my private diary!

Plekkie: The Pink Fig, Port Elizabeth: topping up my adoration of Capetonian glamour and gorgeousness.

Beverage: Bitter, black coffee which reminds me of Greece – but probably, the Greek association comes from my recently adopted role as editor for a Greek author’s novel about a young man’s quest to discover the secret of his being orphaned, and set on the island of Zakynthos. Ironically and perhaps serendipitously, this is the one island we were forced to skip on my sweet-sixteen sailing holiday around the Ionian islands. (Running a day behind Papa’s strict sailing schedule *sigh*.)

Soundtrack : ‘Havana Lounge’ – a spot of Cuban sunshine on a surprisingly nippy day.

Here's the latest on my flourishing writing career (a slow-growing but hardy cactus! )
a) Plenty of interruptions and obstacles, some disappointments and a little too much lack of support. (After expressing my resulting anger in a response to a friend’s blogpost, he spoke to me, kindly, about rather responding in grace, and sometimes with fire&brimstone (i.e. righteous anger). His following words to me have somehow stuck in my heart: A painful truth to internalise, but too, too true: my heart feels tough, rough and black. But the words, ‘respond with grace’, are healing: and I find myself treating everyone with more patience, kindness and beautiful love.)

‘Nothing destroys a beautiful woman faster than bitterness and resentment.’

b) Through some external and very loving, attentive nurturing, my thorns of self-confidence are growing beautifully: I daily protect my heart with grace, and sometimes an assertive little prick or two.

Image by Lisa Roberts Carter
'The Metaphysics of Knitting'

My article, ‘The Metaphysics of Knitting’, published last week in Hy-Se-Sy-Se became the departure point for a new direction in my writing and creative journey. I’ve decided to head into the sunset of fashion and beauty: analysing global trends in my quirky, detail-rich and apparently alternative style. Once I’ve defined myself as a ‘brand’, I’ll soon be creating a website showcasing my talents and passions, where I’ll be able to sell my ideas, making a lucrative living at last! (How’s that for flowering-cactus self-confidence?!)

Image by Lisa Roberts Carter
For Post about Collect Jewellery

And while I’m blowing my own trumpet: I’m now writing for a Canadian e-magazine to be launched in September. Called ‘BoutiqueMademoiselleVintage.com’, my speciality will be adding a bit of South African flavour of vintageness! I also joined Twitter last week - and it has been the most phenomenal business and networking tool! Find me on Twitter : @lisa_the_jotter

Image by Lisa Roberts Carter
For BoutiqueMademoiselleVintage.com

Better say ciao and begin writing up my story about the TLC Blanket Project dreamed up by Judy Hendra. Inspired by her idea to knit up a colourfully cheerful blanket, embellished with numbers and the alphabet to help Ryno, a young man who, after a debilitating motorbike accident, has to relearn how to walktalkreadwrite – and even swallow again, Judy has grown her idea into something far-reaching and spectacular: to give each toddler in Africa a ‘learning and comforting’ blanket.

As soon as it’s published, I’ll post the link back here! So come back and haul out your courage to spend less time on yourself, and knit up a storm! (And, if you’d like to get started ASAP, please leave your details for me in the COMMENTS box below! Time to be a Hero! I started yesterday evening and am already almost finished my first square!)

Patriot Games & Poetry Pie

2011-08-21T05:39:00.000-07:00

Blog-jogging in the car (blogging-on-the-run, remember?) on our way back to Grahamstown after an idyllic weekend in PE! Our BoysInGreen kicked serious Kiwi Ass (and despite the fact I didn't watch the game, I'm a)still MASSIVELY chuffed, and b)relished the vibe of patriotic euphoria, waved about in giant flags of green and gold, hooted and shouted --- hang on (!) - I didn't hear a single vuvuzela?! Ag, I suppose South African Man's a 7 Day Wonder. Pity... The vuvuzela became such an icon of our success as a world-class nation - as well as a symbol of the blending of our two different (sporting) cultures.

I spent the morning immersed in poet Elsibe Loubser's new poetry - and swimming through them in graphite and paper. (We realised we are both consumed by the same ideas about 'love vs livelihood' at the moment. So when I suggested we collaborate, she grabbed me in a great big Blackberry hug, saying: 'Yes, please!')

Then, there is the page from my visual diary circa 2003.

And the bird image is from my Black Velvet exhibition in 2003: where Elsibe and I met! She bought that particular artwork from me --- and: HUGE HAMMERING-HEART HONOUR: she STILL uses in the writing course she teaches! Lekker, ne?

Adios-time,
Me
'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

Goodbyes (and the eternalness of an ellipsis...)

2011-08-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

Time is what mortalises us, I think.

A week ago, we heard the shock of news that my Aunty Lola had lost 14kg in a month. And the next day, the diagnosis, the prognosis... Inoperable pancreatic cancer; 2 - 6 weeks. 2 - 6 weeks of what? How? And... why? Why.

Her daughters and siblings have flown in from all around the world to spend this last chapter with her. And though my heart is breaking with not being able to see her 'one last time' (what horror to even type that phrase) I am scared and ashamed that I don't know how to say this goodbye. What I do know is that this final goodbye is desperately sacred. And the thought of a phonecall frightens all the memories of her out from the bottom of my childhood's heart - a Pandora's Box. I want to keep her alive in my heart - and keep my memories of her locked up tight : pink heirloom pearls in the dark, dusty velvet of my heart.

And yet, I know real, strong and true love demands a goodbye. There is honour in opening your heart in the face of the terrifying confusion of grief-about-to-happen. And this I know. I must phone. Tomorrow.

Insert: Lola as a young mother, holding Tandy, my cousin. (Her photo on my writing wall -- a reminder to pray, her very own votive candle.)

(There is more to tell. Another day. An easier day.)
'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

Pearls Before Breakfast!

2011-08-01T13:21:00.000-07:00

There is a very good reason why proverbs exist: because they are distilled truths. Nuggets of divinely inspired wisdom. And my particular pearly nugget?

"Leap, and the net will appear."

And do you know that GUARANTEED, every time I leap into the void, that net catches me with the utmost grace. This circus-act of courage and blind faith has been repeated so often in my life, that I wonder why I backpedal into my coward's corner as often as I do. Surely by now I should know?!

My most recent spiritual 'bollemakiesie'* was a decision to steal back my Destiny from the numbing mediocrity of marriedness. And with no space, in every sense of the word: time, studio-space, heart/mind space, I made the painfully radical decision to choose only ONE passion to focus on. I could simply not be :
1. Mama Mia Extraordinaire
2. Online art-decor 'butik' designer/maker/owner
3. Freelance writer
4. Blogger (for myself + other sites)
5. Fine artist

And so, I chose to concentrate everything I have on my writing. Why? Our house is (and I'm not drama-queening it for a change!) is the size of a large-ish caravan. So, men, I've now proven that size does INDEED matter. There is simply no space AT ALL to function as a productive artist. At least with my writing, all I need is my laptop and a dongle. (Sounds lavishly naughty, doesn't it? But it's only a small rectangle of internet-conducting plastic...)

23 highly illicit cardboard boxes from the backdoor of our local supermarket later, and my studio was sifted and sorted, bittersweetly boxed for another time and place. But - another proverb that rings so true for me - "Get rid of the old to make space for the new" : and so, with this letting-go, there was space for something brandnew and beautiful to take it's place: so when I worked (with none of the guilty, distracting obligation of my waiting studio draining my energy/time) all weekend on researching paying writing markets and setting up my writing resume, it should have been no great surprise that after submitting an application to write for a Canadian vintage-fashion magazine only yesterday afternoon, that I woke up to their excited letter of acceptance in my inbox this morning! (Thereby proving BOTH proverbs irrevocably foolproof, reassuring and inspiring!)

(And wasn't that a nifty little method of bragging? *wink*)

PS. This photo of Layla reminds me of the photo I sent to the creative director of the magazine, describing Layla's emerging fabsession (fashion+obsession) --- in this photo, you can see the peach ribbon on her hair: she saw me packing it away into a box, and specifically asked me to put it in her hair in a bow -- even though I've never done that for her before. Amazing! Oh yes - and that also makes me think of her sitting on the kitchen counter two nights ago: and while she was sampling the avo with much lip-smacking, she announced, out of the blue: "Hmm, this is fantastic!" Quite remarkable for a 2 year old. (Well, this proud mommy thinks so anyway!)
PPS. I (unashamedly and with greenest envy) stole the title for this blog from a Pulitzer-winning article. Google it (and set aside 20minutes to slowly savour and digest it) A writer-friend in the States sent this nuggety-pearly wisdom my way - and I'm : grateful.
'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

A is Apple, B is for Benefactor

2011-07-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

Apples are Layla's fruit du jour - but peeled, mind you. Miss Specific. Pears (the crunchy green kind!) are her next favourite fruit. Hence my first ever celebration of fruit as part of my kitchen decor. Miss Specific.

My second self-imposed exile in the UK opened up the unlikely treasure trove of the English institution of The Saturday Car Boot Sale --- and an almost manic, magpie-ish obsession with antiques and quirky vintageness. Hence the little 1950s Bakelite doll, and the silver and bone knives and forks (which I use every day!)

I aaaaalmost started a happy little rant about the metaphysics of beauty, but because this is quick jot from my Blackberry, I HAVE to keep it short (finger-cramp/tendon-inflamation). But - at least it's something, huh! (*wink*) (All thanks must go to Stacey Beadon for suggesting idea which I'm christening : blog-jogs ---- i.e. blogging on the run!)

PS. Internet is miraculously on the near horizon for me (*phew*) thanks to a not-so-surprising benefactor (my mom!) So soon-soon I'll be able to write more than these little Blackberried snatches.
'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

Layla Sleeps = Mommy Writes

2011-04-25T05:52:00.000-07:00

Abandoned - my previous attempt at a blog post about the ( im )possibility of mothers being artists. That draft has sat there, waiting for me to come back to it, for 2 weeks now... In the meantime, I made a new friend: Elsabe Milandri - also an artist and a mama with a very young and busy toddler. Besides these two things we share, we also both have less than perfect living conditions - and the tiniest of makeshift studios. And, boy, do I mean tiny... But: in chatting to her, she handed me, on a golden plate, the epiphany I've long been hunting blindly for since Layla was born: "Use your limitations to your explicit advantage: make small works and exhibit with pride your ability to transcend what others as limitations. Use your creativity to turn your limitations into your wings. Fly!"

One of my biggest 'wings' is poverty.
1. Poverty - literally. Because I am not working, our life on my husband's teacher's salary sometimes feels a little dismal: but, in TRUTH, our life is so much richer for the life we give Layla through my constant, responsive mothering. These few short years investing our love, energy and time into her will pay such special dividends later on, when I will be earning money for us, and missing her magnificent presence around me: not like my shadow, but my sun.
2. Poverty of time. Because I am the kind of mother that is fanatically devoted to her child's development (amidst the irritable sighs of others) it means that the only time I really have to do anything for myself (brush teeth, dye eyebrows, draw etc) is when The Angel sleeps. (Hence why I have already been interrupted no less than 5 times between 12pm and 7.42pm trying to write this post!) But: I am not going to give up trying to find the flipside-positive of this time-absence thing! (What being a mother HAS taught me is to honour the time I do have: I no longer fart-arse around in perpetual procrastination! How could I have wasted all those 31 years of lazy lie-ins?! Now I grab life and my opportunities by the balls (however sporadically!) So - thank you, Layla, my baby!

(And now I have to say goodbye: time has fled!)

Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!

Look out for Thenjiwe Bunu's Infallible Samp Recipe: COMING SOON!

2011-04-05T06:13:00.000-07:00

Perfectly marrying this random/personal/lifestyle blog with The Soutpiel Phenomenon, Samp&Sushi is my new blog dedicated to the glorification of all things gastronomical: taking the South African palate into special consideration, of course! (*wink*)

Have a cook - oops, I mean a 'look', and leave your comments because......................... I love hearing from you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Mohlee Method!

2010-06-15T05:07:00.000-07:00

Milky Lane Mama (Part 4!) : The Mohlee Method

Humiliating Heathrow...

2010-06-09T01:01:00.000-07:00

Heathrow, Terminal 5. Standing in an insufferably long queue at that stage in the proceedings when bags, laptops and shoes (*sigh* yes, shoes!) are x-rayed by mirthless, uniformed officials – and I remember hoping that someone would have such ghastly smelling shoes that it would either a) make one of them laugh, or b) forever damage their olfactory bulb as punishment for being so stubbornly without human humour! Standing in that queue with this tiny little baby felt like my life’s biggest challenge – and I eyed the curious and very mobile toddlers with much envy, imagining toddlers are a million times easier to handle on international travels because they can talk and walk. And it’s only now that I have one of those talking/walking excitement-machines and our next 12 hour flight looms ever closer, that I realise all those toddlers’ moms were, in fact, eyeing ME with great envy! Anyway, I’ve digressed twice already. Back to the security check. Watching each traveller ahead of me reacting to this necessary invasion of their space passed the time quite nicely, and I suddenly found myself at the front of the queue.

“Ma’am, do you have any liquids in your hand-luggage?” (Mentally rifling through the items wallowing in the copious depths of my handbag, I wondered if three tubes of lipgloss qualified as ‘liquids’, when suddenly I remembered the bottle of milk I’d so laboriously expressed that morning at home.)

“Um, yes. I think so.” (If looks could wither, which they can – then I was certainly withered to a mere smithereen by the security official. A woman, no less.)

“Well, do you – or don’t you?”

“My baby’s milk?!” I squeaked as inaudibly as possible, hoping this woman could lip-read. My cheeks burst into fire as I felt everyone in the queue around me scrutinise me with the same shameless contemplation I’d myself previously directed at the travellers in front of me!

“Yes, baby’s milk qualifies as a liquid.”

“Even breastmilk?” All I got in response was a glare that ruthlessly crumpled me like paper destined for the trash. I hauled out the bottle with its milk sloshing limpidly about, declaring for all to see that here was indeed this young mother’s bodily fluid. I was about as embarrassed as when I’ve had to drop off a urine sample in a clear plastic vial at the doctor’s. Also, I couldn’t hide my disbelief at the thought of my breastmilk being construed as a possible bomb-component! Imagine this news headline: “Mother caught in aeroplane loo trying to detonate her breastmilk! It is, all jokes aside, an explosive issue – and 13 months later I can see how ignorant I was. But then, I was still such a newbie at the breastfeeding thing, and felt the reactions of others so sharply that I succumbed to the well-meant advice to cover up so as not to offend anyone or cause sexual thoughts in other men, or to feed my baby rice-cereal at four months so she would sleep through the night (though I now know that a baby’s gut only closes up at 7 months!)

If the same security check had to happen to me today, I would have guffawed in maternal pride and turned around to give Heathrow Terminal 5 a happy little lecture on the magnificent miracle of breastmilk – e.g. that there are four different types of stem-cells in breastmilk, reproductive cancers are much less likely to occur in the breastfeeding mother and the breastfed child etc. (I will be posting a selection of resources next week with links to exciting discoveries and research. But again, for those moms who couldn’t or wouldn’t breastfeed, please remember that I support every mother’s right to feed her child in the way that best suits them in their unique situation!) The security official asked me to please drink the milk to prove it wasn’t some conspiratorially flammable substance! If it weren’t for the deadly stringent look on her face, I would have thought she was pulling my leg – but, no, there I stood, cheeks absolutely crimson, drinking my own warm, sweet breastmilk from a baby-bottle! Needless to say, the broken breastpump, the surreal humiliation and my worry about Layla actually drinking from it to ease her ear-pressure upon take-off was for naught because Layla refused the bottle with her trademark vehemence, and it turned out to be fabulously easy to sommer just breastfeed her, seatbelted up and all! There was no screaming or visible signs of ear-pain on Layla’s part – and, in fact, she seemed to actually enjoy the take-off, and the landing, 12 hours later. The moral of the story? Try not to let the scaremongers scare you into hours of pointless worrying – because, if you can be calm and cheerful, your bub will be too!

Milky Lane Mama (Part 2) : Reality Bites

2010-06-01T02:04:00.000-07:00

Milky Lane Mama (Part 2) : Reality Bites

Chutzpah/balls/voema/gusto?

2010-05-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

With the English summer definitively here, along with its wasps and brommers, my homesickness has ebbed slightly - but this could also be the ever-present sense of excitement knowing our arrival in Cape Town is now only 6 weeks away! (Craig has whisked Layla off with him to the butcher in Kettering which sells the most fabulous boerewors: we've run out of meat having braaied three nights in a row now! But at least with my little Layla out of earshot, I can focus on some VERY important tasks that simply can't get done while I am wearing my Mommy hat. Shame, she has had the most exhausting week with her teething keeping her awake and in tears, her head perpetually damp and hot from fever... Two molars and two eye-teeth are to blame.)

Soundtrack? Miles Davis. "Summertime".
Beverage? Need to make a cuppa, but if I had a choice, it would be a 'Cafe Romano Corretto' - a shot of earthy, rich espresso married with a shot of grappa. Ah! If only! *wink*
Goal? To write a little story for my weekly iMod slot, and to follow up on some of the newspapers and journalists who've featured my 'Malema, A Love Letter' project in their articles. (After my Radio 2000 interview on Monday morning, I couldn't help myself Googling 'Malema, A Love Letter' to see where and how it was being featured 'out there'! The response has been 95% positive - with only one myopic poephol referring to the idea negatively: but you could sommer see he hadn't actually read my original story about it: he was 'picking up stompies'! The song playing now? Miles Davis's 'Weirdo'. How apt!)

The young ANC rep I met (and tried to interview, but he was more concerned about the wandering camera crew discovering him!) in London at an expo a few months ago chickened out of giving me Julius Malema's number. And perhaps, rightly so - but we need more people with chutzpah/balls/voema/gusto if South Africa is going to stop stewing in its historical juices! Anyway, someone else has stepped forward with JM's actual cellphone number (!!!) so check back here to see how my chat with Julius went! Bizarrely, I have complete and utter peace about speaking to him. Why would I be nervous or afraid, as so many have suggested? Again, I am blaming the media for pulling the wool over the eyes of the habitually passive, unthinking South African. NEWSFLASH: The news is not the gospel truth! The juicier, the bloodier the story, the more newspapers will sell, the more advertising, blah blah blah. After 'Tea with Julius' in December, I will be taking on the country's editors in a news revolution! Just watch me! (*wink*) (--- lots of winking happening today! Must be the intoxicating combination of Miles Davis and this sweet, sweet solitude!)

The Musing Magpie

2010-05-14T13:36:00.000-07:00

Gosh - how time flies when you're having fun! My 'Malema, A Love Letter' project has so comsumed me over the last few weeks that I've had no extra time for writing at all. But now that the project is happily established with around 2 - 4 letters a day arriving, and 10+ members joining a day, I feel like all my blood, sweat and tears has paid off and now I can sit back a little and breathe. And write! *wink*
Only 7 weeks to go until we hop on at Heathrow to catch a jumbo home for, hopefully, the last time ever! Now the messy limbo I caused 6 months agp by prematurely packing the house up can be sorted - beginning with the treasured pieces of furniture which need to be eBayed ASAP. (*sob*)
Item #1: a gorgeously divine china cabinet which I have never been able to accurately date, but can only guess comes from the 1950s (or the 60s? 70s?!) At the local recycling plant (a.k.a the rubbish dump!) I spotted it glimmering and singing, just for me, amidst the dark, dusty cabinets and bookshelves under the dank lean-to, where the okes in charge try to suss the size of your wallet out and charge you accordingly. Craig bought it for 20 GBP - which for an antique-starved South African, was an utter bargain sent from decorating/magpie heaven! With its gold leafing and prettiest pink flowers curling with endless elegance around the glass doors, not a single day has gone by that I am not seduced into silently, breathlessly admiring its girly perfection! (I guess you can sense my impending heartache at our parting, hey?)
Item #2: A week or so after Layla was born, Craig arrived home (after some or other little errand he ran so kindly for me on his paternity leave) with a slightly rain-damaged but still salvage-worthy Singer sewing machine table - which became the home for our laptop, speakers, phone and a million other random odds-and-sods.
Item #3: The world's most marvellous easel - which I bought for 110 GBP when I lived in England before - and stored by an even more marvellous friend (even though we have no idea I would ever set foot in England again!) Alas, it will have to find a sunny corner in another artist's studio - and hopefully infuse her with the same magic it gave to me!
Items #4 & #5: one of our local haunts, the Holcot car-boot sale, proffered up weekly treasure hunts for this silly little magpie here - and when she saw these two
incredibly, unbelievably Art Deco mirrors, she ran to the stall (eyes glazed over in gimme-rapture), hardly believing her ears when the kind girl selling them said, "For you - 3 quid. For both." (Actually, I may just leave all my clothes behind -- better to be the madly happy owner of two Art Deco mirrors, I say!) I wonder how many souls these mirrors have captured in their heavy glass? Who were they? What were they thinking? What did they look like?

It's time for bed, and a weekend in which I will try to refine the excited babble in my head into inspiring sound-bytes for my radio interview on Radio 2000's Breakfast Show (8.20am - South African time: *hint, hint*)

Curl Up & Dye – Part 2

2010-04-28T03:02:00.000-07:00

Here's the second half to Curl Up & Dye (i), published at the fabulous iMod!

Curl Up & Dye (ii)

Curl Up & Dye (i)

2010-04-16T14:32:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile. Far too damn long in fact. Flu that turned into a clingy lung infection that has left me bereft of energy and even the vaguest flicker of brain power. Luckily for me, antibiotics are powering through my body to kill off those nasties my body could not.
Since I last wrote, I've been trying to get a surprisingly controversial political campaign off the ground, as well as fiddling with my hairstyle. Needless to say, both situations have aggressively pushed the boundaries of both my patience, and my creativity. First off, the campaign. Ho-hum. Where to begin? Well... the responses the campaign received were varied (to be polite), and I found myself on the verge of ditching the whole shebbang in lieu of something less challenging and more likeable. But, a little encouragement here and there from the right people and the show is still on the road. And as for the hair? Ah. Now here's a story that could span a week's worth of blog posts. So, let's start at the very beginning.
Growing up with a mom and dad who had two TOTALLY different attitudes to how women should wear their hair, I am lucky to have been allowed to have had long hair, short hair, red hair, black hair, curly hair and braided hair. My mom herself endured a somewhat horrendous time with her mother's proprietorial relationship with her daughter's hair - so perhaps this is why she consciously allowed me to experiment with my own mop of ordinary, straightish, brown hair. My dad, on the other hand(and like most men), struggled with the idea of my mom's hair being any different to when he first fell in love with her. She was sixteen, gorgeous and crowned with a fall of lustrous, brunette hair that skimmed her perfect waist. So watching my dad's facial muscles twitch and jive in disappointment whenever my mom had a new haircut taught me about how much value men place on their women's hair as a sort of symbol and memorial of the very first ignition of love and her youthful beauty. (One need only look at the power of long blonde tresses over a man's mind/nether regions to agree that hair is a powerful sexual signifier compared to a woman sporting a short brunette crop.) In my first serious relationship, I suffered debilitating punishments for daring to cut or dye my hair - so that when I finally managed to leave the bugger, I relished the freedom that now lay before me in glint of the hairdresser's scissors and the shelves and shelves of Clairol, Garnier and L'Oreal. At 28 I dyed my long hair raven black, and waltzed around the bars and cafes of Cape Town in heels and lipgloss and men's stares. After too many strange encounters with weird and not-so-wonderful men, I made the decision that my long hair screamed 'come hither' too loudly, and in a bid to express myself more specifically as a bohemian, funky, not-that-available soul, I designed a bob-length hairstyle that somehow managed to be both punk/rock and yet, deliciously, mysteriously feminine. And... this is when Craig discovered me. Almost three years later, and this darling man continues on his gently persuasive quest to get me to cut and dye my hair like that. His smittenness with me in those early days, especially with my hair, convinced me that here was a man (FINALLY!) who would find me irresistable in any sort of hairstyle. But alas, he too is just a mere man - and so adheres to that rule of all husbands who treasure the erotic memory of their wife's hair when they first laid eyes on each other. (*sigh*)
(It is suddenly desperately late - so I will have to write more tomorrow... Adios, in the meantime.)

Prison Break...

2010-04-02T03:35:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile (too long, actually) since I was last able to write. Dratted flu. But a temporary, yet nontheless magnificent hiatus, has granted me some time to write. A reprieve. How? I made the somewhat reckless decision yesterday to drive down from Northampton to Portsmouth to spend a few days with an old friend - a friend I am too afraid to admit I may never see again what with our impending move back to South Africa. Hence the hasty heart-over-head decision. The story of the car journey I shall leave for another day, fraught, as it was, with exhaustion, error and frantic despair. (Ha, the drama queen strikes again!)

The flu Craig has so generously shared with me, and now Layla, was one of the worst I can ever remember. And I've been praying under my breath that mother's prayer of, "Please don't let my child get sick...Please, please..." But by yesterday afternoon, her smooth, pale forehead began to burn with the fever I've been dreading all week. All through the night, I checked her temperature, hoping my faithfulness and fretful diligence would abolish the fever like medicine, or a talisman. But this morning, her little body had stolen the fever from her forehead and her eyes shone with the flu. She is coughing the same cough as me now. (What pisses me off is that my darling other half has already told me that if she gets the flu it'll be my fault. And as irrational as it is to believe such a claom from someone who had the same flu and was in as much proximity to his daughter as me, I feel shittily guilty. Condemned, somehow. Guilt seems to be a mother's lot. And it's something we need to fight as mothers. It will drag us down so that we will not be able to make proper sense of our children and ourselves. This guilt will blind us. This guilt causes us to lose sight of the whole 'me' that is indelibly important for our children to see. We cannot love properly if we have forgotten who we are.) Sheesh - this is pretty damn heavy for such a lovely, lazy Friday morning!!

The point I wanted to make was that I realised how my love for Layla has slipped into a form of suffocating control. As I lay next to her in bed this morning as she napped, my heart clenched shut in prayer yet again, yet the clarity that slapped me back said that I could not hope and pray my child's painless way through her life. Besides it being impossible to protect her from every illness and sadness, it was also wrong. In fact, I would go so far as to say it is actually unloving for me to entrap her inside my love. My love should be her fortress, not her prison. She should be the princess of the bastion of my heart where she can come and go, free. I'm ashamed to look back over the last year to see how I have so blindly made her the prisoner of my mother's heart.

And so, as I watch her cough or feel her cries from the aching fever tear my heart, I consciously choose to be there for her, to comfort her and meet her needs lovingly - but no more. I choose to confront the guilt as a mere imaginary spectre, and to replace it with rational love that sets my child free to grow into herself, and into her life. (And, can I just say, thank GOODNESS for Baby Nurofen!)

Jacky D Ice-Cream!!

2010-03-22T01:50:00.000-07:00

Tjoep-stil in her car seat next me (she fell asleep taking her papa to work), I am trying to get in as many words as I can before duty calls. (And believe you me, 'duty' is very vocal and shockingly eloquent for someone who can only say mama, woof, miaow and moo!) Craig's on a school trip for the next couple of days in some unnamed forest past Leicester - so while the mouse is away, the cat will play! lol! Having the car and all its exquisite freedoms means that during the day Layla and I can jol to our heart's content - and in the evening, I've got quiet little dinner parties planned. (Truth be told, I'm just exaggerating. There's nothing at all glam about the simple suppers I've organised, seeing as it's the end of an unusually frugal month - but the company will certainly be juicy! Wendy, Dinee and Adam: I'm talkin' about YOU! *wink*)

Somehow, my circumstances have always dictated that I be an absolute queen of the quandary: i.e. how can I turn my apparently half-empty cup into, not sommer a half-full cup, but one which overflows in magical, beautiful abundance? My example for today is the fact that my larder is all but bare - and I simply cannot journey through the night with my friends without the perfect ending of a fabulous pudding! So, lying far too wide awake for the hour last night thanks to the first cup of caffeinated coffee I've had in more than two years, I conjured up what I hope will be a concoction I can keep for the recipe book I'm writing. Right - here's how I'm going to make it:

1. In my pretty-pretty pink porcelain (1920s) bowl, I'll dribble a deep swig or two of Jack Daniels - and into it I'll add a generous handful of raisins and honey. (I'm not much of a believer in precise measurements of any kind, so play around with the amounts according to your specific predilection: i.e. boozy, fruity or super-duper sweet.) Allow the raisins to soak all day long... all the flavours mingling into a new deliciousness you've never tasted before.
2. Soften what's left of the vanilla ice-cream by leaving it to defrost a little without being tempted to eat any of it. (Okay, maybe just two wee spoonfuls?)
3. Fold the raisins and the whiskey/honey into the softened ice-cream. Return to the freezer until as soon as possible after dinner. (I have never been able to wait very long for dessert...)

Still in my cozy jarmies after yesterday's London adventure, I'm going to skip all the housework and other mundanities in favour of following up on the exciting contacts I made yesterday and, sjoe, getting as much writing done as I can! Sooooo many stories to tell...........................

A Lighter Shade of Pale {green...}

2010-03-19T01:59:00.000-07:00

[This post originated at iMod.]

Trying to live in this murky limbo of packing up means that my house feels like just that: a house. A topsy-turvy shell which feels empty - bereft of the care and attention to detail that is my signature (and somewhat bohemian) style. Ag ja - 'bohemian' is such a cliche these days, but it perfectly defines everything about me with its connotations of nomadic romance... And actually, I'm going to ditch the original thing I was going to write about, and tell you instead about how I have come to find myself in all the colours of the rainbow where I once lost who I was in a depthless pool of black.

I hardly ever talk about it now, but like a jagged, keloided-over scar the remaining evidence of a previous violence, I was married before. Yip, I'm a remarried divorcee. My ex-husband has also recently remarried - but that, my friends, is another story I'll have to leave for another day... Anyway, before my 15 year old self met him, my personal style was already um, rather quirky. My mom indulged me endlessly, sewing up all my own sketched designs with that particular brand of joy that only mommies can feel as they watch their daughters becoming young women. One of these dresses, which so reflected my undying passion for the 1960s and '70s, was a black ankle-length, empire-line maxi-dress - with wide bell sleeves, all trimmed with flowery braid chosen from my mom's stash of vintage ribbons I could spend hours rummaging through - brain amok with fashion fantasies! (Don't even get me started on her chocolate box of sequins and beads... Ooh la la!) If only I could remember what shoes I wore with this dress... Another outfit combination I wore with happily rebellious pride and which made my poor dad visibly cringe when I was with him in public, was my knee-length floral skirt in a reddish granny print chiffon (also devotedly made by my mom as per my instructions), worn with a t-shirt, a cream cardigan I was very sentimentally attached to and which I tied round my hips thereby ruining it into overstretched oblivion forever, and on my feet: my mom's hyper-chunky, heavy-as-hell Italian hiking boots. (This was before I was bought those iconically grunge/punk boots: Doc Martens!) And then, ahem, there is the matter of my hair. My sweet mama let me dye it a ludicrously cheap red tinge - which I just loved for how it made me feel (no matter that it was completely the wrong tone for my skin!) Of course, let me not forget my ultimate style accessory I have never been able to live without since I was eleven: lip-gloss. Due to an unexplainable addiction and the fact that I lick my lips perpetually, especially when concentrating, I make VERY sure I have a variety of tubes in my immediate vicinity at all times: whether it's paddling down the Orange River, writing a particularly strenuous exam essay, or - more recently - giving birth! (While I was changing Layla's nappy this morning, I noticed her carefully watching me while she licked her lips back and forth -- and I realised she was copying me! Noooooo!!! Is my child doomed to inherit my lip issues?!)

So before I met The Ex, I was radically exuberant in how I chose to express myself through colour and style. My Ex, however, came from a creepily conservative Rondebosch family, and I found myself toning things down by self-conscious degrees, so that by the end of the second year, I was a boring clone of all that is mediocre and 'normal'. A couple of years later, and I was suddenly swathed in black, black and more black. My excuse was that it fit my art student persona and my budget: i.e. everything matched! But looking back, I can see I'd lost the ability to be myself, and I was drowning, slowly and somehow defiantly, in this relationship - and black was the colour of my heart then: I couldn't see the light I craved through this pressing, suffocating thing I believed was love.
Here is another story about the way in which colour can so magically diagnose maladies of the heart. My sister, Mandy, had a particularly unique and vivacious relationship with colour - and bucked the trend, as she continues to do now, by replacing the predictable norm of blue skies, yellow sun and green grass with audacious choices of orange, purple and zingy pink! Until... she, out of the blue, replaced it all with harsh scribblings of black. Alarm bells rang for my mom who dashed off to the school to investigate. Turns out the teacher was exasperatedly trying to teach this left-handed child to be right-handed -- by smacking her errant left hand with a ruler!

My wearing black as a young woman continued unabated, broken only by the odd colourful garment. Even my paintings became drained of colour, and I chose only to work in graphite, black and shades of sepia. Even until about two years ago. One of the most notable things about colour choice, in my wardrobe and art, was that I never, ever used green. It was only once I managed to leave The Ex and return to Cape Town, that I suddenly started to add green to my life: from the sophisticatedly sombre tones of olive all the way through to the most fanatical of lime! I'd always been extremely aware of the fact that I'd never been a 'green' fan - but never quite grasped why... until I began incorporating it into my personal pallette. At the time, I was working (and playing!) as the art director for a nationwide fashion house and, in my trendforecasting analysis, discovered this intriguing snippet of enlightening info: people haunted by depression exclude the use of green in their personal expression, be it art, interiors or fashion. Wow! (to say the least.) It all made so much sense in retrospect, didn't it?

Needless to say, every inconceivable shade of green can be spotted in my life now - and that says a lot, hey? (*wink*)

What it means to a mother who writes!

2010-03-15T02:04:00.001-07:00

What it means to a mother who writes!

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Write Yourself Sane/Happy/Free!!

2010-03-10T01:54:00.000-08:00

Dark and grey, the clouds outside promise rain I wish I could parcel up to send back to South Africa - especially to Grahamstown where there have even been umbrella-email prayer requests for rain. (No pun on 'umbrella' intended...) Perhaps, and with frantic hope beating in my chest, spring might come early this year!

This week is going to see me writing the following:
1. My first article for iMod.
2. Setting up my new food blog (hmmm... going to keep you guessing!)
3. Writing my first magazine article for actual submission - which means, potentially, actual rejection. But I feel strong enough to understand this as an inevitable part of the process of writing/being published. And so, with all this fabulousness planned, let's just hope Lady Time will be kind to me!

Something I've learned about writing and blogging in the last two weeks has been this: it pays to be opinionated and brutally original. This I discovered after checking out all the winning blogs in various countries. And to be honest - some of them were quite, quite crap! But that's besides the point. The point is this: it is simply not worth your time and creative energy to be a nice fence-sitter. (Hours and hours pass, during which I cuddle, soothe and sing to HRM, tugging at her ears and yelping at random moments from what can only be teething pain...) Since I managed to jot down those last few words, I received the most fabulous surprise in my inbox: the production editor for The South African invited me to write an article for their Homecoming section! I was so flipping excited that I IMMEDIATELY forwarded the email to my mom and dad -- but refrained, this time, from slathering it all over my Facebook. But how absolutely fantastic is THAT?! (Maybe now even I can donate towards my own Netbook Fund!!

When I first started writing, I wouldn't even have called it that. Writing seemed like such a lofty, elite pursuit - whilst all I did was scrawl out my angst in longhand, recording everything from ideas for paintings to grocery lists. Behind this tedious but magical daily act is the idea, explained by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way, that these 'Morning Pages' (three A4 pages written out in longhand each morning) help us show ourselves the way when we're feeling lost. They also help us resolve inner and outer conflicts. They suggest solutions to all sorts of problems, whether practical or metaphysical. For me, one of the most miraculous benefits was that it helped me to find myself. To hear my truest voice above all the din and racket of my 'critics' (i.e. I'd allowed all sorts people to inhabit my head/heart-space: from my aggressively petty high-school art teacher to critical (jealous) friends.) Writing also helped me to survive an abusive marriage - and, in the end, escape! Louise de Salvo has gathered together an enormous amount of data proving the thesis that writing heals - and not merely psychologically, but physically as well. De Salvo, mind you, postulates that it is a certain kind of writing that has this effect. Merely bitching about your cranky mother-in-law day after day is not the kind of writing that heals!! Whilst describing the facts of a negative/destructive moment, one needs to tell it with a strongly narrative logic, as well as attaching your emotions to the facts. Anyway, I'm blathering - and it took me three days to write this post (!!) so I am going to take a bit of a breather and treat myself to another Julia Cameron trick: an Artist Date - to fill up the gaping morass from which I pour forth myself into my writing (oh, so dramatic!) and firstly, have a two-hour, lazy midday nap with LaylaRose, and then read some Ted Hughes poetry inbetween entertaining HRM with nursery rhymes and kisses!

Aphrodizzyac!

2010-03-08T02:43:00.000-08:00

Ooh la la! I'm a lucky girl -- with VERY generous friends, it seems! My Netbook Fund has risen dramatically in the last few days, as you can see on the thermometor chart on the right ;) How fabulously exciting!! (And may I say a gracious and delighted 'thank you' to Melanie Charlton and Anne Herbert for their kindess and endless encouragement!) And because I get such incredible support (and sometimes the odd kick-up-the-jack!) my writing has grown from a very meek little blog to an actual career! As yet, I am still unpaid as a writer - but at least I have been published in four separate places in the last two weeks.

1. The MyZA editor discovered my Soutpiel blog - and featured me in his editorial!
2. Homecoming Revolution thought my blog was juicy enough to make me one of their 11 official bloggers!
3. SA Blog Award-winning Cape Town blog, iMod, has just made me one of their writers where I'll be submitting an article every Monday - writing about my own brand of what it means to be a mother, sprinkled with sexy recipes (more about that just now) and the odd book review.
4. South Africa The Good News has featured my blog this week on their front page!

But before I launch into something so glaringly trivial as 'sexy recipes', I must just tell you that my heart is still leaden, paralysed ... the shock and confusion and despair of my friend's baby that died on Saturday... wondering, at each moment of my day, what my dear friend must be going through. Suddenly, Layla waking through night for feeding is a pathetically petty problem. Rephrase: It is no longer a problem. It is a blessing. (I don't want to cheapen her pain by writing any more about it...)

So - something happily trivial to distract us: Sexy Food. What is Sexy Food? Sexy Food is nourishment, not just for the hungers of the body - but for those particular cravings of the soul. In short, it is about desire.
An example would be the smoked salmon linguine I made for us on Friday night. Hmmm... Part of what made it 'Sexy Food' for me was the tumbling of passion memories as I read through the ingredients-list and remembered sharing a smoked salmon pizza, at the bare end of the month, with Craig - when we still lived in Blouberg. The late summer sun, sumptuously gold as it poured softly through the restaurant, and the red wine we sipped like mirrors of each other... I'd never had smoked salmon before, but Craig magicked me into an adventurer - and the carnal coming together (no pun intended) of the salmon flesh, the creamy creme fraishe and the slow burn of the spring onion felt like I was eating sex. (Mommy, for the sake of my writing career, I hope you are not blushing for shame?! lol) But anyway - remembering all those gorgeous textures and feelings made reading the salmon pasta recipe rather like accidently finding the most deliciously aphrodisiac erotica - in my kitchen! It's a perfect pairing, if you think about it: food and sex. All your appetites satisfied in one go! And really, eating together is the perfect foreplay for us as women: our minds and our senses are tantalised over a couple of luxurious hours (instead of a few roughshod minutes having our nipples twiddled like radio dials!) Even gathering the ingredients together on the kitchen counter, and setting the butter to melt in the pan was like ... well, do you really want to know? It was like laying out, for after your steamy, steamy bath, that favourite black lace bra, to go with that outrageously naughty thong you hide at the back of your drawer... Hmmm... Anyway - I am going to write my recipe book about this Sexy Food - though I need to conjure up a more beautiful name - as 'Sexy Food' reminds me too much of Borat/Bruno and his 'sexy-time'...

All I Want for Christmas (in July!!) Is.....

2010-03-04T06:25:00.001-08:00

Layla's molar-teething calmed in the night to allow us both a decent night's sleep - and today I have found a little bit of time to gather my thoughts after two weeks' worth of insanity. As I type, Layla sleeps upstairs, cocooned in a blanket our neighbour gave us when she was born. She is, physically, a petite little thing - still wearing 0 - 6 month clothes! What is NOT petite, however, is her personality - or her appetite for my undivided attention... When she's not teething, she can happily entertain herself for 30 minutes at a time - and then all she needs is a quick cuddle, some milk or a snack. But when she's teething? Oh dear... even putting her down on the ground amidst her mountains of toys automatically pushes her yelp/wail/screech button!

(Hours pass - and my irritability levels rise with no respite from the ceaseless demands of HRM.)

Craig arrived home at 8pm (19 minutes ago) and even though he's had a despicably long day at work, I beg him to please take our child off to bed so I can find a few moments to gather myself - and what remains of my sanity. (So if nothing makes sense, that's why!) On my last Soutpiel post, I received a tongue-lashing for writing such a short post - so here goes: let's hope I have enough time to write something worth sinking your teeth into ;)

Having recently read Julie & Julia, I've been inspired to do four things:
1. Write, write and write some more!
2. Get stuck into that recipe book that's been begging to be set free since I first annoyed my sister's high school Home Economics ethics with my butternut, feta and calamata olives idea!
3. Do as Julie Powell did by adding a 'donate' button to her blog/ (More about that in a moment.)
4. Recommend that you watch the film - but maybe skip the book. The deeper I got into the book, the more I disliked Julie Powell. With a toddleresque penchant for tantrums and something I can't quite put my finger on (selfishness? her revolting, cat-hairy housekeeping habits? the way she treats her devoted husband?) I almost wish I hadn't read the book at all... but the redeeming factors were that I found it a fabulous boost as a writer ("if she can do it, so can I") and also that I discovered Julia Child! Her memoirs about her life in Paris is definitely a book I'm putting on my birthday wish list - though perhaps not so her recipe books filled with too many recipes calling for boiling calves hooves down into aspic. (Blech!)

Anyway, to get back to Point #3. What with trying to launch myself into a freelance writing career, parallel to being Layla's adoring mommy, I haven't got a spare moment to earn the 250GBP I need to buy myself a netbook. Other thoughts I had were to take on a Saturday or a Sunday job, but Craig has to often work on one or both days of the weekend. So apart from having added Google ads to my blog, which earns me 1p a click, it seems impossible for me to get that kind of money together before we fly home to South Africa. (Once we're home, there will be no extra cash at all while we set up home all over again - and laptops are muchos expensive back home.) So... I am hoping that even if little amounts of even 50p get donated, that by the time June rolls around, I might be able to afford the new little laptop I need to keep my writing career flourishing! The laptop I'm currently writing on is beginning to show the feebleness of old-age... It is four years old - a relic from my divorce where all I got was my diamond ring: a nicely massive rock of champagne diamond ovalness, held in a platinum setting of little leaves and other pretty antique-style detailing -- all of my own design, and much lusted after by many a wandering woman's eye! Though it was valued at R42 000, my hunger to be free of the controlling mania of my ex-husband, I asked my dad to sell it for me on the Land Cuiser forum! Ha! Vengeance is mine, saith Lisa. The long and the short of it is that I got just enough money for it to buy myself a laptop. This laptop. It has been a lifesaver in so many ways... I was able to write myself out of a very dark, frightening depression. And while we've been living so far away from our families, it meant that we have been able to 'see' our moms and dads whenever we felt like it. And, most preciously, it meant that Layla and her late Granny Sally could meet - if only via the slightly murky magic of Skype. But the two of them shared a miraculous bond... to see the two of them talking to each, sunny with smiles and laughter, is a memory I take out every so often and shine with care and love.

Craig is back downstairs and it's time for me to be his wife, his friend, his Lisa, for awhile - so let me bid you the sweetest goodnight. Adieu, adieu, adieu, my friends!

PS. I found Julie Powell's original blog dating from 2002 - here is the link: http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/

BOOBY TRAP!

2010-02-20T11:15:00.000-08:00

This is the sms that I got last night from a like-bosomed friend: "Do you want to come bra shopping tomorrow afternoon? My bra situation is so dire that my babylons need a proper harness or they'll walk away all by themselves!"

Backwards and forwards went the sms's, plans to FINALLY visit Bravissimo in Milton Keynes made in an ecstasy of hope - that at long last my boobs would no longer be the victims of senseless gravitational tragedy! The Plan: meet at Anne's house around 12pm. Drive to Northampton Station. Park. Catch the train to Milton Keynes. Shop for the ultimate in breast elevation and perkification.

However... Another couple of icy inches of snow fell in the wee hours of the morning, making any sort of travel, other than by slow, careful walking in thick woolly socks and gumboots, dangerous. Damnit!! My euphoria was replaced by terrifying visions of my exponentially slumping mammaries dangling about my knees because they'd have to endure another agonising week minus appropriate buttressing! The irony of it all is that I have the boobs my 13 year old self wished for. (NEVER wish upon a star, ladies!!) I used to look down at my small little chest mounds, for they could never have been called 'breasts' - and compare them to my mom's boobs. Hers looked like real boobs. I wanted mine to have that fold underneath. That fold that we all now know means our boobs have lost their pert youth and are now officially 'saggy'. Anyway, my chest continued to blossom, thanks to my rollercoastering hormones (and moods!) and by the time I was 18, I happily ran around campus in bra-less 34B perfection, with not a worry in the world about that thing called Gravity. By my fourth year at uni, my maternal grandmother's genes began to make themselves known in a sudden boob-boom: and a bra-fitting at La Senza confirmed a size increase to a D-cup. All men and smaller-chested women think that the 'D' stands for delicious, divine, decadent and desirous. But the dire truth is that it denotes drooping, discomfort, distress and doom. And I think of these bizarre documentaries following the cosmetic journey of women who have bigger and bouncier balloons of silicone sutured into their chests in a quest for, let's be honest: love. 'Love' for which they pay the coin of sex for. When I think of the issues my large-ish bosoms have irritated me with, I wonder at the ugly desperation behind these Frankensteinian boob-jobbed ladies... at what has driven them to covet male sexual attention so obsessively.

Before my soapbox collapses, let me define why I said the 'D' in 34D was so disastrous.
1. "drooping": Real D-cup breasts are heavy. Like two lumps of rump-steak 'heavy'. And this means gravity loves them more than you do! Admittedly, the droop was never quite as disastrous as the excessive dangling of the post-pregnancy F-cups I now drag around with me... I am looking for a bra that will give my bazoombies such a fabulous boost that my waist will once again be visible! (Yip, so when I said they drooped, I wasn't exaggerating.)
2. "discomfort": Big boobs in summer are hell on earth. Hot, sweaty and not at all sexy. Also, think about the muscles in your constantly aching back that must compensate for carrying what can be likened to lugging a large, rock-filled Gucci tote on your chest!
3. "distress": Many eyes become glued to your mamilla in public - whether you like it or not. (I don't.) Lewd, watering old men's eyes. Furtive, horny other-women's husbands' eyes. Angry, jealous women's eyes. (With reference again to our surgically busty bimbos, they remind me of naughty toddlers: any attention is good attention.)
4. "doom": Lastly, massive mammary glands = lingerie that is more armour-plate, octogenarian, elasticized contraption than lacy sweet-nothings that'll melt your man straight into a swoon. Quite frankly, I feel doomed to forever be confined in mammoth-cupped unsexiness. My last three bra purchases testify to this apocalyptic sense of catastrophe: none of them, though the correct size of 38F, gave my boobs a shape that looked or felt good. Each set of bras were returned by gloomy ol' me. But...

There IS hope! Bravissimo! Every woman in my boat who carries extra buoyancy (wink, wink) and shops at Bravissimo testify they will not shop ANYWHERE else for their brassieres! Besides the fact that you will be professionally fitted, the actual product is apparently outrageously gorgeous and of impeccable quality. And so, with a date set for Sunday to go bra-shopping at Bravissimo, I look forward to telling you all the juicy details and sharing with you my renewed sense of Lisa!

As a kind of (very important) PS, I must mention that although I have bitched and moaned about my breasts, I am deeply thankful for the fact that I even have breasts. Watching a program on TV the other night about a woman who had her breasts reconstructed after a brutal mastectomy and the emotional agony she suffered between the two operations, reminded me of how gloriously beautiful our breasts are in any shape or size -- and how miraculous in their function of so perfectly nourishing, hydrating and soothing our babies. Viva Les Boobies!

The Shape of a Mother

2010-02-19T12:46:00.000-08:00

With Layla's first birthday in 6 days' time, it is with amazement that I've watched her sleep cycles change like clockwork from the newborn's every-45-minutes to the 12 month old's one midday-nap. She's been awake for 8 hours now, and upstairs, Craig's muted voice singing her to sleep carries gently down to me, reminding me of how precious and sweet is life. Initially I grabbed the laptop to write my encounter with a particularly complicated Benagli aubergine recipe and its curdled outcome, but I got sidetracked (what's new?!) and found a website, Juxatapoz, about artists working from the expat perspective. I guess this post should actually be on my Soutpiel blog, but what the heck?! (After asking Craig for a drop more vino or a cup of rooibos, I can hear from the tinkling of a stirring spoon that he decided I needed the tea!) Oh bugger - and now one of my favourite TV shows is coming on... What to do?! OK, I'll add to this tomorrow.

..................Yesterday, researching different ways to promote my blog and increase my readership, I discovered this thing called 'blog carnivals'. My addled mommy's-brain couldn't quite wrap itself around all the technicalities of getting it set up, so I've cancelled my account. I'm finding it critical, these (Layla-filled) days, to keep everything as simple as possible. Perhaps it is better to have quality of readership than quantity. (You're nodding your head in agreement, aren't you?) Do any of you have any recommendations re: my buying a netbook? Being interrupted for others to use my current laptop is driving me absolutely bloody bananas! Another thing is that it's not as portable as a netbook is, and this laptop's battery is maar 'n bietjie pap. Should I be wary of 'refurbished' ones on eBay? Other than feeling incredibly irritated that I don't have free reign on MY laptop, I am happily pottering around with a number of creative projects, one of which is a crocheted oval rug made from old t-shirts. Another is the revamping of my current wardrobe because I am still living that fabulous maxim of 'BE MORE, DON'T BUY MORE' (because even if I wanted to, I couldn't buy more!) and also because this new motherly body of mine has different needs in terms of coverage, accessibility, stain resistance/camouflage etc.

Oh well... that was a pretty blah blog entry... Something more juicy tomorrow, I promise :)

Touched With Fire...

2010-02-12T07:44:00.000-08:00

Layla has gone down for her second nap of the day. And I am deeply peeved that I cannot seem to gain the upperhand in the fight for control over my domestic bliss!! It always seems like an uphill battle. Maybe I need to stop, breathe and simply make peace with the vaguely chaotic set-up I call 'my house'. The truth of the matter is that I am not married to Mr Perfect (but who the hell is?!) AND there is a little miracle of a person whose needs are much more important to me than achieving domestic-goddess status. Admittedly, Craig is becoming more and more marvellous in his attempts to keep my house-rants at bay: i.e. making the bed as many mornings as a non-morning person can manage, and sms-ing me on the days he couldn't to say he was sorry. And so, this journey towards domestic/familial enlightenment wends its twisting, winding way closer towards the light of peace and understanding. (Why would I want to be a wife who spends more time bitching at her husband for mundane trivialities instead of building him up with kind, loving words? I have DEFINITELY noticed the difference in the quality of our togetherness when I focus on the latter. A HUGE difference. Fact 1: a generous, gentle, funny man can be turned, in the space of a single, embittered accusation about housework, into a sulking, hurt little boy. Fact 2: this makes me even more critical. Fact 3: this makes him even more defensive and sulky.... And on it goes.)

So, though the dishes may not all be neatly stacked away, and the countertops flawless in disinfected cleanliness and tidiness, we have sufficient dishes to cook dinner for ourselves and our dinner guests. And though the lounge is strewn with all manner of Layla's toys, it is a happy mess with plenty of space on the two sofas for everyone to chill out on a cold Friday night with a delightfully yummy plate of food on their laps. (i.e. Bengali aubergines (in garlic and cumin-scented yoghurt) and lamb kebabs --- and hopefully, some red wine which I am praying Craig will remember to pick up on his way home from his last day at school before a week-long break. Pinotage or Shiraz, please!)

On a less exuberant note, I am devastated by the news that Alexander McQueen committed suicide yesterday. I'd never heard a peep about him struggling in any sort of way... but hearing about his mom dying a few days before helped the penny to drop. Often, artists of great genius are prone towards bi-polar depression - which is a common denominator in most suicides. A brilliant book to read on this subject, actually written by a psychiatrist, is "Touched with Fire". I read it a few years ago and was so touched by the obvious, tenderly told truth - especially as it helped me to understand my own cyclothemia and my ups and downs. (I'm not saying I am AT ALL a 'creative genius' like Beethoven! It is just that many creatives suffer with varying degrees of emotional roller-coastering. The author of said book explains how the bleak lows are vitally important as part of the creative cycle - actually 'feeding' the artist before a 'high' hits. Being able to change my perspective on my darker days to this has been a lifesaver. In every sense of the word.) But going back to the genius-tailor/designer, Alexander McQueen, he must have had a devastatingly close relationship with his mother for it to have so broken his heart. He had a big collection due for showing at the beginning of March, and perhaps this pressure, coupled with his mother's passing, was just too much for him. Rest in peace, Alexander. I hope you are with your mother.

PS. Please don't forget to vote at the bottom tick-boxes! And, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE leave a comment or three :) You have NO IDEA what it means to me!!!!!

Breaking News: Laziness Cured By Nap!

2010-02-08T04:43:00.000-08:00

Today is one of those days. You know those days when you feel blah about absolutely everything? I don't feel like doing anything - not even making myself a cup of (yes, sugarless) rooibos tea. I don't even know why.

The snow storm from America has hit us, and that little journey on foot to the village post office no longer seems like a possibility. Soft, white and flossy, the snow looks deceptively gentle: until you open the door and step out into it. Then it bites you. Bitterly, and with vengeance. Nope - I'm not going to bother going out there AT ALL today. But how am I going to cure this lethargic ennui that has paused me in my tracks as if I were an interrupted song?

More than anything, I think, is this sense of being overcome with exhaustion in my body. My blood feels thick, dark and heavy in my veins, and my brain is certainly not firing on all cylinders: my perception feels distorted and vague, like I am viewing life down blurry, back-to-front binoculars. Oxygen and endorphins created by exercise could definitely help. But hell, I am just not in the mood. You wouldn't be either, so don't point your finger at me, ok?! (Sheesh - add 'paranoid' to the list as well then.) But anyway, getting back to why I think I feel like this can be put down to the fact that I didn't get enough rest on the weekend. With Craig at home, I try and take complete and utter advantage of the fact that I have a babysitter I don't have to pay but can emotionally blackmail with things like, "Oh, so you don't want to spend any time with you daughter then? Nice one, Craig. Nice." But my poor little Pudding-Pie struggled with teething all weekend... This time, it's her molars. Has any medical professional ever been able to measure the extent of the pain our little ones go through due to teething? My mom says that by the time I was 15 months old, all my teeth had come through. Maybe Layla will suffer the same fate?

................. as is to be expected, I was interrupted (maybe I should change my blog name to 'Girl, Interrupted') by needing to put Layla down for a nap, the Tesco delivery guy being unusually exuberant and the never-to-be-missed opportunity to ask 'Is that a South African accent?' followed by the usual questions regarding the weather, crime, blah blah blah -- which woke Layla 20minutes into her nap. Bugger. With my groceries sitting and defrosting in the limbo of the passage, I climbed into bed with my baby while nursing her back to sleep. Two hours later, and I feel FABULOUS, darling! That was all I needed: a bit of extra sleep. Now I feel ready to conquer the world (and that toppling pile of clean laundry to be folded)! Also on the Domestic Goddess Cards, is
1. Roast that Butter & Herb chicken - then divide the cooked meat into small portions for Layla to have through the week with meals or snacktime. (She needs more protein and fat in her diet.)
2. Continue to try and solve the increasingly irritating riddle of why my .avi files won't write to CD...
3. Get dinner on the go: Bengali aubergines in yoghurt, served with lamb kebabs. (Packing my groceries away, I spied a lonely garlic clove in its antique pink bowl next to the olive oil, sea salt and black pepper grinder. How, oh how am I POSSIBLY going to get through the week with only ONE garlic clove??? PANIC STATIONS!! I'll have to ring Ang down the road to see if she has any to share!)
4. Have a bath with Layla (while I pray that this dratted snow stops before it causes the mad mayhem of previous occassions!)

Part 2: Chubby and Proud!

2010-01-29T03:01:00.000-08:00

Back to that quote I mentioned:

What is healing but a change in perspective?

The change in perspective I had was this: I realised the deep hurt I carried around because I never felt thin enough was something that had to go. It was too heavy a load to bear - and besides, I have Layla to consider: her own health and self-esteem/body-image. If she saw me cringing, year in and year out, in front of the mirror and constantly whining about my body, it could only have a negative impact on her.

My glorious days as a 28 year old single woman (I nearly said 'girl'!) and how fabulous I felt about every inch of myself shone deliciously in my heart and I realised it did not merely have to be a memory, but that I could make it a reality again (minus the singleton status, of course!) What caused me to head back down this bleakly treacherous path after such a fabulous blooming? Motherhood. I hate to admit it, but being pregnant and a new mom was devastatingly different to how I had always imagined it would be. And, I think that maybe I may have even been angry with my body for betraying me during the birth of my child: firstly, having to be induced with Sintocinon because Layla was in distress and had literally shat herself in fright, and then not dilating more than 2cm and hearing my as yet unborn child's heart stop and having to be rushed into surgery for an emergency C-section.
My pregnancy saw me carrying huge amounts of water - both in my womb and in my body, with once-petite ankles as swollen and shapeless as an elephant. (I was actually going to reference my late Norwegian great-aunt again and her lace-up shoes over which her ankles bulged, but felt a bit guilty. The necessity to accurately portray the immense fatness of my ankles prevailed, I'm afraid...) At 5 weeks, I glibly announced to the world that it seemed as if the morning-sickness curse had passed me by, but come Week # 6 and I was cuddling that toilet like there was no tomorrow! The GP announced his complete conviction that I was carrying twins. (I didn't tell him how, since I was a little girl, I had always prayed to not EVER be 'blessed' with them! Apologies to my identical twin sisters, Mandy and Julie.) I proceeded to vomit all the way through my pregnancy, having to dash out during teaching, or - most memorably, having to frantically stop the car on the side of the road in Milton Keynes on my way to do nursery shopping at IKEA to cover my boots and jeans in the peach yoghurt I'd just eaten to quell the nausea! Driving past the white-washed spot on my way back, I can actually remember my cheeks burning with humiliation!

(Sheesh, I DO get distracted, don't I?) My hands were so bloated that I couldn't wear my engagement ring - or any rings, for that matter! And none of my pretty pumps fitted my feet. Most disappointing? Asking Craig to please pick up a pack of size 16 panties at Tesco because - well, it's obvious, isn't it?! Boobs I could proudly flaunt at 34DD ballooned into 38F monstrosities, complete with wildly itchy skin, bright blue veining and, quite literally, a life of their own. (Lunchtime - time to feed my precious Layla something yummy! Part 3 coming soon: I know I got sidetracked again - but I've got to keep you hooked and coming back more, don't I?!)

Chubby and Proud!

2010-01-25T02:08:00.000-08:00

My sugar-less (to clarify: the 'less' signifies I am ingesting less sugar as opposed to a sugarless diet: how could I never have another chocolate or bowl of Ben & Jerry's?!) diet is going fabulously: there is definitely something to be said for the marvels of moderation! I can't quite remember just who said it, but this quote expresses more succinctly what has happened to me in the last month than I could ever attempt:

What is healing but a change in perspective?

Being 'chubby' has haunted my eating days since I was ten years old. Pretty young, huh? I think it was the school nurse (a short and - rather ironically - rotund old woman with short grey hair and the wrinkliest face I'd ever seen on anyone except my Norwegian great-aunt) who suggested my mom haul me off to a dietician ASAP. Looking at photos of myself at that age now, I am deeply angry that I was deemed even vaguely overweight. Certainly, I was not blessed with a beanpole physique and a skyrocketing metabolism, but my body was cute and round and healthy. The usual ball-oriented sports at school like netball and tennis saw me cursed with butterfingers and bored to tears - and I often managed to almost-legally bunk all my Phys Ed classes from primary to high school by needing to practice my flute (wink, wink.) Climbing trees didn't suit me much either: my twin sisters would chatter with not-too-subtle glee at my mom having to fetch the ladder to get me out the high arms of the leafy avo tree in our back garden. (I could climb up - it was the getting down that didn't agree with me.) Another moment of humiliation? Slipping clumsily off the rocks we were using to cross an almost torrential river while hiking in the Cape mountains while my sisters nimbly hotfooted it across and my dad calling me his 'little mountain deer'. Yes, he was being sarcastic. But besides these sorts of incapabilities, I was an excellent little sailor - representing South Africa when I was a mere 13 years old at the Mirror World Championships in Holland! And for you of you who have never sailed a dinghy in the famous South Easter - it is blerry hard work: you need to be fit and super-strong! So ball-sports aside (and river-rock-hopping), I wasn't an unhealthily slothful child at all. I simply preferred stretching my brain muscles to other muscles; 2 to 3 hours a day was a normal amount of time for me to spend practising my flute, for example.

Provitas skimmed with a mere lick of marge, and carefully dolloped with exactly measured-by-grams fat-free cottage cheese and early morning jogs in the dark before school were my punishment for having a body that wasn't supermodelesque. It didn't stop there either - I continued to punish myself for not being thin until about two years ago when I finally managed to leave my exercise-obsessed, fat-free fanatic ex who certainly didn't help me accept myself for who I was. Before I met my husband, I enjoyed two glorious years of unadulterated glory in the eyes of quite a number of delicious young men who unabashedly adored my healthy curves - and the word 'diet' never once crossed my happy mind. My husband,a bit of a Jack Sprat himself, is my biggest fan - even with my new mommy-body which has taken me 11 painfully arduous months of self-psychology to make peace with. I can't quite say that I am at the 'love-myself-to-bits' stage yet, but I can see it on the horizon, at least!

{This is just the beginning of much, much more on this universal and layered topic: more will follow as soon as Layla (aka HRM = Her Royal Majesty) allows.}

I cheated... {blush}

2010-01-11T01:55:00.000-08:00

A week or so on, and I am bursting with pride to tell you that I am making my New Year's Wishes come true! No more small mountains of cookies with every cup of sugary coffee; instead? black coffee or rooibos with no sugar, and I fill my tall petal-pink glass jug with water, placing it on a little round antique crocheted doily atop a gold-filigreed porcelain saucer - and then regularly fill up a turquoise, circa 1974 tumbler with the metabolism-boosting, cleansing, hydrating water from the tap! Despite being very anti-exercise-to-look-like-what-we-think-we-should-look-like, I've embarked on a relaxed journey into enjoying the God-given gift of my healthy body instead! Step 1: Layla and I dance every day to her nursery rhymes DVD (fave song of the mo? The Hokey Pokey), our Putumayo World Music CDs or anything that tickles our fancy. Step 2: Instead of the bathroom looking like a dedicated aquatic playground, I took back some space for myself - tidying up Layla bath toys up and away onto the wall, and packed a basket full of delicious Body Shop and Lush goodies: strawberry body polish, cocoa body butter, olive oil body wash... (I have to add here the serendipitous detail about how I came by this extravagantly big basket of delight: On Friday, I popped in at my South African friend down the road for lunch, and she asked if I 'needed any smellies'? She had been stockpiling them over the last year - gifts she couldn't possibly hope to use up by herself. And I was the lucky one she wanted to share with! This exquisitely timed gesture of hers has literally given me back to myself. Thank you, Ang!)

Layla's asleep in her bed - occasionally swiping her mouth in her sleep from the teething pains. And as my fingers fly excitedly across the keyboard, I wish I was a fully-fledged writer, with my name splashed across arty glossies, national newspapers and - and - and... This could be one of my New Year's Wishes, right? Access to the internet is absolutely critical, in terms of research. Or is it? (I'm just thinking about how I'll manage when we don't have broadband back in SA...)

... hours pass.

In the meantime, I have found an apparently EXCELLENT internet provider which my sister is already using : Afrihost! So maybe we will have internet access after all :) One of the steps I can take towards becoming a writer is to stop researching how, and actually start writing articles, risking life, limb and possible heartache by sending them in to magazines. And maybe, instead of whining about how little time I have, I could schedule a few hours on the weekend where I can be alone (i.e. focused) to write and polish an article. OK - so as a first step towards granting this New Year's Wish to myself, I hereby schedule a writing date with myself and babysitter/husband for this weekend! Voila ;)

PS. In the hours indicated 'hours pass', like an addict in the painful throes of craving, I clambered up onto the kitchen counter and ripped open the Quality Street tin (actually panting with sugar-lust) and grabbed a handful - not even stopping to carefully choose my favourites... I think I broke a World Record : 5 chocolates unwrapped and scoffed in less than 60 seconds. Any challengers?! But - as I said to my mom: it's ok if you fall off the wagon once, 'cos you can just sommer climb back on!

Wishes versus Resolutions...

2010-01-05T10:22:00.000-08:00

Leo Babauta is an inspiring blogger I discovered quite by accident one day when I typed 'how to be a domestic goddess' into Google. (Sigh) Embarrassing to admit, but it has been many years since that has bothered me. Anyway, the long and the short of it is that his blog, Zen Habits, has completely demolished my devout belief that New Year's resolutions are nothing more than a sad old cliche, with his latest blog entry.
Despite the very Buddhist vibe in the blog title, the concepts covered are decidedly not New Age, but extremely practical and digestible, unlike so much of the opaque 'crystals 'n yoga' literature out there. (Hope I haven't offended anyone?) Getting dressed after my nightly bath with my little girl, I discovered I had reached that point in my life's trajectory where I could simply not put on another post-baby/too-damn-cold-for-exercise/bored-so-let's-eat-shitloads-of-sugar kilogram. As much as I had tried to reconcile myself to 'be the size you are' and other such sloganised, self-loving beliefs, I have had days when I look at myself in photos and mirrors where I don't really like what I see. And besides that, there is my health to consider! (Yip, another cliche. But when you push all these cliches aside and find the reality you are looking for, it is both harsh and comforting. Like throwing open the curtains and windows to a gorgeously sunny morning after a night of way too much red wine.) Babauta's suggestion to take things extreeeeeemely slowly, and to let go: let go of EVERYTHING holding you back like past failures, fear of failures, blah blah blag... Well - it just makes so much sense. The clarity he paints through his simple suggestions is so different to anything else I've ever encountered in the 'help yourself' arena.
Anyway, part of what he suggests is making your resolutions PUBLIC. Ouch. But being accountable to more than just yourself makes it so much easier to make decisions on whether or not to gobble down too many McVities Chocolate Digestives for lunch instead of putting in a drop of elbow grease and making that healthy, wholewheat sarmie... that big glass of water or another glass of pinotage... And so, my friends, it is here that I very publicly declare that I am on a mission to love myself again! To not merely make an effort for others, but to look after myself too.
Wish me luck - and plenty of encouragement :)

Keeping abreast of the situation!

2009-11-20T10:16:00.001-08:00

Kamaiura : Siesta of mother and child, originally uploaded by klausdgrio (unabled - all photo-gear stolen).

Breastfeeding. This is something I want to blog more about, if only to increase awareness about why it is the most magical, miraculous thing a mother can do for her child. Before Layla, I used to feel pretty neutral about it - but now...

In other cultures, like the Mongolians, breastfeeding is celebrated! Breastfeeding in public is not just a cultural norm, but expected.

Having lunch the other day in a garden centre's cafe with my friend, Lisa, and her year-old little girl, Freya Rose, we both hauled out our boobs so our children could have their milk. Knowing the taboos surrounding this wonderfully natural and beautiful act of mothering and nutrition, we took care to choose the most discreet seating in the cafe, and made sure not the barest glimpse of flesh was flashed! And yet, in our hearts, we feel like organising militant-style pro-breastfeeding ralleys! But we don't. Because............. I've just deleted an extremely passionate paragraph in case, oh dear, it might offend.
The day Layla was born, and in the weeks following, I had decided Layla would only be breastfed until she was six months old. That is, when the teeth arrive. But now, 8 months on, I almost wish it would never end. It gives us the most precious moments of quiet intimacy. A time that no-one else can muscle in on with a bottle of formula in hand. Through the night, she reaches for me in her sleep, and we lie in each others' arms - a twilight of love. One day, too soon, she will be off and running, busy, painting, playing, climbing trees, homework, boys... And these moments will be my perfect mother's treasure. An anchor, I hope, for us both.

Dark, grey, gloomy...

2009-11-19T07:28:00.000-08:00

Today makes me think of studying Shakespeare at school. When the weather was believed to be a direct reflection of what was going on politically etc. Like the storm in Macbeth. I've just stepped outside in my pyjama socks to let my neighbours gentle giant of a German Sherpherd out for a quick wee in her cramped, little pebbled yard. Today hasn't been a 'good' day in the conventional sense of the word. i.e. no housework has been done because I'm just too damn tired. And it's that deep kind of tiredness you feel in your soul. The kind of exhaustion that you have to just try and ignore, because if you don't, it'll consume you. Until you feel like you're drowning.
The miraculous thing about being a mother, is that somehow, out of nowhere, you are suddenly blessed with a fresh abundance of energy. (I'm counting on this to happen for me tomorrow!) When I let go of this feeling guilty about being tired, and allow myself to chill out for the day (in pyjamas, with a sink full of dishes and a basket of laundry to be folded and packed away, and ... and... and...), then I am usually guaranteed to wake up feeling like the proverbial million bucks! So today, Layla and I have napped together, played together on the floor, shared a sarmie for lunch, cuddled and laughed and giggled at each other... I have learnt (though it's taken me 31 long years) that these darker days are there for a reason: to stop you in your tracks so you're forced to take stock of what really matters to you. Otherwise, with a constant supply of perfect energy, I would whizz through life and take everything (and everyone) for granted. I wouldn't pray. I would never be still.
Supper tonight? A quiche bought from a 'boutique-deli' : feta, spinach, sundried tomatoes and pine-nuts. I'll bang it in the oven and chop up a few tomatoes with some crisp slices of cucumber, and voila! Maybe I'll get really lucky and Craig will stop to pick up a bottle of vino on the way home from work. It's usually a bottle of Cape Red for 3.39 GBP from the Co-op in Brixworth. (I'm really struggling to concentrate... I find that when Layla is asleep, my ability to focus on writing, painting etc is quite good. But when she's awake - my brain turns into a primitive survivalist machine and all that matters is my child: is she cold? is she hungry? is she thirsty? is she happy? Eish...)
*Sorry, Mel - another short entry. Blame it on motherhood.

Mother & Child, and Father...

2009-10-26T02:45:00.001-07:00

1. Was up with Layla all night long. (Saturday saw the beginning of a very sticky, snotty nose - and by Sunday, she was in full swing with the whole works, making for an utterly miserable little girl.)
2. She woke up at 5.30am - and guessed she'd need her usual sleep by 8.30am at the latest -- but not being able to breastfeed with such a blocked nose made her inconsably frantic, that I've only managed to get her to sleep a few minutes ago: i.e. she was awake for a total of FIVE hours... And that's a LOT for such a wee little soul.
3. Craig has gotten the cold as well - and, being of the male persuasion, has it 'a billion times worse' (to quote directly!) And to top it all off, Mama Lisa here has to help him type his school reports because otherwise he gets a sore back. Ag shampies...
So, sleep-deprived, irritable and more-than-your-average-knackered, here I am at the PC and not in bed where I should be, catching up on as many winks I could get.
4. My small 'Mother & Child' was selected for the 96th Annual Northampton Town & County Art Society Exhibition (what a mouthful!)over the large one because of the gallery's lack of space this year where they're apparently hanging works from floor to ceiling!

Teething pains...

2009-10-07T06:48:00.001-07:00

With the weather turning a glum, cold grey, my usually bare feet about the house are decidedly icy: time to either turn on the heating or haul out last winter's slippers! Whenever I speak to my dad (he's in Cape Town), he is guaranteed to ask me about the weather. Even slap-bang in the middle of the Cape Winter, the weather is usually irritatingly better than here in Northampton. Perhaps this is why my dad always asks me? A little thorn to remind me that east, west, HOME is best!
Layla's top front two teeth are pushing their way down through her sore, tender little gums - and the Calpol I gave her earlier doesn't seem to have made so much as a dent in her loud, sporadic agony. Poor baby :( All I've managed to do today is look after her, run a load of washing (which is still in the machine) and do the dishes (but they're still not packed away.) Since the last time I wrote, I've had a dramatic shift in perspective after an older and wiser friend's kind warning to 'treasure these moments' with Layla. She made mention that she herself has to remind herself of this sentiment when contemplating, not her navel, but finding a gun to forever silence her husband's decibel-crunching snores! (I've had to promise keeping her safely anonymous in case her contemplation turns to action one sleep-deprived midnight!) But it is so, so true. These precious children of ours grow up in leaps and bounds we can never hope to keep up with! I can hardly even remember how tiny and fragile Layla was as a newborn - when teething and crawling and starting solids all seemed impossibly far away into the future. When we were in South Africa, I found the very first photograph ever taken of Layla on her late granny Sally's cell phone. Craig's hand is on the photo, giving Layla the look and size of a tiny doll - and not the chubby, robust newborn I expected! She was so thin and almost scraggly, that her skin hung off her like an old, too big jersey. And that shock of raven hair! So much like her daddy that I kept on dreaming in my post-labour snatches of sleep that they'd made a mistake: that she was a boy! For weeks after she was born, I wanted to snip off a lock of her soft black hair to keep forever, but suddenly the weeks were months, and all that hair disappeared... Thank goodness for photographs!
And here she is, all 14lb and 7.5months of her: delicious, incredible, amazing! Holding her in my arms in the middle of the night, exhaustion suspended by the miracle of her. Could I love her too much? Her soft apple cheeks, long and strangely straight eyelashes, and a mouth that can be all soft and pouty - and then stretch into the widest, biggest smile I've ever seen... It's hard to believe she is my daughter. My flesh and blood. Made only from love and desire and chromosomes...

(As an aside, a friend told me on the weekend that my blog entries are too short and leave the reader wishing I had given them more... Two reasons I probably cut myself short: I don't want to bore you, and Layla usually needs me JUST as the writing starts to get juicy... Any ideas or tips?)

Domestic Distress!!

2009-09-21T05:05:00.000-07:00

1. Bad, bad night for Layla with her teeth. (Almost zero sleep for me.)
2. But I'm still enjoying my glossy lacquered nails - AND toenails. At least I can be glamourouslyshattered!
3. Instead of actually painting, I nearly started a new blog about my painting. Realised I was really just procrastinating in an incredibly self-deceptive way: I believed for a few minutes I was actually working! Have decided to blog about my art on this blog if I really have to!
4. And now for the absolute crux of why I am here today: I need help! But constructive help only, please. Why?

... My house is a mess. There are some areas which are pristine and fantastically organised - but they are frustratingly few and far between. When I was pregnant, I was so badly bloated and exhausted, that not having enough energy to keep it tidy didn't bother me too much. Now that Layla's older and easier, I find that I get stuck into setting the house to rights - only to have it all fall down like a sandcastle smashed by the inevitable wave. (Funny little metaphor - but that's what it really feels like to me. Like I've spent hours playing and creating and perfecting, only to watch in horror as the waves creep closer and closer... and then to watch as it crumbles down upon itself and disappears into only a memory of itself.) I think it New York Mayor Giuliani's notion of 'The Broken Window' that's at fault for 99% of the messes in my house. i.e. when there's a broken window in an otherwise nice neighbourhood, it attracts naughty, loitering boys - who then scribble a little graffiti on the wall, and maybe break the next window along. Then a gang moves in to claim it as its turf, and the drug dealer's the next step. Etcetera etcetera. The solution: prevention is better than cure: so when there's a broken window, fix it immediately so it doesn't attract more brokenness.
I've tried to explain that to my other half who really does seem to try his best but honestly doesn't have a tidy bone in his body - so while he agrees with needing to clean/tidy straightaway, he can't seem to put it into practise. Hence, my chronically messy house that, when someone unexpectedly knocks at the door for a visit, has my heart going into miniature cardiac arrest, or telling a white lie like, "I was just about to leave for the dentist" (even though I'm blatabtly un-ready in my pink polka-dot gown and steaming mug of coffee!)
So: any advice or CONSTRUCTIVE ideas? One idea I've had is to get in a cleaning service once every two weeks to vacuum, dust etc, so I don't have to spend so much time doing that sort of housework, and can then focus on keeping things tidy/organised. (If I tell Craig about this idea, he'll enthusiastically launch into telling me HE will do those things for me on weekends. But... does it EVER happen? You know the answer to that.)
Wondering if I should sign off the rest of the week to getting the house PERFECT, then begin painting again on the weekend? Even though I'm not anally-retentive about tidyness, I struggle to be creative if there are too many messes lurking around, making me feel distracted with guilt!

Vixen

2009-09-20T14:18:00.000-07:00

Almost dry, my always efficiently short nails are painted the colour of dark, ripened cherries - the first time I've found the time and the energy to paint them. Toenails too! A minor miracle.

Upstairs, I can hear Craig brushing his teeth, and I suppose I ought to head to bed myself. But it's just been one of thosedays... when, as a mom and wife, you lose sight of your heart's little daily desires in folding clean washing, still warm and smelling of the late summer sun... in the soapy suds in the kitchen sink... It was a long day where the groceries got done ETCETERA, but my little studio space remained empty. Where can I find more time to paint? How can I magic more time into my day to write? Hmmm... even a solitary bath by candlelight (or moonlight) would be heavenly (and I'm trying not to feel guilty thinking about it...) Baths now are: Craig and I in the bath with Layla at 5pm, her plonked in her bright yellow bath seat, while plastic wind-up turtles and rubber fish find their way into all sorts of places I've not had visited in awhile. (Sigh)

Layla's probably going to wake in about 30min from now. I am awake every hour at night still with her. Teething pain, and its tummy pains (and resultant giant nappies at 4am we both have to wait for before she'll head back to sleep again for only another hour...) Some have counselled me to let my darling child 'cry it out' - but my heart is too soft: DAMN - she's awake. Better go.

Muddy Metaphors -- and Weddings on the Wild Side

2009-07-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

How long has it been since I last found time to write? Well, so long that my unpractised, clumsy fingers dodge the letters I mean to type! Spare time evades me like the plague, but tonight I have found myself in luck: the drought is over (and I’m mixing my metaphors!)
Port Elizabeth, and the hot, dry ‘winter’ has been broken by a sudden storm; the wet, black sky torn apart by ragged lightning, rending thunder. Apparently, this is the worst winter drought experienced by the Eastern Cape in 70 years. (And we’re not missing much with regards the English summer: ‘grey’ and ‘miserable’ are two words that crop up again and again in emails from my English friends in the last weeks. And as one South African expat succinctly said: ‘Two weeks of sunshine and then it goes and #@&%s off for the rest of the year!!’) Hoping this blissfully summery weather will last another two weeks, we’ve arranged our wedding to take place along the banks of the lazy Sunday River in Addo next Saturday!

Originally, our wedding was set (and booked!) for December 2008 – at the citrus and rose farm, Avoca (where we’re still going to have our wedding.) Craig had taken me there for an exciting, sexy, fun, exotic and dangerous (‘angry bull elephant vs Citi Golf’ story – to be told at a later stage) weekend away. After a day of swimming in the dark, cold river inbetween roasting dry in the sun with only ice-cold beers to keep us company, we sat around the doringboom fire in the darkening pink of night and dreamed of how perfect it would be for a wedding. Unspoken thoughts of marriage stained our every word, as though they were blushing – we daren’t mention the word for fear of jinxing this perfect new love we’d accidentally bumped into again almost two whole decades after that first kiss.
Eleven years old, Standard Four. In the music room nogal! I remember scratching my name, coupled with Craig’s surname, on my wooden desktop. And they talk about self-fulfilling prophecies?! After a whirlwind romance of silly little love-letters and stolen kisses, high school separated us and we never saw each other again. Until that fateful ‘friend request’ on Facebook when we were both a year shy of 30.
“Are you the same Lisa Roberts I went to school with?”

And that was that. (Not really, but I could literally write a book were I to try bring you up to speed on what happened between then and now! Another time, maybe…)
So now, back to the wedding. Both of us are fairly relaxed when it comes to organising things, euphemistically speaking - and so, our wedding is a true reflection of our style of doing things: unpretentious, whimsical, laid-back, flexible, casual. We really only decided last night (!!) that we’d actually have a proper wedding in lieu of the court thing. For a whole host of reasons, we’re having an incredibly tiny little do – only 20 people or so. Finances are one of them, but that’s probably not the main reason. I think we’re really using our minimalist-style savings as an excuse to have this wedding as preciously intimate and meaningful as possible! If we didn’t have this fiscal reason to back us up, I have a funny feeling we’d have felt obligated to invite The World. Instead, only 20 guests are invited, and even then, there are one or two we are forced to invite only through sheer familial duty – but on the whole, each person means The World to us! (Craig and I are big on meaningfulness --- sentimental ol’ suckers!)
Oops! I’ve just realised what I’ve so unsubtly intimated: that you yourself do not mean The World to me and are hence not invited. Eish… How do I untangle myself from this faux pas?! I guess what I mean to say is that with Layla in our lives, we just can’t afford the time or money to have a huge bash. And that running around during the reception dinner, trying frantically to spend a few micro-milliseconds with each guest, is just not something we are capable of with a constantly hungry baby (i.e. still being breastfed meaning no-one can really look after her except me… Hence, why I suppose one gets married BEFORE one has a baby!!!) Anyway, the fact of the matter is that the only people invited are family members. Because if we didn’t invite them, then there’d be hell to pay!! (Now if you are a family member and you have been invited, then you’ll have noticed I’ve shot myself in the other foot now!! OK – so I can’t win. So let me just blame it on our blatant shortage of funds. Is that better? It’s too late now, because here I sit with both my feet in my mouth, having shot myself in both of them – not a pretty picture, huh?)

Treasure Hunt!

2009-05-11T01:20:00.000-07:00

At last! A moment to indulge my almost forgotten passion!! Layla's asleep next to me in her pram - who knows for how long?! So while the sun shines, I shall make hay!

Windy and only very slightly chilly, the carboot sale in Holcot (the next little village along from us) was jampacked with carbooters and treasure-hunters on the forage for all that glitters. (Perhaps not all of them are magpies like me?!) Craig tends to whip along ahead of me, weaving inbetween the doddering, dithering masses, his eyes fanatically fine-tuned to pick out Stephen King novels from among all the rest of the books stuffed into crates on the muddy grass, or lined up higgledy-piggledy on wonky trestle tables. (He already owns 95% of Stephen King's novels - so his pickings on Saturday rendered nothing at all...)
I, on the other hand, discovered a bounty of deliciousness! But with only a few coins jangling hopefully in my pocket, CHOICE had to overrule my usually spontaneous shopping methodology. Also, haggling with an Englishman is not so different to bartering with other sorts of tribes - and I managed to get all sorts of little goodies thrown in for free or half-price. (It helps to plead poverty while holding out your 'only' pound coin, of course.)
Lounging in their rusty, forlon cars, haggard, semi-toothless women stare into the lonely space between milling customers, a drooping fag trailing smoke, caught on the moist part of the lower lip as though glued. Old men, busy busy busy, their crates of fish hooks, lures and reels of gut proudly displayed -- my eye drawn to the wooden boxes shimmering with the rainbows of finely twined feathers of fishing flies, protected behind glass, like rare butterflies caught in the depths of a jungle. Down-and-out couples selling off their old, dusty TV, their children's greying, stained baby clothes - and arbitrary knick-knacks I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy! And then, there are the prim, middle-aged ladies, their wares arranged artfully along tables carefully lain with starched white cotton tablecloths. Here you can find little Murano glass bowls, 1920s paste jewellery, marquesite brooches and jewellery boxes that make you wonder who their owner was, what was she like?
My discoveries included: a 1950s Bakelite 'black' doll, and an empty sweet tin - also circa 1950s. Four blood-red perspex hearts the size of dinner plates. Two boxes of chocolate incense. A collection of the most divine plates, tea cups and a bowl - possibly 1920s: the sweetest candy pink, handpainted embellishments in white, gold and turquoise. GORGEOUS!!! Another 1950s find: a silver-plated and red glass sugar bowl and spoon. PERFECT for my tea parties!

Our little Petal/Daffodil/Pepperpot (Craig's nicknames for Layla) will be 11 weeks on Thursday! And she weighs a healthy 10lb 2oz (4.6kg, I think.) She is constantly ravenous - and prefers to snack all day long, instead of gorging on a few large meals. This means a bit more work for me - but at least her reflux is under control this way! Anyone got any advice??

Exhausted, exhausted...

2009-04-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

HRM (Her Royal Majesty A.K.A my baby girl) is still blessedly asleep, though as she swims to the surface of her sleep, she's grunting and sighing - causing my mothering hormones to flood my body, and I know it'll be a matter of mere minutes before I have to sign off, log out etc etc. But at least I am here on the page!
My second day all alone at home with this new little person who is 150% dependent on me has been fraught with anxious tears and sobbings of failure. (Oh, the drama, the drama!) But, after an emergency visit from the housewife, a few phonecalls to other mom-friends, I discover all of this is... NORMAL. Bugger. Yes, it does sort of help to know I am not an utterly useless mother -- but at the same time, I wish I could somehow leapfrog over this physicaland emotional exhaustion to a place where brushing my teeth is par for the course and not a massive accomplishment managed somewhere after lunch! (Out the window, I spy the Sainsbury's home delivery van: EUREKA! How much easier and simpler this will make my life!!)

I'm going to say ciao before my bambino awakes -- setting aside my beloved, but now quite extraneaous, writing for the greater good of a functioning household! (For any ideas or good old-fashioned encouragement, please use the COMMENTS section at the bottom of this posting!)

Love,
Lisa

My New Life! (said with definite irony and ... JOY!!)

2009-04-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

My fingers have forgotten the feel of these clicking letters and punctuation marks beneath my fingers after seven weeks of My New Life. Layla Rose arrived two and a half weeks ahead of schedule - though blessedly so, for many reasons I won't bore you with right now - but which will probably pop up some time in the future... Right now, my daughter lies in her navy blue Graco pram, being pushed to and fro by my leg/foot made tireless by my need to have her fall asleep! Mind you, it's not so I can have time to myself - it's ... I'm lying. It IS to have some time to myself!! I need to change from these clothes that smell like her curdled reflux after she projectile burped all over me in a hot, frantic splurge earlier this morning... I wish I could sit down with a cup of hot, sweet tea in the armchair where the sun is now that soft gold of late afternoon and merely contemplate my navel...

That's all I have time for - I have a grunting, moaning, squeaking bundle of joy who is soon going to let forth a great howl of hunger (or unashamed irritation at her poo nappy!)

She arrived!

2009-04-01T12:30:00.001-07:00

Wow. How my life has changed.

Email, my blogs, my life in general actually, fell completely by the wayside for the last 4 and half weeks............ but here I am, sort-of back in action! My last blog entry is dated 12 days before Layla Rose arrived, somewhat prematurely, on the scene - and forever to turn my life magically and beautifully upside down! (I marvel with worshipful-like awe at my two fellow bloggers, Andrea and Caroline, who miraculously manage to find time and grey matter to write like they do: WOW, WOW, WOW!)

Until I find some time again,
signing off...
New Mommy Lisa

The Sheer Glamour of Birth

2009-02-14T02:46:00.000-08:00

With the weather warming up, the snow is now nothing more than melted squelchiness - though still, I am sure, there will be children who'll head to the farm slopes just beyond with their homemade sleds! As my due date gets nearer and nearer, the danger of icy roads recedes into the past as a thankfully distant memory and exists no longer as an possibility!
All that needs to be done in Layla Rose's nursery is for Craig and Gary to put up the blind - a lilac, thermal, black-out blind.(After months of confused pottering, I've at last discovered how to add a hyperlink - so if you see text that is blue and underlined, it means you can click on it and it'll take you to photos or something else to juice up the story!) Otherwise, my TO DO LIST has only my hospital bag to shop for and then pack. (Sleep eludes me as I chase down all these niggling things I still need to do... Even my dreams are saturated with obsessions relating to birth, bodily fluids, crying babies...) Unfortunately, going shopping for the contents of The Hospital Bag, is not a glamorous affair -- and you will know this only if you are a)a midwife, b)a mommy or c)someone with rather sick, sad interests! From ultrathick maternity pads to those see-through gauze disposable knicker-things. Blech. Perhaps it's a shopping expedition best accomplished in solitude? I don't think Craig will ever look at me the same way EVER again...

Wishes DO come true.

2009-02-04T02:05:00.000-08:00

Alone all day long with just my belly
to talk to, the days can be treacherously long - and I find myself counting down the hours and then minutes until Craig arrives home. Fact: men need to speak less than women do - and by the time Craig gets home from work, he's all talked out and ready to just chill out. But then like a tourist at a zoo, I poke him verbally as though he were a sleepy wombat to perform. Ya. Poor guy. I know. But hey - I get lonely!

THANKFULLY, I made a couple of very special friends when I taught at that little school in Kettering. The one is Tamara - another South African- who came over to the UK with her husband in August last year. She has been a Godsend - and has visited me twice on her way home from work even though she has an hour long schlep home to Peterborough from here... And then there's Wendy.
From the very moment I met Wendy, I hoped we would be friends - beyong the confines of colleagues' politeness and school hours. She just has this incredible warmth - like a glowing hearth-fire I craved to warm myself before. She was an absolute Godsend at work, literally being able to help with any situation or answer any, however random, question. (Personally, I think she should move her talented behind outta there and start her own company! She is DYNAMIC!)
Last Wednesday, in the pitch blackness of 4pm, Wendy arrived at the front door to what must surely have been an avalanche of far too many words - but bravely, she took it all in her stride (lol!) Hanging up her coat, she managed to get a sentence out inbetween all of mine: "Oh, and here's a little something for you."

She handed me a camera.

What?

A camera. I didn't know what to say. I didn't understand. Was she loaning it to me till I could get one of my own? Eventually, I understood the depth of it all: Wendy was actually giving us this camera - and it was gleamingly brand new, stocked up with the very best rechargeable batteries and a 4GB memory card!!! Gobsmacked. Flabbergasted. Completely and utterly blown away. I felt like a bit of a fool - inadequacy of verbiage for once paralysing me into silence. I could hope I appeared as grateful as I felt...
We had a couple of cups of tea, a few nasty little sugary biscuits I discovered in Craig's corner of the tea/coffee cupboard -- and altogether the most wonderful conversation I've been treated to in simply ages! (Craig looked grateful seeing someone else have to absorb my daily quota of words.)

I guess what I'm really trying to say is THANK YOU, darling Wendy, for the most incredible gift - a gift with long-reaching meaning: Layla will have her childhood lovingly archived because of YOU.

(To showcase all my latest photographs, I got us set up with Google's Picasa! Here is the link to my 'Nursery in Progress' album. As usual, I would LOVE comments!)

Candid Camera

2009-01-26T03:59:00.000-08:00

Right now there about a thousand images I wish I could capture for you -- the sight of my pale, ballooning belly, laced with pale blue deltas of veins, the delicate wood carving on the antique wardrobe I've spent hours painstakingly stripping of years of paint, the giant pile of softness in whites, pinks and pale yellows: all of Layla's newborn babygrows, jumpers and blankets sent all the way from her granny Sally in South Africa...

{this pic of me was taken at Christmas time: I am now uncomfortably rotund at 33 weeks, though the midwife says my uterus is full-term/40weeks in size: GULP!!! And how will the next 7 weeks pan out?! Can my skin really stretch anymore?}

But alas, the awful little camera we bought from a colleague of Craig's needs 2 brand new batteries to take just 3 or 4 grainy photos before agitatingly konking out. My 5 weeks of working at Avondale Juniors (blood, sweat and many, many heartbroken tears later)and the money I earned was used to pay my dad back - though I was promised, as part of my employment contract, reimbursement for mileage driven and 7.50GBP a day for lunches. HOWEVER (insert 'thunderous glare' here) the company who processes the payments, MyKeyPay, insists they have absolutely no record of me - and because I am on maternity leave, there is nothing they can do about it. To put it kindly, I'm bloody pissed off as all hell!!!! I followed the correct protocol in terms of registration, filling in forms and posting them back etc. I EVEN received a telephone call from one Gaelic-sounding Sean CONFIRMING my registration two days after the fact. SO. WHAT. IN. THE. HELL. HAPPENED?? A South African colleague of mine who teaches at the same school, hired by the same company, blah blah blah: SHE gets all her expenses paid. So why not me? The most frustrating part is that I was hoping to use that 200quid to buy a camera and various other things for Layla Rose's arrival. And now I can't. You can't have a baby without having a camera. (I know it sounds somewhat insane - but after my own mom has documented our lives so exquisitely in album after gorgeous album, I can hardly imagine not having captured Layla's growth from wriggly little newborn all the way through to first steps and messy icecreams...)
I have someone from my employment agency looking into it for me - so perhaps I may be paid after all: I told him I was writing about MyKeyPay on my blog - and that he better warn them that a feisty little journalist was gonna take 'em down if they didn't sort me out with some cashola!!! (Said in jest. Sort of.)

Anyway, if any of you have an old camera lying around you're not using, could you please send it my way? THANK YOU!!

PS. I thought I was a really cute 'n cuddly baby - but since I put my baby photo up on Facebook as my profile picture, absolutely NO-ONE has commented on it. Think I better take it down - and replace it with one of my arty pics which always elicit enormously good responses. lol

Anyone with tents to rent? Preferably in floral or stripe prints.

2009-01-15T05:30:00.001-08:00

Propped up in bed by every single pillow in the entire household, minus my glasses, the morning view out over the fields was grey and misty (and that's not just because I was spectacleless!)and it made me feel as though the sun may never reappear again after so many days now without it. It is now common practice for people living in the UK to take a good quality Vitamin D supplement!! But thankfully for me, I have a special fondness for grey, wet weather -- I can handle the lack of sunshine for longer than most South Africans can!

One of the things I never expected from pregnancy was the sheer abundance of discomfort, pain and strangely embarrassing ailments! Were I to list them all, I'd probably never be allowed to write publicly again! One example is the sudden swollen sausageness that has taken over my hands in the last two weeks -- my once-sparkling engagement ring sits forlorn and dejected in my jewellery box... Even my face and my feet are 'fat' - causing my mom, via webcam, to comment that every time she says me it looks like I've just woken up; and another friend to giggle, "Oh look, even your little feet are fat!" (Whoop-dee-doo.) But back to the hands - they wake me up at night (OFTEN) with an arthritic ache - and let's not forget the pins and needles!! (And, mind you, this continues all through the day time too - so that typing is a chore, opening a tap a miniature agony etc etc etc etc.) And let's not forget that wonderful feeling of heartburn. Never before in my life had I experienced it - though felt so sorry for my dad and sister suffer from it as part of daily life. And man oh man, I wish I had given them even more sympathy!! Thankfully, it's evasive during the day, hiding away and building up its acidic power for the minute I start to drowse off...

Now if you can imagine the remedies for all of these little atrocities put together, you can imagine what I must look like at night in bed: both arms hanging down off the side of the bed to discourage the carpal tunnel syndrome/swelling in the hands, torso propped up at 45 degrees to enlist the help of gravity against the heartburn monsters,as well as minimising the ridiculously loud and snotty snoring from those overactive mucous membranes and the relaxin hormone quite literally relaxing my pharynx etc; lying on my left to a) allow my hands to hang off the edge of the bed and b) so Layla doesn't lie on my vena cava which cuts off blood supply to my head and herself, a pillow between my knees to keep my lower back aligned as a result of my old broken-coccyx injury which has flared up what with Layla using it as a jungle-gym. Last but not least, the every-hour-on-the-hour need to wee -- and the elephantine grunting that goes with extricating my estranged lump of a body from the pillows, duvet and my old friend, gravity.
Poor Craig. That's all I can say. He endures it all with the patience of a saint - even though I've offered to sleep in the spare room. (I'm still not sure what the pay-off is for him - because, as the light sleeper he is, I cannot imagine he gets any more sleep than I do. It can only be suggested that it is his love for me. Surely?! I certainly wouldn't put up with myself!!!!)

Besides my ring not fitting, I have only got about 4 pieces of clothing left now that can accommodate me. If only I were either rich and could buy myself everything I needed or b) lived in a nudist community!!

And though I have these gripes and moans, I still feel quite special that I have been granted this blessing of becoming a mother. Knowing that I have been given this life-long task of custodianship over a brand new human being's life has me both in a state of magnificent awe --- and sometimes in a blind, frightened panic. I have so many questions that swamp me every day, reminding me of those waves that would blindside me as little girl on seaside holidays, knocking me flat into the salty, sanded, swirling power of the sea. But then paradoxically, there is that peaceful, inner knowing that tells me the answers will come. And that letting go (especially of my craving for perfection) is the day-by-day path I must take.

PS. That's me in the bath - obviously was eating like a bit of a piggie so was relegated to the bath where I could make as much of a mess as I wanted!

Frozen Vegetables and The Great Film Debate

2008-12-30T05:22:00.000-08:00

WOW - you'd swear I'd forgotten this blog existed it's been so long!! But now that I've found my feet (and I can only say that in a figurative sense, because my swollen belly is so full of child that I can only rely on memory as to what my feet look like --- though maybe it's a good thing I can't see my tootsies - they're probably fat with water-retention!)

Since my last day of work, and with Craig also being on holiday, we've done little but eat, sleep and rest! Craig has a thing for TV, which unhappily, I do not share. Whether it's Jerry Springer, Judge Judy or Trawlermen, the TV seems to be perpetually on, with its glare of colour and Yankee twanging. (Or maybe I'm just a bit grumpy?!) But there really is very little to do in this area - especially in comparison to how we used to live back home in Cape Town where we were hard-pressed to actually make a choice between fun things to do! Maybe that's why the Brits spend so much time (and money) in their beloved pubs?

OK - let me make a list of potential fun activities to prove I am at LEAST trying not to continue wallowing in this pit of bleak despair:

1. Take our new 'Travelsystem' (pram and/car seat) for a walk around the village in practice for Layla's arrival. (To crank up the Fun Factor, maybe we could strap a squirming Max into it?! Running after him if he escapes could be quite fun!! Or let me rephrase that: watching Craig run, swearing, after Max into the bright blue yonder between sheep and prickly hedges could be quite amusing!!!)

2. Have a Flokati Furball Race. We start at either ends of the lounge, on hands and knees, and race to see who can pick up the most number of fluffy white fur balls our flokati rug sheds as though there were no tomorrow.

3. Max Drolletjies Race. This game would follow the same rules, except it would be Max's hard little non-smelly vegan poos we'd be picking up.

(You see, I'm already running out of ideas!) Outside, twilight is quietly creeping over what is left of the setting gold sunlight of the afternoon even though it's only 1:58pm. But today we are in luck: we have two DVDs which arrived in the post this morning from LoveFilm.com - one for Craig, one for me. 'Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay' and then 'Amores Perros'. On a beer-rating (i.e. the number of beers needed in your bloodstream for the film to actually BE funny), I reckon 'Harold & Kumar' must be about an inebriated 8. (Meanwhile, I can only sip a sobering cup of tea to keep me company during this grand epic of a film!) However, there is nothing more delectably luxurious than sipping a glass of fiercely rich Rioja or Pinotage during a dark and beautiful art film... But that's more to do with atmosphere than duping my brain into being entertained - or am I kidding myself? Admittedly, there have been some rather obscure and pathetically cerebral art films I've forced myself to endure in the name of artsy-fartsy intellectualism - but all made possible by those one and usually more glasses of red wine!

And now maybe it's time for a bath (I think I should rather have said 'a wallow') and then time to consider our evening meal (perhaps another activity I can add to my Fun List above?! "Who Can Devise the Tastiest Meal Out of What's Left Over in the Freezer"? Bonus points if you don't use the Tesco Value Frozen Mixed Veg that's been haunting the back alleys of the deep freeze for too, too long..)

A Week of Work!

2008-11-13T07:17:00.000-08:00

YIPPEEEEE!!! YAHOOOO!!! HURRAY!! At long, long last I have some work from Protocol Education!! From tomorrow till the next Friday I'll be a teacher's assistant at Avondale Junior School in Kettering - and why exectly I'm telling you is because I'll probably be too tired to write in the evenings -- my blog will be stuck in limbo for awhile. Though, who knows, I may just have a story I'll be bursting to tell you!

Until then, keep the comments and stories rollin' in, folks! And, while you have some time, why not explore my other blog listed just here to the right? See it?

Hush little baby, don't say a word...

2008-11-12T04:22:00.000-08:00

At the rude sound of the alarm at 6.30 this morning, I was instantly transformed into that belligerent, abusive 4 year old I apparently once was when it came time to wake up and go to school. Generally a sweet-tempered child (I think?) waking up was not one of my favourite things – and my poor dear mother tired of the cross little girl who kicked and lashed out at her to be left alone that she sent in My Father. Surely he wouldn’t tolerate these waking tantrums?
Sweet birdsong the music on the fresh morning air, it looked to be a perfect summer’s day – except for the dark stormcloud of a little girl that needed waking for preschool. As if it were yesterday, I can still feel my eyes clamped so determinedly shut that they may as well have been superglued closed with my desire to stay asleep. Even the duvet is something still so tangible, so real, that it is billowed softly around me like the warmest hug – but in walks my dear dad to end this perfection. He is irritatingly chirpy so that I want to sling him an evil look from my heavy lids but am too lazy to do even that! I remain locked in my sleepy cocoon in the vague hope that he’ll disappear. But no, he sits down carefully on the bed. Lovingly and gently shaking my shoulder and saying, ‘Come on, Lees, time for school.” Grrrr… and I can even hear a sunny smile in his voice which only fuels my four year old fury some more.
“It’s a beautiful day! Wake up!”
Nothing.
“Open your eyes, my darling.”
Nada.
“Lees, just have a look at me!”
This went on for some time, and I knew I could only be a little shit for so long before incurring some serious parental wrath. Wrenching my eyelids apart and twisting round from under my duvet, lo and behold, but what did I see? NOT my father! But a strange man grinning at me like a mad clown in his 1980s white safari suit. The fright lasted only a second, before the laughter spilled from in great big gusts, making me forget all about my quest to sleep in! Daddy had shaved off his omnipresent moustache!! And now his embarrassingly bare, smiling upper lip had me in stitches that to this day I could never, ever forget.

Staying on the subject of dads, let me tell you about my darling Craig and how he kept me up for a hefty chunk of the night with his turbulent, sigh-filled tossing and turning. At one point, I found myself poking him repeatedly in the ribs and threatening him with my most menacing, midnight voice, each word punctuated with a stabbing finger: “If (poke) you (poke) DON’T (harder poke) keep (poke) still (poke)…” and here I realised I was trying to intimidate him with something I’m sure he couldn’t care less about in his slumbering state: I was going to get out of our bed and go sleep in the spare bed in the spare room – until I realised I was too much of a coward to climb under those stiff, icy covers!
Our conversation this morning: Craig smiling, his eyes crinkling with being happy I was up with him – and me, haggard and unrepentantly grumpy, like a starving, mangy lioness waiting in the shadows to spring savagely upon her prey!

Lisa: “So, tell me, WHY were you so fidgety last night? You kept me awake, you know.”

Craig:(Sheepish look ) “I dreamed the baby was here already and she was crying and crying. WHEEEEEEHHHH, WHEEEEEEEH.”
I turn my nose up in a disgusted sneer at what he thinks a baby sounds like.

Craig: “And every time she cried, I turned around and knew that you’d get up to see to her.”

Lisa: “Nice one, Craig. Great stuff.” My arms are folded in an exaggerated display of horror and derision.

Hell – and Craig’s a naturally paternal kinda guy. Imagine what other men must be like!? Oh well. It’s just a dream. The reality is this: Layla Rose will be sleeping in our room for the first few weeks of our life what with my mom and his folks visiting: and he will NOT be able to simply turn over when she cries: he will be wide, wide awake, and I shall have my revenge.

On Writing

2008-11-10T06:41:00.000-08:00

After my file was 'cleared' by Protocol Education last week, I was so hoping to be able to work every day this week: but, hell's bells, nothing's happened so far today. So while subconsciously I'm holding thumbs for a call from them, I've been working steadily at my writing - and this doesn't just mean the actual process of putting words down, but the checking of my blog stats, readership levels, what forms of publicity are working etc. It also means hunting for the right kind of places on which to have my blog listed, and also being a regular participant in forums on these sites... (sigh) A lot of elbow grease and wrist-strain and screen glare to get more and more people reading what I write.
It's a strange thing, this, to be a writer. Some days I feel like all I do is pontificate and sprout general bull**** about me, me and more of me. But then on other days, I feel like if I don't write about a certain story, I'll just explode with NOT sharing it! Some days are filled with dark, ugly doubts which eat away at my self-confidence when I wonder what everyone thinks when they get a "Lisa Has Updated Her Blog" email in their inbox. Is it a case of, "Oh noooo!!! Not AGAIN!" or something else? I subscribe to a fair number of blogs - and must admit that I am not a regular reader as much as one that reads when she has time. I suspect that's the case for almost everyone, hey?
Though I've bitched and moaned about not having any work since I arrived in the UK, it has been a lifechanging time of reflection and discovery for me: I am a writer almost more than I am an artist! And yes, I studied art at university and I've been calling myself an artist since I can remember - but I've learned that writing is the skin in which I feel the most comfortable - and the work is so much more satisfying than the art EVER was... I write every single day - and it feels like good, hard labour to me! Yet with my art and drawing, it was always this fight inside me to get anything out...
OK. Enough about that! Time to get some more of that paint scraped off the old, delicate carvings on the wardrobe for Layla Rose's nursery before heading off into the bleak darkness of the late afternoon to pick Craig up from school...

The Fine (and Expensive) Art of Fly Fishing

2008-11-06T03:12:00.000-08:00

I guess there's really no need to discuss the weather as we're slap-bang in the middle of the English autumn - but, as a friend of mine commented on my Soutpiel blog, once you've lived in England, you automatically contract, like a flu, the British habit of constantly discussing the weather as though they'd sneezed on you! In all the years I've been keeping a handwritten journal, almost every single entry begins with a line or two dedicated to The Weather.

Wobbly and thick, the glass in the big bay windows of our bedroom is the original glass from when the house was built! Thick, gooey layers of white, gloss enamel painted reverently again and again over the years have permanently sealed the other two sash windows shut - but today its warm enough to not have the central heating on -- one window invitingly open to the fresh countryside air. The sweetest birdsong floats in to me through this gap reminding me of how lucky I am to have landed with my bum in the butter: this gorgeous, spacious old house that somehow feels like it is happy! And the views from our windows of the natural, seasonal rhythms of the farms rolling through their cycles of harvest, planting, toil and rest. Also - our landlord: one Julian Davies who struggles to keep his eyes off my chest but has the most robustly generous heart of gold! In the first few months, while Craig was on his starting salary, we were struggling a little to make ends meet but said nothing to anyone about it; so how dear Julian knew, is STILL a mystery, but he paid our 124GBP council tax for us that one month! We've also been to a delicious braai at his house -- with so much red wine that he fell asleep at the table despite my low-cut, figure hugging blouse! I also sing with his partner, Katie, in the village choir. (Gosh! By no means did I set out to write about these two - but they really are quite an interesting bunch - so shall I just go with the flow then?)

Julian called a few minutes ago to ask if it was ok if he were to pop round this evening to retrieve a few fishing rods from the loft. (His voice always makes me feel warm inside, like I'm sitting next to a gentle, crackling fire in an old little village pub! And then I wonder how my voice makes him feel? Like standing next to a foghorn-tooting tug in the harbour? When I called his shop the other day to say we'd be coming by, he knew immediately it was me! My South African accent? I'd like to say it simply must be the undeniable sweetness and sincerity that sing from my vocal chords - but in all probability, I'm sure it's just my South African twang.) He and his boet own two fishing and hunting shops -- one in Kettering, one in Northampton (http://www.gilderscountrysports.co.uk/)

On weekends and holidays, I moan at Craig as he hovers, ants in his pants, between Facebook on the laptop or something random on TV, about not having a healthy, constructive hobby. His constant rebuttal is : " I do! I love fishing!" (his face a mirror of his wounded, insulted heart!) Alas, with not having that much spare cash ever floating around for expensive hobbies as these, his weekends were declared a fishing-free zone - until a month or so ago when he spent a very macho weekend of fishing and shooting-anything-that-moved-with-a-little-beebee-gun in the forest with his brother: and he finally splashed out and purchased a very fine rod and reel for pike fishing. The ugliest freshwater fish on the planet, rivaling only the nightmarish barbel, Craig and Gary caught some quite easily, throwing them, very sportingly, back (with hooks and lures left, not quite so sportingly, twisted in their guts!) Apparently it is only the French who appreciate the finer, muddier culinary perfection of pike flesh - no surprise there what with their predilection for frog's legs etcetera!

A little bored, I think, with the lack of challenge presented by pike fishing, Craig and Gary's next step was to attempt the fine (and expensive) art of flyfishing! A couple of miles down the road, nestled between the farms and little villages, lies Pitsford Reservoir where sailing and fishing are as popular as the walking and cycling routes around its perimeter. And so the boys hired a small engined boat for the day from the Pitsford Fishing Lodge, as well as flyfishing rods which, by the end of the day, were blamed for their rudimentary quality (i.e. not a single trout was caught between the two of them!) However (and here I heave a big sigh of feminine confusion and mild annoyance) this gave them both the perfect excuse to spend exhorbitant amounts of money on buying 'the right equipment'. Hence our abovementioned visit to Julian's shop in Northampton!

The shopfront stands out from all the other high-street signage by being magnificently classy and old-school. Deep forest green overlain with gold lettering in the kind of style that just oozes sophistication and, well - expensive taste. A dark, quaint little doorway opens up into a posh and cosy, oh-so-English-dear cave of camouflage and tweed, rows of bottle-green rubber boots and all sorts of hats that are not meant to make one look like a fashion victim - i.e. the elephant-like ear flaps keep your ears either warm or sun-free! A chatty little mouse of a woman, Jill, helps a customer with obvious knowledge and natural enthusiasm - and I later learn her and her husband have been friends with Julian for more than thirty years! She, a retired primary school teacher, and Graham - an ex-headmaster, met Julian he attended Graham's ceramic workshop early in the 1970s! Graham, balding and kindly, manned the glittering glass cases of 'flies' -- somewhat amused by my excited announcement I wanted to turn them into earrings and brooches because of their exquisite, colourful and intricate beauty. (Oh yes, I forgot to mention that upon our arrival, Julian wandered in from the store-house section at the back of the shop with his steaming cup of tea only because he heard me all the way back there behind the closed doors! Embarrassing? Nah --- I'm used to it! A lifetime of incurring this sort of reaction and my father affectionately calling me 'Hoeterbek' has somewhat numbed my levels of sensitivity.)

The expert deftly set Craig up with all the right kit, gear and tackle while I daydreamed how I'd keep the look of the hook on the flies while removing the sharp danger of it - my jeweller sister would know! Julian gave Craig a whopping great big discount that left me looking like a gaping barbel at the till - throwing in some of the most popular flies for free and lending him a brand-new, unopened dvd to watch! He is one of those people who you just can't help but feel proud to know - and pleased for their success in life because they deserve it so completely! (This is Julian on one of his many fishing adventures to all sorts of exotic places - this time in Cuba.)

Back to Katie now. Her and Julian were both married before. Julian is divorced, while Katie was prematurely widowed -- and though Julian is like a lovestruck boy with wanting to marry her, she's one of these superbly independent but still wonderfully feminine women: she has a timeless sense of graceful beauty I know I shall one day envy. The first time we met was on paper - a gorgeously scribbled note torn from her diary, welcoming us into the house her and Julian had renovated in a mad hurry for us! Mysteriously and for quite a few weeks, she was adventuring in Peru, until at last we met in the car when she picked me up for my first night of choir. Petite and just curvy enough, she'd recently cut her long, long hair into a sleek bob - but what you notice most about Katie are her eyes and her smile: they both seem magically connected like the moon and the stars in the night sky of her face. Originally a doctor, Katie then specialised in opthamology - but is now retired and organises all sorts of village gatherings in between gardening and travelling to obscure countries!

Well. Phew! I didn't get even within a million miles of what I was originally going to write about - but I hope this sated your appetite?

PS. Craig's fancy flyfishing equipment and perhaps his natural affinity for the sport, landed him the biggest trout of the month! Gary also caught one (he, too, succumbed to the lure (no pun intended) of purchasing more sophisticated equipment) which they gutted and cooked - though the look on Gary's face when I asked him how it tasted needed no extra words: his face crumpled into "yech", "muddy", "dirty" and "I'm so disappointed!" Craig's prize trout languishes in the bottom of our freezer while he hunts for the elusive cookie tin big enough so he can smoke it a la Jamie Oliver...

Adios!

2008-10-27T01:59:00.000-07:00

Having resisted the the almost overwhelming temptation to gobble a mince pie for breakfast, I instead had a leisurely and healthy breakfast to fill me up for our journey down to Portsmouth to visit a darling friend I haven't seen in almost 3 years! So, till Friday, adios ;)]

DIY -- at your peril!

2008-10-26T07:52:00.000-07:00

My first scrumptious mince-pie of the Christmas season (make that two, actually) in my tum and I'm just about ready to hit The Nap Zone - a critical time of day for me these days if I am to survive through an evening of dinner, some random television show(s) and my usual spot of pre-slumber reading!

This afternoon, B&Q was pumping! Their usual, weekly singular till-point was abuzz with uniformed cashiers whizzing away cash and credit cards from the lines and lines of waiting customers, all visibly itching to get back home to their DIY. Yes, 'tis the season to be merry, but also the season to be painting, stripping, sanding... Winter seems to be the time when the British are suddenly consumed by an unquenchable desire to redecorate - and so often incurring both decorating and first-aid disasters! High-powered tools zing and pound and churn through plaster and wood, and arms, legs and fingers... It reminds me of a fellow student at art school who took a university anglegrinder home with her to catch up on her lackadaisicality regarding our latest sculpture project: laminating layers of inch-thick Supawood into a grand, imposing block of it - and then carefully tearing into it with anglegrinders, saws and chisels that would look more at home in a butchery! A zol or three later, her laminated woodblock calling to her and she was ready to begin! With the anglegrinder tucked inbetween her thighs, she reached behind her to turn the machine on at the wall. ZZZZZZZWWWWWWWWWWWWWIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The person who'd last used it had neglected to turn the actual anglegrinder off - and the monstrously sharp blades were churning and chunking ever deeper into the meat of her thighs! (She recounted this gorey tale, mascaraed lashes blinking through the acrid blue smoke of her cigarette, in a comically detached voice - lifting up her wide cotton Indian skirt to reveal two fat cotton pads taped to each thigh - oily Betadine seeping through the gauze...)

I didn't buy an anglegrinder at B&Q - my power-tool days are long over - but filled my basket with a slimmer, sharper steel paintscraper, some nastily cheap (and soon to be moulting) paintbrushes and a shockingly expensive tub of ultra-sophisticated paint stripper. 10quid as opposed to 5quid - but with needing to keep this baby inside me safe from fumes, 5quid was worth the extra expenditure! Paint stripper I've used in the past was lethal!! While you got high applying the stuff and waiting for the paint to bubble and ooze up from the wood beneath, you risked suffering searing chemical burns if some accidentally landed on your skin. THIS paint stripper is a thick gel which needs to be painted on in a 1mm thick layer - then left to dry overnight. (Great news for me - I can work super-duper fast in small sections at a time, then close the door behind me, having left the sash window wide open to breathe!) The layer of stripper absorbs the paint off from the wood into a crusty, crumbly layer which is easily scraped or brushed off. Voila! C'est trop facile, no?! But first, that nap I was going on about... zzzz...zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Dr Who?

2008-10-23T03:20:00.000-07:00

"BUGGER!?! %$@*!!!!" --- delightful language for a young mother-to-be, admittedly - but I honestly didn't expect SUCH heavy traffic at 9 in the morning - especially when I was only just on time too! A long line of blinking, winking red brake lights stretched as far as the eye could along that pin straight road into Northampton, while visions of me doing arm-wrenching three-point-turns out of too-full hospital parking lots made me shudder and, I'm ashamed to admit, swear a little more.

Either the time-angels or the traffic-angels were on my side that morning, because we arrived with plenty of time to spare - AND finding a parking spot right in front of the antenatal clinic itself! Voila!
A petite orange lady (her stiff hairsprayed bob matched her orange blouse EXACTLY - a bit odd, really) took my maternity notes from me, and when I reached into my folder to retrieve my still warm wee-sample for her (she'd asked for it!!) she recoiled in matronly horror! I felt like saying in a bit of hormone-aggravated indignation, "Listen lady - then why did you ask me: 'And do you have your urine sample for me?'" Honestly...
Craig settled down with a magazine into the much more homely, warm waiting room compared to the cold sanitisation of the scan department's. The proliferation of 'Mommy & Baby' magazines sprawled endlessly over the tables irritated me somehow. Did they think that just because you're pregnant that's all you're interested in? That your brain has shrunk to a decrepit, useless walnut?! Anyway, it didn't matter because I was called soon enough by a waddling sweetie of a nurse with eyes that twinkled kindly. She showed me into a neat little room that was NOT what I expected at all!

Little Diversion: This is another aspect of what I've called The Soutpiel Phenomenon: the dysjunction between your South African expectations and the English reality. You see, our expectations are naturally based on our past experience and knowledge gained from heresay, newspapers, television etc - and my experience of visiting a gynaecologist and what my friends have told me about their visits just did NOT coincide with what happened in that Northampton antenatal clinic! What did I expect? To be seen, solely, by a snazzily dressed gynaecologist in a plush, modern office, including a thorough physical examination and open chat. What happened instead? Well...

Sweet nurse Julie had me sit on the paper-covered examination table, and took my blood pressure - smiling at the very healthy reading. Next she checked my urine sample - also nice 'n healthy. "Please lie back on the bed so we can listen to baby's heartbeat!" Now THIS was a surprise! Once again in a state of utter maternal ecstasy, I strained to hear my baby's sprinting-stallion heartbeat - and then suddenly remembered Craig was out in the waiting room - still bereft of this experience... "Could I call my fiance? He hasn't heard our baby yet!"
"Of course, love!" and Nurse Julie beamed proudly as though she were my own mom!

Like an unembarassed schoolgirl with the best news in the world, I ran into the waiting room to grab an unsuspecting Craig by the hand - literally dragging him into the nurse's cubicle. Craig's face lit up with a light I can only describe as brandnew daddy-love when our baby's heartbeat eventually made its sonic appearance (after hiding almost deliberatelt away down in the deepest dark depths of his home! Oops - did I say 'his'?)
Nurse Julie slipped out to call Dr Aldritch -- and with that kind of name, I was rather taken aback when in walked a stocky, smiling Nigerian man! Very quickly and politely he explained he was the new registrar under Dr Aldritch and would be talking to me about my pregnancy's progress and the medication I'm on. No qualms there - he did a fabulous job though was interrupted by a cellphone call about a delivery ---- not the the kind of delivery you'd expect from a gynae: a delivery to his house! He then said he'd briefly consulting Dr Aldritch before we were free to go. Dr Aldritch appeared a few short minutes later alongside his African protogee - in a pink shirt and an even pinker tie nogal spotted with little daisies! Casually leaning against the doorway, he reassured us with a grand sort of proficiency my pregnancy and baby were progressing wonderfully and that he honestly felt no concern regarding my meds -- but that he'd let 'the paediatrician' know about it anyway. Righty-ho! Next appointment: only on the 22nd of December. What a relief!

Though the experience didn't nearly begin match my expectations, I can't say I was specifically disappointed, nor was the experience a bad one. After all, we both left smiling like happy, reassured parents-to-be! March can arrive now - I am relieved and pleased as punch I chose Northampton hospital (despite its naughty nurse posing topless on Facebook and its random shootings! Curious - see "Health & Safety?!" at http://thesoutpielphenomenon.blogspot.com )

O wat 'n skande, Mevrou Oosthuysen!

2008-10-21T04:13:00.000-07:00

Today the sun has won its fierce battle against the predicted days and days of atrociously grey, wet weather! And only because I can, did I spend the morning in bed, listening to music and sipping tea and dismantling Sunday's newspaper - hunting for anything that would tickle my fascination - but more particularly, for something that I could use as a departure point for my next Soutpiel entry. All that really related to South Africa was a paltry side article on the British government wanting to clamp down on immigrants coming into the UK and a more elaborate section with full colour photos of (gasp!) a scandalised South African-born MP! One Ms Oosthysen and her lie through omission: "They never asked me if I had a police record. I would have told them had they asked!"

Her crime? Scratching her ex's car with her keys in a bit of a rage -- but unfortunately caught in CCTV camera...

Having thought my registration and application with Protocol Education was complete, and waiting as patiently as possible for work - I was mildly annoyed that they needed yet another certifying document: this time, a South African police record certificate (something I have NEVER been asked for! And which, rather stupidly, left me feeling blushing and indignant!) But, seeing as Protocol Education are one of the top employment agencies for teachers and supply teachers, with international offices in Cape Town, Canada and Australia, their standards are impeccable: they have to see originals of every single document! Thankfully, my mom could just zip over to the Cape Town office to show them my original university degree certificate: very, very handy indeed!
Their Cambridge office is a claustrophobic 6 miles away from Soham - the school janitor, Ian Huntley, who abducted and murdered two young girls a few years ago. There was a huge uproar - not least because his criminal record, which had plenty to worry about, hadn't been checked...

Tonight is a TV night - a rare occurrence for me because I usually steal off to bed to luxuriate in whatever novel I've got my nose stuck in! After a supper of a pasta I'm yet to feel excited about (neighbour Ang joining us), we'll watch Gok Wan's Miss Naked Beauty, followed by what looks like a fabulously detailed and glossy documentary about British fashion (bring on Galliano, Vivienne Westwood et al) and then another documentary: this time, an investigation into what women will resort to for love - looking this week at polygamy in the United States!

Tomorrow will be a day dedicated to writing, writing and more writing - so expect more news, epic sagas and tall tales very, very soon!

Staying in touch...

2008-10-15T03:49:00.000-07:00

After a week of the most unseasonal but GLORIOUSLY warm sunshine, the grey skies are back to haunt us with rain, rain and more rain. At 14C it's not as bitterly cold as that icy snap that made me so miserable I had to turn the central heating on!
My friend, Ang, gave me a lekker warm coat (I was REALLY that miserable it must've shown on my face) but it won't fit over this ever-expanding belly for much longer. In fact, a quick shop-around on the weekend didn't render many coats that are in the 'tent' shape I was so hoping to find... The only ones available to me now are the maternity ones. The maternity wear shops all think us pregnant females must be desperate and/ stupid! WHO, in their right, pregnant or non-pregnant mind would pay the prices they're asking?? But hell - maybe I will end up succumbing to their arm-twisting extortion because I NEED TO BE WARM!!! Even if it means paying 100 squidoodles for a massive black tent that makes me look like I'm hiding an entire Tesco grocery shop inside it?! (Work has been very, very slow in the offering: one day of work in almost two months... But now that I've signed up with another agency, I should be able to afford The Tent after a few weeks.)

Craig's daily reading of the P.E Herald newspaper (he can't actually go to sleep at night if he hasn't read it) has prompted me to begin the same habit in the frantic hope it'll help curb this snowballing homesickness. Yesterday was my first day. This is what I discovered: my second-cousin, Luke Watson, called Afrikaners 'Dutchmen' and is now suffering the cold shoulders of all the Boks. Admittedly I do feel a little defensive on his part for two reasons. One, he is my second-cousin (though I only remember playing with him as a tiny tot at Storms River more than 20 years ago) and two, haven't so many of us said the same thing?! OK, yes, yes... he was a bit of a poephol for doing it so publicly...

The other thing I discovered was so ugly and gruesome that it stayed with me all the day long, like a seething, pounding pain in the back of my head. Four little Xhosa boys were conned into helping a stranger catch a stray fox - but then raped them and made three of them watch while he butchered the one little boy... removing eyes, intestines, a part of his tiny little pinkie finger...
If only I could set up a filter on the news sites. If only. One of my reasons for reading the news is that I can feel more connected to my country - and also to acquaint myself with the true 'climates' of the country: political, social, economic. And I suppose that means keeping an open mind and taking it ALL in. Oh, but then I think of those four little boys and I just don't know.

PS. Just as frightening, revolting things happen here in England (everywhere, in fact). Some people use these kinds of stories as a numbing technique to not miss their homeland - but realistically, I can't do that to South Africa. In the news here, I've seen stories of a young British woman in Brazil butchered to pieces by her Brazilian boyfriend, then collected in a suitcase and abandoned under a bridge next to a river; or the pretty young special-needs teacher whose best friend's boyfriend murdered her and kept her body in a self-storage freezer, fetching her body whenever he felt like it, for necrophilic sex until her body decomposed from exposure to too much warmth - then he burnt her body in a field.

Nowhere is civilised.

On cravings and carboot sales

2008-10-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

What a GLORIOUS sunshiney day!! For the last 5 days we've showered in bucketfuls of hot, gold sunshine - Summer's way of apologising at last?! What would we do with this magnificent day? With what could we fill it?
Seeing as we missed yesterday's carboot sale in Holcot which must've been a whopper in this weather, we headed down to our local recycling plant where Craig'd seen a foldable rabbit run a few weeks back (while I secretly hoped it would be gone: I can't bear the thought of my sweet little bun being cooped up ALL the time...) Fanastically, the run had long been sold (lucky Max!) but I discovered all sorts of other things I didn't think I could leave without.
One was a very old, very large black and dark blue luggage trunk, stamped with R.A.F and someone now long-passed's name. Hmmm, it'd look fabulous on top of my fluffy flokati rug in the lounge as a coffee table! Then there was an old walnut dresser with perfectly filigreed brass handles which was the perfect height for the baby's nursery to serve as storage for the baby clothes AND serve as changing table! A single cup and saucer caught my eye in its white porcelain glory edged delicately in turquoise and gold lace. A tiny old Chinese jewellery box with a miniature landscape set theatrically behind a little pane of glass, each little branch and leave carved ingeniously from some pale, soft wood. A small gold latch unclasped to reveal a seductive red satin inside. Oh there was so MUCH! But the council workers who run the tip are rather like sharks, who sidle silently up to you, sniff the money-scent of you and try to determine just how much you'd be willing to pay! They can size up desire in a cold flash of an eye. And so, when our regular council-dude told me, with that cold gleam in his eye, "Thirty quid, my love," I realised we would no longer be frequenting this den of refuse and sharks --- the carboot sales in the local villages render much better quality (yes, it's still someone's refuse) stuff for just a fraction of the price! Two weeks ago we bought a beautiful cabinet for my studio space for just 2GBP!
So did I buy anything in the end? An old home-made wooden horsey on wheels that I can just see rejuvenated in some kind of paint effect. Keep it old and antiquey? If our bub is a girl, maybe I'll lacquer it in a lush fuschia pink and decorate it with gold, lace-like patterns - a la Bollywood? I'll leave it in the empty nursery and wait for our scan result on November the 3rd!
The foraging and bartering left me hungry (nothing unusual these days!) and lunch was a feast of a feta sarmie, a handful of plump, juicy cherry tomatoes and a somewhat gluttonous helping of real German sauerkraut! Mercifully, I've not begun chewing the plaster off our walls or eating handfuls of soil form the back garden, but I can certainly testify that Cravings of Pregnancy are no myth or old wives' tale: it is as real as gherkins and strawberry jam at midnight!! My cravings have been less bizarre, but certainly something I can' help but notice when one week all I want to eat is buffalo mozzarella and cherry tomatoes, and the next it's something else... (For the first time this morning, when I surveyed myself in the mirror, I felt like I actually look pregnant for the first time - and no longer like a fat vroumens! We're just 2 weeks away from the halfway point!!!!!!!!!!! If I START to describe all I'm thinking and feeling, I'll have you stuck for another hour yet, so let me say ciao ciao and see you soon ;)
PS. My poor, pounding heart needed a break from all the Stephen King books we have in our home (thanks to a certain addict called Craig) and so I found some more soothing, beautiful books - and the current one I just can't put down is "Serving Crazy with Curry" by Amulya Malladi. Reminiscent of 'Like Water for Chocolate' by Laura Esquival - but much more simple in language - and, of course, Indian in origin. (I think my looooong story about my friend Pakshi (http://thesoutpielphenomenon.blogspot.com) had me lean towards this Indian tale!)

Not Keyne on Milton Keynes...

2008-10-05T23:53:00.000-07:00

A sunny autumn morning and I am up much earlier than usual to enjoy the sunshine! (To clarify: to enjoy the sunshine from my warm little spot on the sofa right next to the radiator, dressed up in all the warm, cuddly things I could find AND my coat!) Yes - winter is here, even though it is technically only still autumn - but remember that when one is African, many things are not quite as it may seem (wink!) Admittedly, Zuma has the same effect on my heart that the English winter has on my body, but: I haven't been able to really get to grips with the ins and outs of what's really going on, so I'll not allow myself to comment at this time, lest I make a poephol of myself!

Plans for today? Stay on 'high alert' for a call from Simply Education, my supply teaching agency! I'd assumed I'd be working 5 days a week, week after week, but I've only had one (disastrous and discouraging) day so far. Eish! Also, I'll do some writing - but more excitingly, I'll head into my little studio to concoct a game-plan for MOOCH. Mooch? Huh? 'Scusez mois?

A hot cup of perfectly sweet tea and toast soaking in melted butter and honey was brought as a peace offering yesterday morning to wake me after an irritable night spent next to the now hopeful peacemaker who tossed and turned like the sea after a storm - the sad result of an oft repeated chemical experiment whose the thesis remains the same: Jack Daniels and red wine in one evening do not bode well for a good night's rest! Munching the delicious offering in wolfish acceptance, we stared out together in dismay at the torrid black rain which dampened our enthusiasm somewhat for the day we'd had planned: a trip down to Milton Keynes to visit a craft fair.
Driving along in the car with our South African neighbours/friends, Barney and Ang - Ang and I in the back, I very quickly became more carsick than I've ever been in my life - but closed my eyes, breathed dramatically and deeply through my nose and blamed it on being pregnant (most things get blamed on that these days!)but by the time we reached the next village along, I couldn't bear it much longer (and I think my fellow passengers couldn't either!!) so we lurched to a stop and I leaped into the front next which soon proved to be an instant solution. No, let me rephrase that: a short-lived solution! The nausea crept back slowly but surely, so that I began to frantically gobble down the apply I'd packed for much later in the day in the hopes it would settle my blood sugar level and make this YEEEEEEECH feeling go the hell away!! A windy farm road decided my fate: I was to be sick, for the very first time in my life on TWO accounts, 1)on the side of the road and 2)in front of my fiance and friends................ Bloody hell!!
With my carefully applied eyeliner now running in long grey streaks down my red, puffy cheeks, we headed to the nearest place we could find some munchies. It was unanimously decided I'd not had enough to eat for breakfast, so a ploughman's sarmie, Lucozade and chocolate bar later and I felt like the proverbial million bucks.

After a shortish drive from our emergency stop and a fair amount of our driver's vehement cussing about how he abhors the English and that our African taxis drive more considerately, we arrived at an old, sprawling stone farmhouse that had been converted into a farm stall and various little decor/trinket shops. The mustards, chutneys and jellies really tickled my fancy - their flavours ranging from apply & thyme jelly to Devil's Breath mustard! The big loaves of just baked bread left us all in a mouthwatering state of temptation - until we saw the price per loaf!! But what really captured me (mind, body AND soul!) was the selection of Turkish Delight! THE REAL DEAL kinda stuff - so that you could almost smell the old, dark hands of the Turkish merchant and touch his tightly wound, unwashed grey turban when you picked up the box and felt the succulent weight of the heaven inside... A purple, hexagonal box boasted 'violet' Turkish delights. I was wracked by strange sense of deja vu thinking about these violet-scented delicacies, but simply could not place the feeling or memory...
The next shop along was a very French decor boutique bedecked with chic candles, cushions and some gorgeous art I didn't think would sell outside of Europe. The owners, a subtly pushy Frenchman with shoulderlength, wavy greying hair that would look ridiculous on a man of any other nationality -- and his Dutch wife (ex-model, by the looks of her) chatted with us while she soothed her crying 11 month old baby son, telling me about her other 3 children aged 17, 15 and 12. I refrained from saying 'laatlammetjie'!!
Craig had disappeared awhile before and I discovered him in the next shop along, the proprietress holding up a white babygro - the front embroidered in delicate silver with 'i'm a baby angel', the back adorned with tiny little white fabric wings!
Wonderfully cute, but hey - for TWENTY ONE fat squidoodles, my baby can be cute enough for me without it!! The rest of the shop was elegantly stocked with the most fabulous stuff - the kind of stuff you would find in Cape Town (somewhat exacerbating my homesickness!) Little square silk sachets of something scented, handstitched, with a little printed arty image stitched down onto the silk... Flat round fabric button-badges decadently hand-embroidered with words or little images... Glasses and vases in dazzling blue, etched with trailing flowers and random butterflies or summer swallows... a long floor rug in knotted suede strips with the word L O V E running along its centre in blood red...
The long and the sort of it, before I get carried away, is that I will now spend the next 2 to 3 weeks making some of my own decadent little fripperies and small square art canvases - and then potentially become a supplier for Mooch - their second shop opening up in nearby Buckingham in the coming month! (This could not have come at a better time for me!!) ---- oh yes! Mooch stocks SA's Carol Boyes silverware. The owner's husband has some or other South African connection/heritage.

If you've ever read Bill Bryson's book about England, you will understand my lack of enthusiasm about encountering the town centre and (in)famous shopping mall of Milton Keynes. Parking was a nightmare with everyone greedy and grabbing for a space, the rain not making things any easier. The mall is just one looooooooooong stretch of shopping shopping shopping. Wallis, Hugo Boss, Woolworths, Faith, Burger King. The bizarre uncomplementary mix of shops is reflected in the crowds - elegant, ruthless women in stilettos and manicures bumping and jostling between loitering cheap-tracksuited families who look lost and soul-hungry. Yip - a pretty scathing criticism, huh? But if you've been there, you'll agree. And if you're going to go there, don't say I didn't warn you!

Enough of all that. Max is shredding the newspapers in a lonely, hungry rabbit-tantrum - his way of telling me: I KNOW you're in the next room, Lisa! Don't think I'll let you ignore me for long!! Time to get give my bunny some love (and keep a beady eye on him so he doesn't get another mouthful of lounge wallpaper!!)

Tring-tring...

2008-10-04T06:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I joined a couple of writing forums as well as some SA expat ones. Some of these seem very 'random' and very slow, while others look so damn complicated and un-user-friendly that already I've ditched them. I don't really know where to go from here, but all I know is that I must write or I will explode!!
When I write I do very little (or no) editorial polishing mainly because I think I might suffocate all that freshness out of it by being hyper-critical. Of course, I'll do a cursory, casual 'once-over' but I can't bring myself to agonise over every little comma or adjective... Maybe this means I am lazy - or maybe it means I have developed enough self-confidence to just write for the sheer love of it! Whatever the verdict, I am my happiest when writing...
Summer has definitely moved onto its celestial course down to the other hemisphere, so that we are forced to sit with scarves wrapped woolenly about our necks and the gas bill climbing ever higher. My passion for winter I've had since a child has been frozen into a mere memory so that I have to do my utmost to not let this perpetual chill get me down. Strangely enough, last weekend was magnificently warm - as if the sun were teasing us by saying - ha! this is the last you'll see of me till June next year! Har har!
Craig is at a rugby match this wind strewn afternoon with the Colts - the under-11 rugby team he coaches at school, while I am home in my jarmies (and scarf!) cuddling on the warm couch with my laptop - catching up with a world of emails that seems to spin and spin and spin! How people coped with living abroad I don't quite know. My brother was one of the first in the SA exodus to London in the '90s - and he'd phone for our birthdays for 10quid a minute! Now it only costs a mere half a pence a minute to call home... Most days I find myself chatting to my mom with a cup of tea usually for an hour or more. Though email is great for corresponding and staying in touch, NOTHING can beat a languid, detailed chat on the phone - hearing the dogs barking in the background or the doorbell ring...

British Wintriness (is there such a word??)

2008-10-03T04:35:00.000-07:00

Never before has this British wintriness affected me in the way I am struggling with it at the moment. Perhaps I can blame it on my perpetual homesickness, compounded by these raging pregnancy hormones? Even our summer up north here in the Midlands was hardly worthy of being called 'summer' compared to the gentle sunniness of Hampshire and West Berkshire, with probably a grand equivalent of 7 days that justify being called 'sunny'. I remember how my one sister struggled deeply with the English winter, literally sinking into what they call 'seasonal depression' - but even then, I figured it was her living in grey, concrete London that caused her to feel so low and frustrated.
And so, I have turned the heating on since yesterday despite the constant talk about everyone being able to afford their gas bills. I just could not bear the cold eating into my bones, day in and day out - where the only relief could be found in bed under piles of duvet or in a scaldingly hot bath. The trick is to have the heating on, not to turn the house into a hot air balloon, but to merely take that dreadful biting chill off the air - whereas the trend here seems to be to blast the building with hot air so that when you walk in off the icy street, you are hit by a solid wall of claustrophobic heat which has you clawing frantically at your woollen coat!
However, when the baby is born, we will need to keep the ambient temperature quite warm. Newborns' little bodies haven't developed the ability to regulate their body temperature, and their circulation is still quite primitive. Our nurse/midwife at Gymboree explained one day, when I moaned about how stuffy and warm her office was, that babies can easily catch a cold or develop pneumonia if exposed to a cold draught. (And she's a 'modern' woman who blatantly negates most old wives' tales -- so I think I'll definitely take her advice!)

Engrossed in a telephone conversation with a very dear friend, I didn't hear the sounds of escape - until Max was right next to me in the lounge looking at me with proud defiance: "See, you can't keep me locked up!" Flabbergasted, I had to retract my previous statement that bunnies aren't that bright... Needless to say, his cage is now rigged to keep him firmly locked in his straw-strewn, bunny-poo home!
As I am becoming more and more pregnant, I am finding running around after this cheeky little bunny more of a chore which leaves me cussing and puffing (and, I'm ashamed to admit, wondering if there is a nice little girl in the village who would like a bunny!!) Someone rightly advised me to stick him outside in the garden where he'll probably be happier, but I just can't bring myself to do it! I imagine him shivering in the winter nights, wondering sadly why I kicked him out the house. Also, I know for a FACT, that I will neglect to play with him as much as I do with him being indoors: it's seeing him looking at me with those big, brown eyes that makes me open his hutch and cuddle him for a bit before letting him run around the house (and eat all my wallpaper - or, shall I say, the landlord's?!)

GUESS WHAT????? At the midwife on Wednesday, I heard our baby's heartbeat for the first time!! The exquisite miraculousness of it hasn't yet reached the realms of my conscious, rational brain - I can't find the words to express the sound of such a tiny little heart beating like a running wild horse's hooves so deep inside me, and consciously being able to understand that THIS is my child... Prostrate on that examining table covered in stiff blue paper towel, I fell victim to something I felt before at the 12 week scan... I can only think that this overpowering emotion and deep awareness is 'mother's love'... In a few weeks' time, we'll be back at the hospital's dark ultrasound room, for our 20 week scan --- Craig is almost obsessed about this scan: then he'll be able to know if it is a boy or a girl. It's not such a crucial thing for me - maybe because I have the sore boobs, growing belly ETC (!!!) to make the baby more real for me, whereas Craig needs everything he can to be able to relate to this first child of his. There's a private clinic down the road that will do an hour's appointment with ultrasound and a 4D scan -- for 175 Great British Pounds! And despite our meagre earnings, this is something I think he would go without food for!!

Oh, I could write and write all day - but I need to do some research into how to get more traffic to my two blogs. (My dream? To be a full-time blogger and get paid for it. Unrealistic? There are plenty of bloggers out there who have stopped work to become full time writers - so why can't I? It's just that I've found my current attempts at publicity rather useless -- so I need to push myself a bit and get involved in forums and various other groups. Any ideas from you would be WELCOME!)

Zen & the Art of Housekeeping

2008-09-25T02:51:00.000-07:00

Just having glugged the last of my rosepetal-infused tea, I feel a little guilty writing about cleaning the house, but I just can't seem to help myself. It seems the more I write, the more I need to!
I've discovered a book called 'Zen and the Art of Housekeeping' I'm just itching to buy -- its by-line proclaims it will help to put meaning and beauty back into your daily household drudgery! Now, now - before you cock a sarcastic and cynical eyebrow at me - let me tell you about another book: 'Simple Abundance' by Sarah Ban Breathnach. My mom bought it for me many years ago now, and STILL it sits beside my bed where I dip into it almost every day for very inspiring ideas on living a beautiful, meaningful life. I think we all strive for this - but mostly we are lured by magazines, malls and TV into believing money can purchase it for you. (As I type, Pink Floyd's 'Money' is on the radio!) What 'Simple Abundance' seeks to teach us is that beauty and meaning (and peace, joy, contentment etc) can not so much be bought as learned through a process of purging one's life of junk (mental and literal junk)and acquiring a constant attitude of mindfulness and GRATITUDE. Breathnach advocates (rather stringently) the daily use of a 'gratitude journal' --- and though this may sound a bit twee and trite, it has absolutely and consistently transformed my inner (and outer) life when I have used diligently...
Find a little journal that speaks to your sense of delight, whether it be a dark leather Moleskin or a glittering, sequinned pink silk one, and keep it on your bedside table with its own special pen. Before you turn off the light, write down a list of just 5 things from the day for which you are grateful and feel blessed. Mine have sometimes been 'oxygen, this bed, my mom, my dad, the soup I had for supper'. And at other times, there are more magical, lavish things to record - but it truly is a simple, free and miraculous way to transform your life! (Gosh, don't I just sound like the little wannabe-domestic goddess?!)
I'll make myself another cup of tea - and while 'Rock Hits of the 70s' plays perhaps a little too loud from the lounge, I'll remember one of my favourite things from 'Simple Abundance' as I begin to dust, wipe and tidy this precious old house I call home:

"the simple pleasure of concentrating on one thing at a time..."

PS. My gratitude list for this morning:
1. The soft, pale mist like a veil over the rain-richened fields and hills of the countryside driving Craig to work this morning.
2. Being HUNGRY and no longer nauseous with morning sickness
3. Thinking about how I felt my baby move inside me for the first time last night when I wallowed in the bath
4. The thought of a hot bowl of my vegetable and pearl barley soup for lunch
5. Rock 'n roll from the 70s...

14 and a half weeks (a third of the way!)

2008-09-19T06:04:00.000-07:00

Lunch is a ham sarmie : the softest white bread spread with just a hint of butter and two juicy slices of pink ham! Also a half tub of coleslaw I bought on a whim yesterday, eaten in great big hungry mouthfuls with a very old, ivory handled silver fork engraved delicately with quite an exotic little pattern on the silver...
Now that the morning sickness has come to an end, I feel, strangely, quite unpregnant. (Coleslaw finished.)Besides the disturbingly painful and ponderously large breasts that have, quite frankly, never been this unsexy and a swelling belly that looks more fat than fertile, I have to consciously THINK about the little person growing inside me. The 'realising' effects of the scan we had at 12 weeks has dissipated into a kind of dumb paranoia where I sometimes feel like I'm just imagining it! Perhaps that is why, in the next week or two, God designed it that I'll be able to feel the baby inside me! I have already felt the strange shiftings inside of me this week of intestines etc being squashed and moved by my ever expanding uterus. (Discovered that the baby creates its own fingerprints by its swimming motions!)
OK - enough pregnancy chit-chat. What else can I tell you?
1. I am writing a book. Non-fiction. (It's terrifying!!)
2. I have begun painting again - watercolours, in a very large format - A1 or A0. Until I get my easel and can afford such large swathes of Bockingford, I'm doing smaller ones (A3). I'm looking at flowers as metaphors for anatomy and reproductivity. (Yip - now that I am pregnant I find I can hardly think of anything else! But no, really - it's more about celebrating the exquisite beauty and miraculousness of life --- a (visual) song of praise to God I suppose.)
3. Craig is still enjoying working at Spratton Hall. The children are quite unlike any other children I've ever encountered here... Hence why I am not looking forward to starting my supply work -- i.e. I'll probably be placed 90% of the time in public schools where the kids know their rights and are, generally, full of bullshit and are somewhat lacking in the discipline department.
Otherwise, I could write and write and write, but I'm stuck in the middle of yet another Steven King book -- so I'll say 'tootleloo' and ciao, ciao - with lots of love!

10 weeks and counting...

2008-08-21T02:37:00.000-07:00

Well, well, well... it has been an eternity since I have written. Actually, let me rephrase that: since I have been ABLE to write! And if I were to be even more honest with you: since I have been able to very much at all...
About 6 weeks ago I discovered my dream had at last come true. The dream I'd been wishing and hoping and praying for since I was a little girl. 4 pregnancy tests later and it was confirmed: I was (and still am!) well and truly up the duff. Pregnant. With child. A bun in the oven. Unforunately (mild understatement) I have been suffering with the most awful, neverending morning sickness. And sheesh - if it happened to live up to it's apparently false name, I would be MORE than happy to feel like a violently sea-sick hippopotamus in the mornings - except that I feel like that twenty four loooooong hours a day! Both my mom and my dad have said: "Ja, jy wil mos!" which obviously doesn't help - and which makes me feel like an errant teenager instead. But it also makes me laugh, which DEFINITELY helps!

In the beginning, chocolate worked like a miracle cure -- for about 20 minutes - and then I'd scramble like a crazed thing for another piece! Now, NOTHING works. My boisterously cheerful, super-large midwife (who has no children of her own except a dog!) hasn't much sympathy for me and only tries to reassure me that it means my body is pumped full of all the right hormones. Hypocrite! (ultra-bitchy, hormonal sneer...)

Not much else is news because (I'm not going to bore you with the reasons.) The weather? It's England! Rain, rain and more rain - with bouts of scattered sunshine! Max is naughty as hell and has developed a peculiar predeliction for the wallpaper in hidden corners of the lounge - causing us some anxiety as to how to remedy this unsightly destruction without the landlord finding out. Why? Because I need to ask him for the name and make of the paint used on the walls... What could I say if he asks why? That a friend loves the colour so much she wants to paint her lounge the same colour?! OK, enough prattling... Time to see if I can tackle something other than sleeping, reading or vomiting this fine day! Adios.

Of bunnies and Noah's Ark

2008-07-12T08:07:00.000-07:00

___?????????????????????????????????????????______))))))))))))))))))) : that was Max Martini, who climbed inquisitively onto the keyboard to investigate just what I was up to on this clicky-clacky thing! Now he is sitting next to me as I indulge in a little bit of writing in bed, wondering just WHAT I want to write about. I began a story ( a ‘proper’ novel) but it just felt too much like I was forcing it – instead of it flowing easily and with great enjoyment from me. (I’m telling Max he should relax and take a nap instead of trying to burrow a hole with his very furry little paws into my white cotton duvet – but he’s instead deliberately ignoring me and attacking, with surprising ferocity for such a sweet little bunny, my cardboard box of glue, scissors and magazine cuttings – and now he’s moved onto the wicker basket I use to prop my laptop against when I write in bed! He absolutely HATES to be reprimanded and when I do end up having to admonish him, he punishes me with The Cold Shoulder by turning his back on me and giving me harsh, unforgiving looks. And oh, how it hurts!)
Here in Northamptonshire, the weather continues to be cold and violently wet so that we are in grave doubt as to whether (weather?!) summer will arrive at all this year! The locals say they have a few wet ones in a row, followed by a few hot ones. (‘Hot’ denoting ‘heavenly’ in the English weather dictionary.) You see, now this is what I just adore writing about: daily life! Daily life as an adventure and a journey filled with the most incredible minutiae of beauty if one will just slow down long enough to look for them. And so, instead of writing a book in order to be published, I shall write for my own pleasure and self-publish for non-profit. I think though, that if I were to write a book, it would be based upon a collection of short stories: a collage or patchwork quilt of stories, stitched and glued together to create a whole… I suppose, in fact, that this is my creative style which can be seen in my obsession with collage and my never-ending collecting of found objects – and in the placement of these in particular groupings which set up a kind of meaningful dialogue in the way in which they relate to each other. (I bought a 1934 edition of THE NEW STANDARD ENCYCLOPEDIA in a charity shop last week for 50p – but which is so desperately precious to me that I wouldn’t trade it for a brand new version from Amazon.com! I have already begun its slow dismemberment by cutting out the words and definitions of Rabbit, Max and Martini – and which I have added to the growing collage decorating Max’s hutch.)
Last night was the ‘Summer Concert’ which we’ve been practicing for these last 6 weeks. ‘We’ are ‘The Village Voices’ – a choir of about 20 people who come from Walgrave and the surrounding villages once a week on a Thursday to sing their hearts out and to bow to the every whim of Ian Clarke, our quite famous choirmaster! Ian had chosen ‘water’ as the theme for this year’s summer concert – and rather ominously, it rained with frightening severity all of yesterday and last night, making the modern cantata based on Noah and his ark, rather too appropriate. We sang a song called ‘Pirate’s Lullaby’, an ancient song written in Latin called Babylonis Somethingus which gave me nightmares it was so antiquatedly complicated, and a few other songs about love and rivers. The true highlight of the evening for me was the group of little girls from our village’s primary school who joined us in some of the parts in Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo. Their obvious delight in being a part of the evening was catchy, and every single face lit up when their sweet little songbird voices filled the room. The very gay pianist took a fascinated liking to Craig, cornering him with a glass of Pimms and regaling him with tales of his gym exploits and his impending trip to Dublin! We will be taking a break between now and September, when we will begin rehearsing for the December concert which will no doubt be about carols etc etc. In the meantime, I exchanged numbers with a few of the special friends I had made and we will, I hope, meet up now and again before September for tea or a pint at out local!
We are still sans-automobile: what a mission!! The public transport system is pretty dysfunctional out here in the sticks, so getting anywhere without a car requires an enormous amount of planning and effort, as well as money -- it is quite pricey to travel by bus (unless one buys a monthly ticket – but even that is not always a reliable way to save money as not all the bus routes are run by the same company… So: aaaaarrrrgh!!!!!!!!!) Hopefully though, by September we WILL have a car, as that is when my supply teaching job starts and not having a car would mean instant career-suicide! In the meantime, we will continue investigating ways to finance a car, and otherwise keep our travels pedestrian.

It died after 3 weeks and we paid 200quid for the thing!!!

2008-06-20T05:31:00.000-07:00

In the middle of applying for jobs on-line and listening to my personlised (and very eclectic) Yahoo Launchcast radio station, I'm waiting for the car-breaker to pick our car up which died on the way home - but quite conveniently just outside our village. Craig arrived home to tell me this, so we walked back to the car together, both embarrassed and probably blushing for shame! I hopped in while Craig pushed the car - well, tried! Everytime we just got the thing rolling, a car would come whizzing round the bend - and I'd have to yank up the handbrake. THANKFULLY, our neighbour (head of the child-protection police unit - and unfortunately for him, called 'Digger'!) stopped next to us on his way home, parked his car and hopped out to help us get the car off the road and onto a grassy verge just a little further back - the entrance to one of the neighbouring wheat farms.) Digger must've thought Craig a bit of a pig because I was pushing the car while Craig was inside it : you see, the other night, Digger popped in on his way home from a long and very wet night at the pub, and elbowed Craig with a sly twinkle in his eye, and asked if I was pregnant because I am apparently 'so radiant and glowing'! Ha! Imagine! And so I didn't need to wonder why he raised his eyebrow in concern when he saw me pushing the damn jalopy with all my meaty might!

pink wellies and pink eyes

2008-06-17T03:58:00.000-07:00

At last I have begun my (first) novel in earnest - and I can really only say this is thanks to two people: Melanie and Craig. Anyway - before I do today's 2000 words, I thought I'd get the ol' creative juices flowing by telling you about my unexpected adventure yesterday!
At about noon, deep into the first draft of the first paragraph of my first book, my phone rang and glowed glowed glowed that Ang (neighbour, friend, South African) wanted to chat. On her way to buy a 100 pound voucher for Wyevale garden centre for a colleague who's about to retire (and move down Cornwall way), Ang invited me to tag along. Loathe to leave my writing behind but always keen for a bit of windowshopping, I dashed on some mascara and the inevitable lipgloss and hopped in her faded little red Noddy car. Taking all the narrow roads that wind and twist their way from village to village, we passed ancient stone houses afroth with overflowing hanging baskets of every colour of begonia and pansy - one old farmhouse sporting an aged and very historically styled thatch roof with pretty lace-like patterns cut into the dry, grey thatch. Then it was past Lady Di's family land where a myth has the princess buried on a little island in the lake there...
Wyevale boasts a vast selection of fancies and fripperies from scented candles (baby powder, vanilla, french rose etc) to polka dot wellies! I tried on a gorgeous pair of the latter but changed my mind when I saw the price, and instead opted for a pair of baby-pink ones in the kiddies section (fifteen pounds cheaper - so very handy to have size 3 tootsies!!) Ang bought herself a pair of striped ones in pinks and purples -- tres cool.
Craig arrived home early to find Ang and I looking at magazines, spread out lazily on our flokati rug (which is much like having a perpetually moulting, very silent and terribly lazy labrador in the house!)She was off to a balletic ode to Edith Piaf and Judy Garland, so said Adios. Then I jumped into my new pink wellies, tucking the tops of my jeans into the top - and off we went on a ramble through the fields. Through the stinging nettles and sheep poo, I thought Craig very brave in his shorts and flip-flops! The mommy ewes herded their little lambs off as they heard us approaching - and it looked as if they'd all had their summer haircuts that day! And, wraggies waar, up at the top of the field, outside the gate of the little enclosed pasture where they spend the night, the grass was covered in what looked like soft summer snow... (Suffering from a kind of obsession with collecting found-objects, I was very tempted to gather all this creamy wool tinged with brown and take it home to wash and dye and turn into felt buttons! But, alas, allergies of a cataclysmic kind were already starting to make me sneeze and all I wanted was to get home!)
What was so very terrible about this particular typhoon of sneezing and wheezing was the effect it had on my eyes! They burned and itched at the same time so that they turned a horrible orangey sort of bloody pink and the clear covering membrane became a thick, bulging gel-like yuckiness - and even the skin around my eyes swelled so that my eyes looked almost closed! Miserable and wishing we lived across the road from a pharmacy, I instead stood in the shower for an age, hoping the water would remove the evil stuff from me -- while my clothes were designated to the bottom of the laundry bin for a very thorough washing indeed!
Oh yes - I forgot to mention that Ang and I stopped at the recycling plant outside Brixworth, where she lent me two pounds to pay for a plate patterned with blue flowers, a very old porcelain tea-cup (white, apple-green inside and filigreed with gold) and, a slightly rickety wooden sewing box, with draws that move out on hinges. And deep inside were two hidden treasures! An old piece of obviously handmade lace that had been sewn rather raggedly onto a square of white linen and then stuffed with a funny old orange piece of sponge... And a heavy, squareish pincushion, covered in faded gold silk which has the merest shadow of a flower in a pot, painted in the Japanese style of the 1890s -- and then pushed in with pins and needles: curved upholstery needles, a rusted beading needle, a hat-pin with a real white pearl on the end, glowing with a rich lustre - and making me wonder the hats it has seen and the stories it could tell...

Xenophobia (backdated to 24 May)

2008-06-14T02:40:00.000-07:00

24 May 2008, Saturday
While the rest of the South Africans are next door at Barney’s watching the much anticipated Shark’s game, I am meant to be resting but instead sit in the warm dining room table behind my laptop needing to write because my brain is fizzing over with, well… stuff. (Been back in the UK for two weeks now, after a 2 year spell back in South Africa.)
I could launch into the idea of fragments and their piecing together – how my very life and creative approach always seem to be based, quite unconsciously, on this premise and M.O – but instead I shall launch straight into my first fragment. Xenophobia. More particularly, xenophobia in South Africa.

Xenophobia, South Africa – May 2008.
Sitting in my warm, snug lounge, my mom called me (a big surprise) all the way from South Africa – costing her more than an arm and a leg, I am sure! Phoning her straight back via my 3p a minute line, we engaged in our usual Mommy/Daughter chattiness – until she asked if I’d heard about these ‘xenophobia attacks’ in South Africa. My mind rattled around a little to remember exactly what xenophobia is – and, I suppose, my very South Africanness made immediate sense of the word as something racial. But, quite surprisingly, it is not a black and white thing at all, but the African people of South Africa lashing out against the African people of other African countries. It appears that the main motivation behind this hectically violent backlash is the matter of jobs. And jobs mean money. And money makes the world go round, they say. Though this seems like a pretty rational motivation, it is merely a symptom of the deeper, darker side of xenophobia – if there could be a darker side to this already pitch-black phenomenon?! (Re-reading this, I HONESTLY didn’t intend that as a pun…)
How to define “xenophobia”? The Thesaurus on my laptop gave me these synonyms – in bold, while I looked up their meanings (in italics) in the almost too Concise Dictionary & Thesaurus I bought at the Pound Shop this morning --- because “xenophobia” didn’t even feature!

Chauvinism: damn – not even “chauvinism’ is an entry!! You get what you pay for, I suppose!
Well, here follow the other synonyms: Racism, Dislike of foreigners, Discrimination, bigotry, intolerance, prejudice, small-mindedness…

Xenophobia pretends to be about jobs. Xenophobia is merely racism dressed up in Latin. Xenophobia is everywhere – Africa, Europe, classrooms and cocktail parties. It is the fear of those who are different. It is fear of the unknown. The irony, which I am sure has missed no-one – including Tokyo Sexwhale and the Reverend Tutu -- is that the very people who struggled as victims of xenophobia under the apartheid regime are now themselves operating as perpetrators of the very thing they fought and hated and feared. Both Sexwhale and Desmond Tutu have said, in the last week, how ashamed they are to be Africans amidst this spreading fire of what has been dubbed by the media as “xenophobia attacks”. (I wonder what Nelson is thinking and feeling?)
Having recently arrived a fortnight ago in the rural village of Walgrave in the county of Northamptonshire, with no TV or internet, I’ve had no news of this till that phonecall with my mom. Quite a shock… Devastating, actually. Especially because I’ve always been so very ‘pro’ our incredible “Rainbow Nation”… One is often asked, when living abroad, why one is living so far from home. Even when I lived in the UK before, I always made it very, VERY clear that it was for reasons OTHER than the South African stereotypes of ‘crime and violence’. But suddenly, I am beginning to wonder where the future of our country REALLY lies, optimism aside. Never having being a cynic or pessimist, I am shocked by my wandering, worried thoughts about my future, my family’s safety, my roots. For the first time, I am contemplating a future in this famously grey and drizzly country where I will never really belong, where my blood will always be the hot colour of Africa, where my heart will always yearn for home. I found myself begging my mother to continue to be optimistic – but to be more realistic than ever before. The prognosis from political and social analysts is that these purgative attacks will reach beyond the tribe versus tribe line into the white zone. (Gosh – did I just write that?? I want to erase those lines – but like Zimbabwe, it is a complete reality which probably doesn’t deserve to be dressed up in politically correct niceties…)
Even here, in this apparently almost-perfect “centre of the universe” (did you pick up the sarcasm?) xenophobia is an umbrella against the rain of Polish, Russian, South African, Kiwi etc. Just the other day, there was a television programme about a sports-shoe warehouse/factory which was being accused and scrutinised for its use of Polish for cheaper labour – ‘apparently’ causing job loss/ “job absence” for English workers. Craig worked with many Russians and Polish on the apple farms in England between 2001 and 2004 – and his opinion is worth it’s weight in gold (or apples?!) : he says these are a hardworking and humble people – proud to be given this opportunity, and physically and emotionally very able to do the jobs the English won’t do. The emaciated drug addict/ alcoholic Big Issue sellers on the High Streets of England are a prime example of this latent laziness in the English job-attitude: they have every opportunity and financial support given them, but what do they do with it? **** ALL – that’s what! It reminds me of a couple of years ago, walking out the underground in London, I passed the first Big Issue seller I’d encountered in the UK – and how bloody pissed off I was at seeing his self-pity and obvious evidence of addiction. I went straight up to him and unleashed upon him a probably very self-righteous little high-horse sermon which no doubt had any sort of impact – telling him the story of my young Xhosa friend who sold the Big Issue in Cape Town, always smiling, ‘shoulders-back’ proud, clean – selling the magazine in a bid to educate and improve himself, but who was murdered for his paltry end-of-day takings right there on the busy main road. And this pathetic addict stood there, leaning against the brick exit, sniffing and whining, with no such threat at all to his survival…
As a South African living in the UK, I’ve even experienced xenophobia for myself – being ignored, sneered at and downright insulted. I think of all the times I’ve just wanted to fit in – to belong. To not be picked out or treated differently simply because of my accent gave me away – and yet, not wanted to disguise my identity I’m so proud of! Hmmm…. A complicated matter. (Our broadband – via Virgin – will be set up by Thursday, so keeping up to date with the news will be easier at least…)

Home Jerome!

2008-05-17T09:26:00.000-07:00

It has been a long, long time since last I updated my blog! At first it was just the crazymad rush of working and packing to move to England and then I can blame my parents’ ridiculously slow dial-up which wouldn’t allow me to insert images and add new entries to my blog. I gave up! But now I have my laptop back in my possession and a very naughty connection to our neighbour’s unsecured wireless! There are no more excuses now!
So much has happened in the last while and if I’d had the chance, I’d have written so much I could’ve had enough material for a book – or two! And quite where I should now begin is a mystery…
Attached to our kitchen is a lovely, airy diningroom, the walls painted an unobtrusive but stylish shade --- almost white, but with the palest suggestion of warm sage. THANK GOODNESS it is not that damn Magnolia that adorned 97% of all the walls in England – from the Home Office loos to Jane Smith’s bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, livingroom, diningroom, lounge, blah blah blah. Nauseatingly boring. The floors have been newly laid with beech laminate, while the two windows have cotton blinds the colour of blood oranges, though not “bont” in hue. When I was packing (the second time!) my decision to discard unnecessary clothes in lieu of items of usefulness, meaning and irreplaceability, saw me packing little plastic bank bags of embroidery thread, scraps of silk in every colour I could lay my hungry hands on, books that never fail to inspire --- and, about two meters of fuschia pink satin ribbon dangling with bellydanceresque glass beads and sequins --- which I’ve since attached with pins to the bottoms of the orange blinds. (I’m still waiting for someone to nominate me for the Domestic Goddess Awards for 2008!)
Just got up to make myself a hot cup of the most fragrant tea: Rose Pouchong by Twinings. Apparently the smoked black Tibetan tea is layered with rose petals… All I need now is an unusual tea pot and some pretty glasses and mismatched tea cups from old tea sets that each must have their own story to tell. But these are little treasures that can only be discovered over a period of time – and are not to be purchased from any supermarket shelves or mail order catalogue. In the meantime, I’ll sip this delicious brew from the white porcelain mug that’s own history is just as special to me: while I was stuck very far away, Craig prepared our first real home for my arrival by purchasing every single thing he thought I might need – crockery, cutlery, towels, bedding, a toaster, a kettle --- even a garlic crusher he knows I would find it impossible to live without!
Though it is a Saturday, Craig’s been whisked off to coach his 7 year olds in what looks like a very wet and very cold cricket match, while my South African neighbour, Angela, is taking me shopping with her for some groceries…

The Village...

2008-04-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

First thoughts might be..a horror movie..?But no,its just the sleepy little English village in which I now find myself waiting continously for the arrival of my princess/better half..

The photo is of the house we are moving into.Its actually quite nice,with a stunning view of the rolling hills from the bedroom window..even the odd fox can be spotted!!The interior has a modern but at the same time Historic feel to it,which is GREAT.There are also two fire places in the lounge alone so im looking forward to some red wine and romantic evenings;).Who knows what miracles might happen there..?

I found out today one of my neighbours is a policeman,so I guess ill have to tread carefully!The other one I think is an artist who runs her business from home,and who is also deafer than I am(hard to imagine).Apart from those two the rest of the houses are big by British standards and so there occupants seldom seen.The whole village is surrounded by farms with plenty of interesting foot paths which im hoping to discover together with Lisa.Futher down the main road(if you can call it that)is a large dam(8miles to walk round it)which is stocked with trout.Ive enquired about the hire of a boat and kit,although I have yet to even attempt the art of fly fishing,all in all it works out to about £30 for the day,not bad for a day out and you keep your catch!(im a seafood fan).Even further down the road is the nearest village,Brixworth.Not much there either..basically our village is just a couple of stone houses and a pub,as ive mentioned.

Its been another cold day in which ive been holed up indoors,something which is proving rather frustrating!!I think its time for a glass of red,even though the enjoyment ive had sipping glasses a couple of weeks ago is missing,simply because the reality is theres nothing like sharing a glass of red wine with your loved one and enjoying the conversation that accompanies it.

So ill say Poka for now,
Craig

My first attempt...from a thousand miles away..

2008-04-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

How to start this im not quite sure,but here goes..basically im Lisa"s fiancee/other half.She is my dream come true and EVERYTHING I could ever want and now she has invited me to be a part of her online journal,something im a bit nervous about.

Unfortunately due to an unforseen passport issue we are now a couple of thousand km apart from each other,and this is driving me insane!!As most people will know the SA Home Office is not exactly,shall we say fast/friendly/efficient..

So far the better part of my 1st week in good old freezing England has been spent in a bit of a daze.Probably still from the shock of leaving Lees behind and being uncertain as to the exact date of her arrival.Although hard this seperation has had its benifits,hey Lees?;).I have been keeping busy,started a new job at an Independant school near Northampton called Spratton Hall in the little village of Spratton.Ive also managed to find accomadation in the form of a 2Bed teerraced house in the village of Walgrave which is everything id hoped for,which is a house in the middle of nowhere,surrounded by farms,all we have is one pub and a couple of stone houses,oh and a stunning stone chapel..Slowly ive been setting the house up,getting the neccesary utensils,furniture etc(which has proved challenging)so that when my fiancee does arrive she can simply add her touch and settle in easily.

One of my hobies is people watching and after todays shopping trip which included,a dvd,books,a printer/scanner/copier and medicine I decided to spend an hour on one of the benches in the shopping centre and simply just watch the world goodbye..needless to say this lasted about 15min before I got sick of it,the culture here is just so different,your average shopper never seems to have a lift going to the top floor and the amount of 15yr olds pushing prams is MINDBLOWING!!So I packed my stuff and headed back to Walgrave!

Now im sitting here in freezing conditions(British spring)drinking a double rum,poured by my friend,better known as King Barny,wondering what this week holds and hoping it brings good news.Its also probably time to get supper ready and move on to a slightly smoother drink,a glass of red wine and relax and enjoy the rest of this evening.So this brings my first attempt at adding to contemplating my navel to an end.

Poka C..

A long, long time... An eternity, in fact!

2008-04-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

17 iv 2008, Thursday
Day # 8 of waiting, waiting, waiting…
In an hour the electricity’s going to disappear for 2 hours so thought I better respond to my urge to write before that disappeared too! Sitting in my parents’ study (really just one of our bedrooms but only now with the bed replaced by a computer!), an empty cup of coffee near the keyboard I wish could somehow be magically refilled and still smiling from the sms Craig sent me from England a few minutes ago where he mentioned the cost of a rabbit cage is 38 pounds! This may not sound deeply romantic to the bulk of you, but to me this is the most tender thoughtfulness I’ve yet experienced… (A little bit of history to furnish this pretty arb comment: my last two months in England saw me being ‘found’ by the most gorgeous little lop-eared rabbit I called Jack – and Jack, perfectly house-trained, kept me, literally, alive during the worst few months of my life… It is as if her were somehow sent… Since then, and actually even before then, rabbits have featured often in my art and visual journals, having a kind of kindly talismanic power over my heart. And Craig, knowing this, and only having been in England a week, has already sought out a nearby farmer who sells the lop-eared variety I especially adore, selling for 6 quid each… Special, huh?)
[***wanted to insert photos of jack and past bummy-containing art work, but alas this connection is too slow...***]
Though there are two contacts I’ve been blessed with – one in the Pretoria Home Office who apparently only needs a bottle of brandy for his efforts, the other a kindly member of my fiancé’s extended family – none has as yet been able to furnish us with any news of where my passport is in the system. But, seeing as I only applied in Malmesbury early on Thursday morning, it’s no wonder or surprise, I guess! Theoretically, the passport should be ready in 6 to 8 weeks and this will literally leave me with only about a week or so’s breathing space inside my Indefinite Leave To Remain – expiring very DEFINITELY on June 21st. YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Minus a car and minus any sort of cash flow, I’ve embarked on a special (portable!) project to keep me out of mischief/sane/amused/from crying – though it’s a secret surprise for Craig: it is something for our little house in the tiny village of Walgrave near Kettering in Northamptonshire! Other than that, I have made my bed with my own duvet, pillows and white cotton bed linen so I at least feel somewhat ‘installed in residence’ – i.e. feel at home. Every time I need to get dressed, I rummage about in my packed suitcase on the floor – all my toiletries laid out on the floor too… A strange, disquieting place to be, this limbo, this twilight… I don’t sleep much – and when I do, they’re dreams of packing and packing and packing and never having enough space in my suitcase, of Emirates airlines and checking in and weighing my luggage…
And so, I now have plenty of time to write again! (big smile)
I’ve always wished for a very interactive blog (I STILL utterly dislike that word!!) but it seems as if those of my friends who DO read it, are too shy or too pressed for time to add their own words to this story… So PLEASE, oh pretty pretty please, DO add yourself to my story because – a selfish reason really: I want to look back one day and read all the other stories and selves intertwined with mine!
With LOTS of love,
Lisa

Kunskop....

2008-02-17T02:13:00.000-08:00

10 ii 2008, Sunday
It is excruciating and torturous, this thing of being an artist. My mind feels both achingly empty and bursting like a too ripe fruit with ideas. Where do I begin? I stand in front of my shelves laden with materials, sketchbooks and my very private collection of found objects and feel like screaming with all the angst and fear and sheer bewilderment that is pushed upon artists like a sticky, fly-paper cliché – but it’s honestly true! I think it’s maybe just the way our brains are wired. That were it not for this intensity of creative confusion on one hand, on the other our brains would just not be able to produce the kind of lateral, out-the-box uniqueness we’re so renowned for.

(Or am I just making excuses for myself??)
My morning was spent rifling and sifting through piles upon piles of collected pages torn from all sorts of magazines – from dusty, old National Geographics to the latest French Vogue – which I’ve been hoarding with compulsive selfishness over the last few months when my ‘day job’ has dominated my days… They were like the secret dreaming of painting and having another exhibition even though there wasn’t the faintest whisper of hope for this to happen because already I was burning my proverbial candles at both ends! And so, now that I have found some time in my new life with Craig where I only work 3 days a week at Gymboree, the amassed tearings have swamped me with too many possibilities and directions so I feel like I am drowning in my self.
A combination of two things has catalysed the beginning of my new body of work: brutally purging the pointless, excessive imagery of anything unnecessary… (the bin is now full!) and the unwavering, fiery encouragement and listening ear of my soulmate who listened to my quiet, neurotic ranting and gently suggested what I’d been desperate to hear: that it was ok and the right thing to do to choose just ONE specific focus and to pursue it till its completion, and only then continue on to the next idea/project.
Two or maybe three (probably four!) “petite” glasses of wine later, and I’ve primed a variety of surfaces with white gesso that’ve been lounging about latent and hidden in my drawers labelled ‘found surfaces’. AND then also laid the ground for a work I’ve been meaning to set down in black inky lines since September 2006!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All Gymboreed out (sjoe!!)

2008-02-11T03:36:00.000-08:00

Supposedly, allegedly and apparently my day off today, I am at work! I got in at 9.30am to do the dreaded 'Switch' where we move all the various bits of foam and wooden equipment around into a different configuration every two weeks... And, I did ALL by myself (yip, I already gave myself a Noddy badge for this!!) where normally we used to do it with three or four other people --- which was definitely a case of too many cooks... Putting some of my own music onto the FAB sound system in the play area (choice: light rock and pop mix from the 1960s to 2000s instead of Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory just in case a customer DID arrive for something! ALWAYS got to look and act the eternally happy Gymboree teacher - even on my day off! This morning I woke with a scream trying to escape my subconscious after a sweaty, hectic nightmare in which I was kidnapped by gunpoint and imprisoned inside a big Gymboree where no-one was allowed to know of my exhaustion, loneliness or enslavement - but that I still had to continue to teach and be this incredible bundle of energetic and happy love that I apparently am! There's much more to the dream - but because it's interpretation is rather obvious, I'll refrain from saying more...) Needless to say, a litre of Coke Lite later and rather sweaty, I'm pretty damn pleased with myself for my morning's work. The rest of the afternoon needs me to do some housework AND prepare my lesson plans for the next two weeks before heading off to teach my mom and her friend art class at 3.30pm. Then it's a braai with Craig at my folks - and hopefully an early night before the busy, busy week that's ahead of us!
Hope your week is delicious and inspired! x

Blah blah blah

2008-02-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

5 ii 2008, Tuesday
Sitting alone in the quiet stillness of the early morning at my little antique marble writing desk, I have a feeling this week is going to be glorious! I’m really not sure why, but there’s just something in the cool, pale gold sunlight and the gentleness of the summer wind shimmering across the leaves in the trees outside my window… something I can’t quite name or explain…
To my left sits a cup of black coffee I spooned an extra dollop of coffee into in the hope that it’ll rinse the last residues of sleep from my mind – as well as three capsules of various bits and bobs of vitamins, immune-boosters and flu capsules : I think my mom’s flu has taken a distinct liking to me, so hopefully these colourful plastic medicines will do what they’re supposed to do! Surprisingly, there’s no music playing on my CD player – but the music of the morning is more than enough in its birdsong, humming refrigerator and silent sunlight. (I’m trying to learn how to slow down into my life, so that each heartbeat becomes a present moment, a ‘now-point’ – instead of the constant craving of rushing headlong into the next month, next magazine, next meal – blah blah blah. I’ve been meaning for months and months to find out more about Leibnitz’s ‘cult of slowness’ – so perhaps today might just be the day where I listen to my heart’s desire and DO IT in lieu of my usual ignoring and placating.)
Speaking of heart’s desires, I’ve been trying – rather unsuccessfully – to see what our country’s universities offer by way of art therapy courses/degrees. None seem to exist at all, unless one actually studies psychology. I’d have thought that by now art therapy would definitely have been a recognisable need / occupation for it to be offered as a degree at universities. It seems as if it is still only in the US and UK that it’s offered… So perhaps this is the solution for me? To return to the UK to get this degree I’ve hankered after for years but always swept under the carpet of unattainable dreams! Working day after day this last year with little children in creative play as well as in the art classes, I’ve become ACUTELY aware of how intensely I feel about becoming an art therapist (hmmm… my time is running out – better get into the shower and ready for work in a few minutes – so more on this art therapy thing as I find out more.)
The basic outline of my day at work for today is: open up Gymboree (set up PC, print out class attendance lists etc), teach two classes in a row, and then spend the rest of the day sorting out my art class cupboards and writing up the lessonplans for the week’s art classes. I’ll also try pop in at the bank (usually less of a pop-in than a long fruitless slog in a queue) to change my name back to Roberts on my account – and then to see if Planet Unfit (sp) has managed to transfer my membership from Claremont to Parklands so a friend can take it over from me : so I can instead wander along the beach, breathing in the salty evening air, my feet sinking into the cold rough sand – instead of self-consciously sweating in my trendy kit like a hamster on a treadmill in front of lots of other self-conscious hamsters, all of us breathing and re-breathing the same recycled staleness (yep – not the greatest fan of the gym!)
Then it’s hopefully a drink with a treasured friend before heading home at about 6.30 or 7pm to make supper: hand-made pasta which I’ll form into girasoli (big circular pasta pockets – ‘girasoli’ meaning sunflower in Italian) which I’ll fill with feta and peppadew – all that’s left in my fridge! And if I have the energy, I’ll try my hand at making chocolate mousse in the old-fashioned way – by slowly melting dark chocolate in a glass bowl over a steaming pot of boiling water, beating up egg-whites till it forms stiff, glossy peaks etcetera etcetera – my hips will tell you the rest later!
Adios and ciao-ciao ;)

2008-01-27T02:22:00.000-08:00

7 i 2007, Monday
A soft warm grey blanket of summer rain has made this the perfect weather to sit with a lazy cup of coffee and write about my holiday in the Eastern Cape. (Craig’s getting some plates ‘n things out for lunch and Velvet Revolver is playing full-tilt – filling my head with a certain creative electricity that only rock ‘n roll can give…)
Boxing Day. 26th December. Blistering Port Elizabethan summer sun wakes us from the sweetest sleep of two lovers reunited after more than a month apart – and with the car packed for our Addo adventure, we headed down to the beachside for a lazy (social) breakfast – ostensibly arranged so I could meet Craig’s younger brother Steven(graphic artist and animator), Steven’s girlfriend Hayley (philosophy and English university student), Dan and Donna – two of Craig’s friends. Not at all like the Spanish Inquisition I expected, I enjoyed how much of Craig they revealed and confirmed for me : that he is exactly the same with them as he is with me: funny, kind, polite, a good listener… Our breakfast took so long to arrive on our tables, that it was actually LUNCH we ended up having – spinach, feta and bacon pancakes! Yum!
Driving through PE, we crossed the Swartkops River - lined with gorgeous pastel-colour houses – the colours of ice-cream and holidays! Craig’s ma grew up in one of those houses; as a teenager having her own little boat to putter up and down the river in. (Oh, I could SO live in one of those little houses…) Once outside of the town, we drove through/past the Markham (sp) township where a smartly dressed Xhosa mama waved incense about her – something I’ve never seen in Cape Town before, but which Craig says is quite a common sight in the Eastern Cape - the Xhosa still very traditional in their culture and customs. All pale ochres and silvery greys, the landscape shimmered thirstily beneath a pristine turquoise African sky – cloudless and deep.
An hour of quiet, straight road saw us arrive in the Addo region, and we turned left onto the Kirkwood road, following the map drawn in precise blue ballpoint for us by Craig’s dad – though we were not so precise in following the directions and we made two wrong (exploratory!) turnings – eventually having to ask one of the local farmworkers where Avoca farm was! “Jy moet met die Kirkwood pad ry, meneer, nog verder…”) The farm was clearly marked and we drove past lush, leafy orange orchards into to the reception area where we were greeted by the farm manager, Riaan – a seemingly quiet Eastern Caper, but with an excellent sense of humour which popped out unexpectedly when I responded to something he said with “Well, we’re not going to be very social!” – to which he said to Craig, “You obviously haven’t seen her in a long time?!” (with cocked eyebrow, wicked smile and a twinkle in his eye!) Yip, I blushed. Driving behind Riaan to the rondawels, we did our best to not run the ageing German Shepherd over as it ran just behind Riaan’s bakkie and almost directly beneath our wheels!!

13 i 2008, Sunday
“Kill Bill” is the soundtrack to this mid-afternoon writing session, while I sip the coldest Hunter’s Dry bottle of cider (there was no Savanna at the bottle store the day Craig did groceries) Peeling from my fingers, the glue from the teapot I was decorating reminds me of my childhood fetish for painting my hands and arms with cold white wood-glue so that it dried into a translucent skin, which I’d pull off in slow delicious delight! Though the wind is howling in pre-frontal mayhem, Craig is outside braaing our kudu wors (a by-product of his brother’s last successful hunt) and foil-wrapped onions and potatoes. Pudding is pancakes drenched in sinfully copious amounts of Bar One sauce. (Yip – unlike everyone else I know, I didn’t make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight!) Oh yes – back to Craig’s boet : his name is Gary and he was also at primary school with us, my one twin sister actually having a crush on him the same time I was madly besotted with Craig!
Right – back to our Addo holiday. Riaan led us onto a grassy slope, spotted with thatch and mud huts, with a view down to the wide, dark Sundays River – its banks flanked with hopelessly thorny acacia in full yellow bloom, as well as rustic pink roses and gladioli in whites and reds. We unpacked Craig’s now muddy Golf and decided not to unpack but to hop straight into our cozzies and head down to the water with cold beverage in hand! Craig swam in the perfectly cooling, impossibly deep river, while I sunned myself on the wooden pontoon swatting away the odd lazy farm fly and wishing we could stay forever.
The communal braai area saw only the two of us and our chops ‘n wors that night – and we sipped our red wine from little yellow and turquoise flowered glasses – taking our last glass each down to the moonlit river, we kissed and gazed into a hard-to-believe indigo ocean of stars…
Quite unromantically, the heat eventually parted us so we lay sweating and itching and scratching all night long. Actually - no – minor but significant correction: Craig slept like a baby, while my body attracted what felt like all mozzies in the Eastern Cape, dispelling any possibility of sleep at all. Nevertheless, the magic of our new, romantic love prevented the expected result of a night spent frantically awake (i.e. a bad, bad mood) – and we left bright and cheerfully early for Addo to do some elephant-spotting!
Impressive and world-class, the entrance to Addo boasted a lengthy but efficiently quick queue of a variety of local and tourist vehicles – from Golfs to Mercedes Benzes to monstrous, open safari trucks loaded with hopeful German tourists ghostly pale in their thick layers of sunblock! Only R25 per adult, we were blown away by the excellence of everything we encountered – the shops, the loos, the staff etc. Upon entry, we were given a map/brochure which came in handy as we wound our slowly and stop-start way through the web of roads – some tarred, some gravel.
Stopping behind two stationary cars, we looked in the direction their passengers were craning their necks towards and spotted two darkish shapes in the trees about 10 meters away – and were mildly disappointed to only see two bored brown hadedas. Craig’s wry comment was : “Oh, it’s just hadedas – you get them in Walmer!” and which has become a standard joke now whenever we see or hear a hadeda. Our imaginations ran amok as we ‘saw’ baby elephants frolicking in a waterhole (ducks with their bums in the air hunting for food underwater!) and crocodiles (turtles surfacing lazily for air…) Quite embarrassing, actually. But after that we saw the most brilliantly vivid birds – luminous yellow weavers and iridescent red bishops that took your breath away with their extraordinary colouring! The buck we spotted were of all-sorts and in great number – from kudu to red hartebeest. Mostly, the buck were standing or lying down in the shade of acacia trees, keeping deadly still – either to keep cool or attract as little attention from the humans as possible. The one solitary red hartebeest we saw crossing a wide open expanse of grassy plain, suddenly stopped mid-stride – spread it’s back legs and lowered it bum, sticking it’s tail up at an uncomfortable angle – making it look very much as Craig said : “Hey, maybe it’s going to give birth --- or take a crap!”. It was such a peculiar and funny posture, that after two minutes of laughing so our stomachs hurt – nothing of a birth or bowel movement occurred, so that the hartebeest seemed to give up. Craig said, “Shame, maybe it’s got irritable bowel syndrome…”
Also spotted was a giant buffalo grazing alone in a grassy field, plenty of warthogs, a herd of Burchill’s zebra, a handful of monkeys and a mongoose. Around noon, we gave up all hope of seeing the famous Addo elephants - especially after we saw his uncle’s breathtaking photos on Christmas Day of a family of them frolicking in a waterhole – mommy elephants and the most gorgeous little babies! We decided to take one last drive up to a lookout point called Zuurkop before heading home (more than just a little disappointed.)
Just ahead of us on the winding road to the koppie, I spotted a huge, muddy red mound above the bush – and I realised with mounting excitement that it was indeed an elephant!! But … rounding the corner, my heart squeezed with enough anxious dread to dampen the excitement when I saw how an army of Vaalies had hemmed the two elephants in with their cars – hanging out of their windows and sunroofs with their video cameras, ignorantly taunting the poor beasts… The two bull elephants moved with growing anger towards us - obviously the leaders of the herd attempting to move across the road on their predetermined route. We both froze, the car idling, while we sat open-mouthed and paralysed – cameras useless in our hands. And in some strange detachment, we then somehow managed to begin taking photos instead of trying to get the hell out of there!!!!!! But as the two bulls got so close, we snapped into sudden, adrenalised reality, me shrieking like a banshee at Craig to reverse!! reverse!! REVERSE DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And as Craig crashed the car into reverse, his face as it twisted round to look out the back window, broke into such panic – all he could say was : “Can’t reverse --- ****ing Vaalies!!!!!” And wraggies-waar, along with the elephants, we were parked in by a barricade of tinted windowed BMWs and 4x4s so there was no chance of escaping in rapid reverse… Even bashing our way off the track into the bush wasn’t an option as it was lined by dense trees and bushes which not even the most powerful Landcruiser could cut through… It was then that God reminded me He existed!! My utterly wordless and wide-eyed prayer caused the rampaging, enraged elephants to stop dead in their tracks; their flapping ears and eye-contact with us ended – and mercifully, they stopped mid-charge and suddenly changed direction and headed down the side of the dirt track. In those moments when time seemed to stand still, I saw each long, dense eyelash framing a deep, dark brown eye … the ears that caught the hot afternoon air like sails … the deep, red mud encrusted wrinkles and folds of his skin, hard and leathery, but which sagged over and around the knees and hips like old brown corduroy pants… the heavy, round flatness of the feet … ponderous, powerful… (NEVER have I been so grateful to see the back end of an elephant…)
Elated and very much grateful to be alive, we drove back to Avoca in a state of post-traumatic amazement – chattering non-stop about the elephants, the Vaalies, the elephants, the Vaalies… It was only much later, once the shock and worn off and we had half a bottle of red wine in us, that we remembered all the other animals we’d encountered – the statuesque kudu, the lazy warthogs ‘vreeting’ the grass on their knees, and – last but not least, the confused and constipated red hartebeest!
Sad and wistful, we packed the car to head back to PE, deciding to stop in at the Lion & Crocodile Farm on our way back. Also R25 a head (and a rip-off to boot) we were appalled and dismayed by the cramped cages and whiff of neglect we saw the animals in. A baby lion, recently weaned off milk and starting on raw mince, whined and growled hungrily as it walked up and down – looking agitated and lonely. And the two Bengal tigers were no happier either, the female salivating through her hungry moans just to be given a sporting chance with the two wild boards caged across from her. The male wasn’t so much hungry for pork as for pussy (if you’ll excuse the pun!) but whose gentlemanly attempts were met with fierce growls and a fat ‘klap’ with a frighteningly huge claw the size of a side-plate! The crocodiles seemed quite happy in their stagnant green pseudo-swamps. And the monkeys made me sad as they scampered and squiggled in their wire ‘hokkie’ – though I didn’t feel quite so sympathetic when, as I pointed out his cute little willy and balls to Craig, he started peeing directly onto me with devilish glee!
The young guide was lacking in the very basic information visitors expect to hear, and the general state of disrepair seen in the fake brown fibreglass ‘rocks’ and empty ‘pools’ where the water sat in dejected, forgotten puddles made me want to ask for my money back – and to give the head honcho the thumbs-down : that it obvious their passion was in making as much money as possible and not with the animals themselves – the very antithesis of Addo. (I’m tempted to post this review on a couple of tourist sites…)
The drive back to Addo was peaceful and quick – only an easy hour. Hungry, we popped in at a roadside café, buying huge, sweet rolls – all hot and doughy, straight from the oven – which we broke open and filled with cold braaied chicken, and sipping cold Liquifruit from the carton. Our main topic of conversation? The soonest we could head back to Addo for our next holiday – and how viable it would be to live there / how much property would cost etc.
Our last few days in PE were filled with braais, swimming in the sea and suntanning. Also a fair amount of napping and reading took place – the perfect ingredients for a relaxing holiday! On the last day, Craig packed the car with an obviously sad heart to be leaving his family home and beloved Eastern Cape… On New Year’s day, we left in the cool grey light of early morning for Cape Town, a fine drizzle following us all the way to Knysna where we stopped in at his uncle’s holiday house in Belvedere for coffee and a chat which had Craig’s uncle tell Craig’s mom (who hasn’t yet met me) that I am ‘lovely and friendly, and that I talk more than his wife which he didn’t think was possible!” During my brief time in PE I met a LOT of Craig’s family – brothers, uncles, aunts, grannies, friends, dogs etc – an amazing way to get to know someone as they REALLY are: the stories told about being naughty as a little boy, drunk as a teenager etc. And seeing the obvious affection and respect given to Craig by every one of them made me beam and blush! And so, our plans are to head back up there for a week’s holiday in March where I’ll no doubt spend more time with everyone – and FINALLY meet Mrs Sally and Mr Malcolm Carter!

24 i 2008, Thursday
At work – lunchtime, hot here inside the darkened play area – the electricity is out AGAIN and it makes me wonder where the country of our future lies? Oops! Freudian slip – I meant : where does the future of our country lie?
January has been an incredibly demanding month work-wise AND socially, but February promises to be more relaxed and infinitely more productive, creatively, for me as I will only be working 3 days a week at Gymboree : Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The rest of the time I’ll be giving my complete attention to my writing and my art – aiming to get a few bits and pieces published as well as having an exhibition nearer the end of the year. Exciting!!
Craig has settled in nicely into ‘our’ little flat – continuing to just be the soulmate I’ve been wishing/hoping/praying/searching for… The night before last (utterly broke) we shared our last Savanna on the beach after work – walking hand in hand along the sand and shells while the sun set into a burning sea of oranges and crimson skies… And then last night (not so broke anymore) I came home to a house set perfectly to order with the dishes drying, and the laundry neatly done – and not just that – but the table set with blood-red linen napkins, two of my wooden red hearts set in between, two wine glasses and candles waiting to be lit after sunset – and the most romantic Brazilian jazz tickling the warm skin of the evening air like a soft, plumy feather. (In the oven was a pizza Craig drove all the way to St Elmos to get – he insisted it be a wood-fired pizza – and which he timed to pick up soit coincided with my 7pm arrival home!) Needless to say, the evening was delicious decadent delightful dazzling – and I STILL feel like a princess, basking in the thoughtfulness and care Craig took…
At the end of the month we’ll be getting Internet at the flat – so I’ll be able to stay more in touch and write much much more (my writing has slowly turned into an obsession. A hunger. A constant craving… So that if I don’t find time to write, I become crabby and tetchy – like a two-year old who needs a nap and some food!)

The Silly Season

2008-01-02T05:19:00.000-08:00

18 xii 2007, Tuesday

Right now the canvas I’m working on is out on my little balcony drying in the late hot wind of 6pm so I can take various grades of sandpaper to it to create JUST the right surface to draw on! The graphite/mixed media portrait of twin boys that are in my art class and their newborn cousin needs to be finished for Christmas – so I’ll probably finish it tomorrow night now that all the groundwork has been completed (two glasses of cabernet sauvignon notwithstanding!)
Work has been desperately – but THANKFULLY – quiet. My energy levels have dipped to an all time low – and I know YOU know I’m not the only one ; ) . December has been proven as the most ‘high risk’ in terms of depressions, overdoses and suicides… (Maybe I should cork that bottle of wine?!) But seriously, though I have had a tough working month, the condition of my heart is JUBILANT . OVER THE MOON . INSPIRED . GRATEFUL . ROOTED . PEACEFUL . COMPLETE . HOPEFUL …
(is my chicken lasagne ready? Let me check the oven… Be back in a sec!)
Before the 24th, I need to finish my art commission, braai at a friend’s in Melkbos, organise presents, do drinks, pack for my holiday…

25 xii 2007, Tuesday
Gate 11. Domestic departures. Kulula flight to Port Elizabeth 8h50. All I can give you are these sterile, basic facts because I am just SO overwhelmed by the most intense, excited lovesickness my heart has ever had to endure! My brain seems to have temporarily shut down so that I’m typing much more slowly than usual and erasing and editing myself over and over, again and again. I think we’re boarding now ------

30 xii 2007, Sunday
Sitting in Craig’s lounge, in my red cotton summer dress (which is competing with the very red sunburn I acquired today at Pollock Beach here in PE – distressingly close to Shark Rock and with warm waves made murky with sand : perfect conditions for sharks!) half-watching a program about the food of Siena while Craig pours us a glass of our favourite red wine : Diemersfontein Pinotage (the wine that comes extremely close to being like a delicious evening of the most romantic and passionate sex in its voluptuous embodiment of chocolate and vanilla ). Doing a quick spot of shopping at Woolies for our next evenings' braais, Craig spotted a Limited Edition of this wine – so we took three bottles: one for tonight, one for tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve celebrations and one for when we’re back in Cape Town! (I think Craig’s bringing a plate of cheeses and Salticrax along with out wine… Hmmm….)
The last few days have seen so much adventure and wonder that there’s been no time to write about it all… Now, where shall I begin?
Christmas Eve : The very day I’d waited days and days for when I could say to Craig: “See you tomorrow!” The evening before was spent drinking a bottle of red and finishing off a double portrait commission – graphite on a wide block canvas – and I desperately hoped the wine would have worked it’s sleepy magic on my over-excited heart… But I woke just after sunrise, groggy and a little peeved that I now had more hours than I’d anticipated to endure! I washed the pile of dishes that’d accumulated over a series of exhausted days, the washing machine whining at full-tilt trying to get sufficient clean clothes organised for my week’s holiday and then trying to pack amidst a pile of Christmas presents I’d bought in a manic rush first thing that morning JUST as the shops opened – i.e. a calculated risk I took to avoid the consumerist obsession with the festive idea of ‘giving’ (and ‘getting’) At 4pm I clambered into the shower, ready to leave for my parents’ house so we could travel through to my sister and brother-in-law in Bantry Bay for a very unconventional Christmas Eve dinner.
(Because of my father’s half-Sicilian and half-Norwegian heritage, we have always celebrated Christmas EVE as opposed to the usual Christmas Day (right now as I type : sitting outside in the greying early evening at the braai while the absolutely yummy kudu steaks Craig’s brother procured by way of hunting defrost on the hot braai grid opposite – a glass of Pinotage next to me on an antique little ‘bankie’ next to me – Linkin Park’s ‘Reanimation’ playing from the kitchen, the roughly chopped potatoes for my Lebanese potato salad boiling on the stove which I should really go check… Hang on a sec……………….Ok, the potatoes were done – drained them then drizzled olive oil and a munificent sprinkling of sea salt over them, followed by as generous a swathe of freshly crushed garlic as I could afford.) Right – supper eaten : kudu steak braaied to sheer perfection by Mr Carter to a rare/medium-rare scrumptious juiciness! Also – an onion each, set into the coals in tinfoil jackets, roasted into black sweet perfection, rounded off the second last supper of 2007 rather nicely ; ) (Geez – how did Shakespeare & Co cope without emoticons?!)
Right – back to Christmas Eve at Julie and James’s place in Bantry Bay. Their lovely little apartment is in a small block that’s been around at least 100 years – my late Norwegian great-aunt Marion apparently once staying in the flat directly opposite! And though the building itself is old, it has been immaculately maintained – and Julie and James - both style gurus (Julie a jewellery designer and James an architect) have decorated the flat to chicly unique perfection. To toast Christmas Eve as well as my parents’ wedding anniversary of 32 years, we sipped chilled Pon Gracz from martini glasses – followed by copious amounts of red wine and a braaied feast of prawns and mussels, accompanied by a fruity, colourful salad and the softest loaf of white, milky bread which we dipped into the ginger, lemongrass and coconut milk sauce from the mussels. Pudding was in two parts – one a childhood favourite of lemon juice combined with condensed milk which sets into a kind of richly piquant silky mousse – and the other was a Christmas pudding made from the recipe book my sister’s English mother-in-law sent her (and to which she added at least quadruple the amount of brandy!) The conversation was like the food : satisfying, rich, varied and at times, quite unconventional – and my brother-in-law had me laughing so that my stomach hurt and tears sparkled in my eyes – my mom grabbing this moment as deeply poignant, saying that she hasn’t seen me laugh like that in a long, long time… (It made me remember when a friend said about 6 months ago that though I seemed more mature and wiser, I laughed less. And with this observation of my mom’s, I wondered if perhaps the return of joy was because all the holes in my heart have been patched up and healed? And the only thing I can attribute all this to is not so much the effect of time as a healer, but to the presence of the kindest, most painstakingly patient heart that has loved me consistently and unconditionally these last 5 or so months… It is not time that heals but love and joy and patience and compassion and understanding and peace.)
Driving back to Welgemoed at the well-behaved hour before midnight, I climbed straight into bed amazed that the butterflies in my stomach hadn’t devoured me alive yet! Craig had been experiencing the same sensations – and the closer it got to me climbing on that flight to PE, the more intense these feelings became – so much so that we both ended up with aching and overactive stomachs!! And when, at 3am, I was woken by the most intense, child-like excitement I’ve felt in many many many years, I knew I would not be able to go back to sleep again…

The flight to PE was umm… interesting (!) Boarding on time and the fact that we didn’t have to do an emergency landing were about the only things that DIDN’T go wrong on the flight. Kulula (wry smile). The plane was apparently a ‘new addition’ to the Kulula fleet but looked like it had been transported in a rather sad and defunct time-warp from the 1960s – it didn’t yet have the bright green Kulula branding, which I found (inexplicably) disconcerting. Perhaps it is the same feeling as when you are forced to buy a no-name brand product when your usual high quality product is out of stock?! The interior of the plane looked a little old and grimey but was actually quite clean. Thabiso, a friendly flight attendant, asked the four passengers sitting behind me if, in the event of an emergency landing, they would be prepared to assist in lifting the 20kg emergency exit door. The one lady refused silently but defiantly, which was rather odd. And so I offered to swap seats with her – and was rewarded with sitting next to a much more amiable and infinitely more petite girl than the one before! The girl to my left was huge and spilled with alarming machismo over the armrest into my space – her greasy mullet and gruff monosyllabic voice making me feel quite sure she was not the most pink crayon in the box!! And next to her was a diminutive guy with the voice of a young boy who couldn’t stay off the phone to his ‘Mummy’ (said with a girlish Afrikaans accent – and with the hand not holding his phone flapping oh so expressively like a fish out of water!) And so, my new fellow-passenger was ample reward for having swapped seats! We chatted about love and our various romantic mishaps and misdemeanours, as well as our jobs, hopes and dreams (quite a lot of ground to cover in a one hour flight between Cape Town and PE!) .............. to be continued

Oliver...Annie....?

2007-12-15T01:15:00.000-08:00

14 December 2007, Friday
Venue: Looking out over the impossibly blue summer sky above the scorched, pale grass of the field outside my window. (Just woke from a four hour nap I’ve been fantasising about for two weeks now.)
Soundtrack: “Welcome to the Jungle” from ‘Appetite for Destruction’ by Guns ‘n Roses (one of the many CDs Craig left here till he returns in January.) My favourite? Linkin Park. Also really getting into Metallica!
Beverage: a glass of Pinotage from the bottle I opened last night and left overnight in the fridge – ironically, which tastes a zillion times better chilled – most probably because it ranges more towards ‘plonk’ than ‘nectar’ on the wine scale!

EBENEZER VILLAGE

Every single day there is an incredible wealth of things to write about – ordinary, everyday things but somehow when written about, my heart finds the sacred in… But today I have managed to find time to write. And energy. (But why would one need energy to write? Surely you’re sitting still – a completely sedentary activity? But no, writing requires an immense energy to remember details and minutiae about scent, emotion, colour, sound… It feels almost physical, this remembering. And then there’s the transmuting into words – a process akin to giving birth?!) Which reminds me – the other night a friend showed me her daughter’s 4D scans while she was still in utero – and then the dvd of the birth – by Caesarean section! (Hmmm…. This could be another long story – but because I need to start clearing some space in my cupboards etc for Craig’s moving-in, I better keep this short and sweet: it really amazes me how since I was a tiny little girl I’ve wanted to be a mommy and a wife! More than being an artist or a writer, more than a dynamically successful career or fame and adoration, my heart has always beat to the tune of ‘mommy, mommy, mommy’. So many of my male AND female friends have been utterly perplexed and appalled at such a ‘domesticated’ and, I suppose, deeply simple desire. At hearing me confess this as my life’s sole desire, men have run for their dear lives rather in the direction of less broody bimbos! Two days ago at work, 5 year old Storm wrapped her arms around me and rubbed my belly and blaringly announced to a room of twenty or so mothers : “Lisa, are you pregnant?” Eish!! My first reaction was that my need to go on something akin to a diet was confirmed! One mom said that means I’m already pregnant or going to have a baby very soon - an old wive’s tale?! It is true though, this sixth sense, this intuition that young children possess – I have seen how they can sense a pregnancy either before you’ve told them, or even before YOU’VE discovered it yourself! Hmmm….)
But let me tell you about today. Driving to work, I surveyed – with mild disgust - my car floor covered in sea sand, an empty can of Coke Lite rolling backwards and forwards and wondered what the little orphans I needed to pick up later in Atlantis would think of this adult mess! All through my 9am class, my mind tossed and kneaded this idea of ‘orphan’ and ‘orphanage’ around, trying to understand exactly what it was I would be encountering later in the morning. Flooded by flashes from Oliver Twist and dirty, dark, cold Dickensian waifs, I just had no idea what to expect!
Straight after class, three of us – the Gymboree bus and two cars, filled up at the petrol station before heading out on the blisteringly hot R27 to Atlantis. Seeing the big packet of popcorn on the car seat next to me, I had visions of frantic scrambling and whining and crying little children not sharing it. (My colleague bought it for me the day before, but there it still lay on the passenger sear unopened.) Perhaps against my better judgement, I decided it WOULD be worth just letting them eat it on the way back. Driving past Melkbos, the arid and sandy backdrop dried up into almost nothing and then we turned right off the R27 to Atlantis. Far from a watery, undersea kingdom, Atlantis is a dessicated, almost forgotten West Coast town but still, I was struck by the peaceful, orderly cleanness of it. Indicators ticking, we stopped our cars in a row outside the electric-fenced grey brick property of Ebenezer Village while someone opened the gate for us. A neat but exuberant man in dark shirt and pants welcomed us in, indicating where we could park. His firm handshake matched his gentle strength and beaming smile as he introduced himself as Ronald. (I was later to find out he is also called ‘Daddy’ and ‘Pastor’!) Letting us in through the front door , we entered a cheery, organised hall where little children smiled shyly at us or watched quietly from the outskirts. Ronald walked us matter-of-factly through the orphanage. And though that is exactly what it ‘is’ in legal / factual terminology, it is one big ‘home’ – all one level – his own livingroom’s glass sliding doors opening out onto the courtyard like any daddy would open his lounge doors onto his back patio and garden for his children to wander in and out of. There was no sense of him being a ‘warden’ or ‘in charge’ – but truly he is a father above all! The little ones all call him ‘Daddy’ – except for the day-mothers and volunteers who, with affectionate regard call him ‘Pastor’! He walked us through the various age-groups’ living areas – and I was almost overwhelmed by the thoughtful homeliness of each and every room – whether it was the pretty bedrooms or cheerful and clean bathrooms. Painted in happy pastels, the walls are adorned with Whinny the Pooh or dolphins – the bedding clean and colourful and no sad scent of neglect. Granted, I could NEVER grasp what it must be like to live this life or experience its thoughts or feelings, but the sheer atmosphere of love and hope was almost too much to bear. My previous volunteer experiences a few years ago at a boys’ homeless shelter did not prepare me for this home so overflowing with care and REAL love! The youngest little one is a month old – perfectly formed and healthy and smelling like only babies can : the sweet, warm smell of just-baked biscuits. Holding each of these little people in my arms was like cradling a precious miracle – NOT a tragedy. Here in my arms, soft and clean and warm and looking into my eyes was a little person with exquisite potential! And it is nothing more than Pastor Ronald and his wife’s active and practical love that has enabled this life to be. I felt no self-centred pity or guilt, but only an excitement to add to this love in whichever way I can!!!!
Shortly after walking into the courtyard garden manned by a proud black Labrador, my friend Candy picked up a little girl in pink who’d wordlessly requested to be taken up into her arms. Awhile later, Pastor Ronald said something to this little girl, calling her ‘Destiny’. Almost visibly, Candy recoiled in a kind of shock, shooting rapid questions about where she was from – ‘Is she from the beach?’ and a deep, visceral realisation engulfed Candy as she realised that THIS was the same little girl she’d first encountered with the mother outside Primi Piatti in Blouberg more than a year ago and had compassionately and regularly aided with food and clothes over the span of a year! An entire winter of wondering what had ever happened to them after they’d disappeared from the area, Candy – reeling, could hardly grasp little Destiny’s warm and smiling presence in her arms. Destiny had recognised her! Destiny… (Candy is taking her into her own home over the holidays)
Only able to safely fit four little ones into my green Ford Fiesta, they somehow chose me – and twenty minutes later, I was singing Old Macdonald down the R27 with four happy, healthy and awesomely considerate little children – spilling more popcorn than they ate – but sharing like I never shared with my own sisters! They waved at the cars and cyclists we passed along the way, and touched my arm with such precious affection as if they’d known me forever… We laughed and chatted and screeched with delight all the way until finally we parked outside Gymboree where suddenly their mood turned hushed and a little bit reticent : they had no idea what to expect. Clambering out the car, soft, warm little hands reaching for mine, we walked into the front door where the sedate, air-conditioned quiet was blasted away by ‘WOW’ excitement I’ve seen very seldom in my 29 years! Trying to organise name tags for more than 30 cloud-nine children was a happy chore and soon they flooded the play area with such powerful exuberance unmatched by any other group of children I’d seen before! Bettina, the trainer in charge, checked her hunch with me that a less structured play environment was what was needed – and so, after almost an hour of riotously joyplay, it was a very special moment to have witnessed all thirty six children and a handful of volunteer teachers sing great big lungfuls of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, captured inside our giant parachute!
Pastor Ronald observed all of this from the outskirts with a quiet sort of pride. And he’s agreed to me spending one day a week at the home playing and laughing and doing art with the little ones as of next year! I’m SO excited and so, so inspired! Truly, what a haven of caring love and excellent support – Ebenezer Village!

"Lisa's Surprise"

2007-12-06T22:07:00.000-08:00

LISA’S SURPRISE
Halfway through unpacking his bags the night I picked him up from the airport, Craig handed me a long white envelope, with ‘Lisa’s Surprise’ written in neat blue ball-point across the front. A couple of sparing clues given me over the previous month did not prepare me for what I unfolded from this innocuous envelope.
Five pages evidently printed straight from a website, my mind soaked up text and images in happy disbelief : a weekend away in a dreamy tree-house overlooking a river and nestled in a mountainous valley… Besides the fact that surprises are one of my favourite things EVER, it was this element of surprise, combined with the thoughtful planning, sheer expense and uniqueness of idea that made my heart contract with an excruciating combination of elation and regret : this was the most romantic gesture I’d ever been gifted! (my heart pumped : ‘wow….wow….wow….wow…wow..’)
With my little green Ford Fiesta packed with towels, food, beers and books, we headed out towards Malmesbury along the way to Citrusdal – the sun hot and dazzling through the windows – my car heater somehow managing to have gotten stuck on the red a week before (no comment.) After stopping at a quaint, road-side café near Citrusdal where we were the obvious attraction/distraction for the day – an icy Coke each and we hightailed it out of what reminded me too much like a scene out of ‘Deliverance!’
A little while later we turned right at the sign to Citrusdal – 500m later and we took another right onto a desperately pot-holed farm road at the sign to Kardouw Tree Houses. After 16km of a road that required a fair amount of nifty manoeuvring, we hit the 8.5km gravel road which made me feel proud of both Craig and my little Ford Fiesta which tackled the challenge with finesse and great gusto (though in retrospect, I’d recommend a bigger car or even a 4x4 on this particular stretch of the adventure!) The plus side to this dusty obstacle course of ruts and rocks is that it keeps your average yobbo away! (hmmm… I sound distinctly like my father!) Driving through orchards of orange trees in full fruit, we arrived a little earlier than our 2 o’clock check-in time. Beneath a natural canopy of very shady oak trees, we tried not to park a trio of other cars in – all the while looking for some sort of reception area but finding none. A little confused, we decided to follow a wonderfully inviting wooden bridge leading into the whispering, cool darkness of the trees beyond. In the distance, we heard the contented murmur of visitors, punctuated by the odd toddler’s shriek of delight. The solid but deliciously exciting wooden bridge branched off here and there directing the way to quaint wooden huts, their entrances privately obscured and giving the illusion of being the only hut nestled there amongst the tree tops. Eventually, the bridge began to taper downwards and in the distance we saw a sunlit patch of grass with the river sparkling lazily alongside it, and the source of the voices we’d heard earlier. They explained that the check-in procedure was to choose the hut that most tickled your fancy and move yourself in! Seeing as there was still an hour or so left till our check-in time, we changed into our cozzies and unfurled our towels out onto the grass, consciously neglecting to put sunblock on our lilywhite post-winter flesh, and hauling out our individual novels : ‘The Green Mile’ for Craig and ‘The Wedding Officer’ for me. Within seconds I was swatting and swiping in a mild sort of panic at the million little spiders that somehow seemed magnetically attracted to me (arachnophobia notwithstanding!) Needless to say, this caused Craig to enter a state of shocked but laughing amusement – he’d not been officially informed of this arachnoid distress of mine!
Once the super-efficient army of cleaning staff had left the area, Craig left me in all my lazy suntanning glory to find us a hut! Returning a little while later, he told me he’d chosen us the best tree-house : the one with the view directly over the river – the orange orchards and mountains beyond. Perfect! (Already, I was beginning to feel like a princess!) He unpacked the car, taking our bags and packets of food along the bridge to our little hut while I lay in the sun, wondering how it was possible such a kind and romantically thoughtful man could possibly exist?! Interrupting my cynical ruminations, Craig returned – and it was time to get up to see the tree house we’d driven three hours to spend the night in.
Turning left off the main walkway, we walked along the side of the hut (most of the fronts of the huts are concealed from the main walkway!) and turned the corner of the hut to discover the most perfect little balcony overlooking the Olifants River, a shimmering canopy of leaves causing the light to fall in a kind of lace across the dark silver wood of the balcony, where there was a little black wrought-iron table and two chairs just waiting for us to sit down with a cup of tea. The whole front of the hut is covered in floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors – a fresh, modern touch to the simplicity of the bamboo and thatch ceiling and wooden floors. The double bed, covered in plump pillows and a down duvet – the fresh white cotton linen almost begging for us to climb in – dominated the interior. To the left of the entrance along the wall was a cabinet neatly filled with the basics in crockery and cutlery, as well as a mini-stove/oven and a kettle. Craig’d bought us colossal croissants for lunch and he opened an icy Savanna for me, and a Windhoek for himself. And after this perfect lunch, we decided it was time to crumple those immaculately smooth white sheets! With the glass doors left open to the dappled afternoon light and cool breeze, we kissed and kafoefled like teenagers until all of a sudden we were visited unexpectedly by the first of a couple of uninvited guests! One of the previous guests arrived at the open door to tell us he’d brought back the little gas stove ---- I don’t know who was more embarrassed : us or him!! (It was actually SUCH a comical situation but do you know what? I think that I’m still too embarrassed to write about it!) We reckon he either told no-one or everyone!!! After THAT we were too wide awake too sleep (after much hysterical laughing!) and it was time to see if the red and white canoe moored in the reeds along the shore was sea-worthy! Like the true gentleman that he is, Craig stood chivalrously in the cold, brown water, holding the kayak so I could climb in without mishap. Once I was safe and sitting, Craig climbed in but almost causing us to topple shrieking headlong into the shallow waters only a half-metre from shore! With a couple of inches of river-water swirling around our bare feet, Craig paddled us quietly giggling and relievedly dry downstream. I felt like a Victorian lady being wooed by her suitor – all I was missing was a parasol and a corseted dress! The view of the mountains from the river past the thick bulrushes and flittering birds and weavers’ nests was humbling and magnificent. And the long trailing waterblommetjies, waterswept under the dark water, with their white, waxy flowers and leaves of greens, golds and reds… surreal. Reminding me of Ophelia. Hearing the turbulence of rapids ahead, the romantic tranquillity of the moment was turned upside down as I bossily told Craig to turn us around – I was NOT in the mood to a) capsize in a cold, black-watered rapid and b) have to walk the kayak back upstream along the shore! Ya. Not very romantic behaviour, Lisa! And so, my darling Craig dutifully turned us around and paddled us up into the late afternoon breeze while I sat lazily on the prow – Cleopatra or the Queen of Sheba?! – pointing out weavers nests and baby waterfowl!
As the afternoon grew more gold and the shadows leaned more and more away from the setting sun, we went to sit out on the balcony with another chilled drink, wishing we’d had the foresight to have bought a bottle of wine (i.e. not being able to buy wine on a Sunday doesn’t apply in the Eastern Cape!) A little walk down to the grassy banks and other decks revealed an even more incredible view of the mountains – the light had set the mountains beyond on fire – the rocks literally blood red, but overshadowed with deep lilac skies the colour of old bruises. We talked about how this place would make an amazing wedding, birthday or New Year’s venue! The guests could stay in the ample accommodation – there even being allowance and space for tents to be pitched down below on the grass. And the tables and chairs on the wooden decks just perfect for a feast! There are even old-fashioned oil lanterns on the tables one could light as it got dark. And with the night drawing in, the rhythmic rumble of bullfrogs combined with all sorts of trilling birdsong over the lazy surge of the river.
Tastefully decorated in a modern colonial style, the bathrooms were clean and somehow rustically luxurious. We showered under plenty of steaming hot water, feeling like adventurers as we stepped out in our clean bare feet onto the wood of the bridge. (I didn’t feel quite the same, however, when we went to brush our teeth later that night and there on the walls were all the species of spider known to the Cederberg region!!! Thankfully when I needed a wee at 4am, Craig escorted me to the loo and checked the walls and behind the loo for potential man-eating spiders!)
After a humble but yummy supper of soft white bread rolls and cold, roast chicken from Woolies, we lay in bed and chatted about the quiet but powerful beauty of the area, my apparently amusing arachnophobia and what we would do the next day. With the trees sighing like the most tender lullaby, we drifted off to sleep with the doors open to the wild darkness wrapped languidly and a little sunburnt in each others’ arms.
*scuttle, scuttle … sniff ….* I sat abruptly up in bed . 4am. There was someone or something in the hut!! I sat and listened to the furtive scurrying and hungry sniffing. Next to me, Craig remained semi-comatose. I decided it was time to shake him awake – he is the MAN after all!! He looked up to see me sitting rigid and hyper-alert in the bed but as blind as a bat without my glasses. (He found this quite funny apparently!) After telling him about the ‘thing’ in our hut, he got up to close the door. A few minutes of hysterical laughter later and Craig needed a pee – and I suggested just peeing off the balcony into the anonymous night rather than trudging all the way in the spidery dark to the loos. Standing at the closed glass door and gazing like a sleepwalker with a rather full bladder, out of his throat slowly came a delayed and gutteral ‘F – U – U – U – C – K !!’ as a rather large and stripey mongoose/monkey that at the sight of a half-naked Craig jumped hara-kiri off the balcony into the tree-tops in terrified escape! Needless to say we kept the doors tightly shut for the rest of the night.
But then at around what felt like 9am, I heard some more sniffing and surreptitious shuffling. Repeating the same bolt-upright sitting position as a couple of hours earlier, I met, eye-to-eye, with a strange little pink-eyed jumbo albino jack-russel thing which almost seemed to be smiling and talking to me! “Please may I jump on your bed? I’d love to even come home with you if you’d want me!” (Hmmm… Craig had opened the door after sunrise – sure that the Lesser Striped Winkie Eating Monkey Mongoose had disappeared with the rising of the sun!) Honestly? I’d rather have a cute but odd-looking white dog in the daylight next to my bed than a smallish werewolfey thing in the middle of the night!! For breakfast we ate yoghurt and fruit on the balcony, wishing with all of our holiday-deprived hearts that we didn’t have to go home that same day… Besides the various escapist options we discussed about me bunking work for the next week, we decided we would definitely come back : probably in March 2008, and then maybe again in the November!

Verbosity in extremis...

2007-11-28T04:30:00.000-08:00

18 x 2007, Thursday evening
It’s hot this evening and the South Easter continues to rage outside – now in it’s
3rd wild day of non-stop howling! I sit here at my writing desk in a pale sage-green satin slip – barefoot and minus my glasses (had to increase the size of the font by 2 points so I could read what I’m writing!)
I stayed late at work this evening to catch up on emails etc – and received a surprise call from the God-sent friend who helped me move from a state of helplessness to one of action – she’s the one who actually booked my flight back to South Africa last year in June. But that’s another long story I feel unsure of telling right now. Maybe in another few months. M and I chatted about various things, including my ex-husband who lives about a 5 minute walk from her front door. It was the house he ostensibly bought ‘for’ me : a double-sided attempt to satisfy my inherent and ever-increasing desire to ‘nest’ – as well as to ‘keep’ me in the UK. As far as property in the UK goes (i.e. cramped brick buildings where you can hear your neighbour peeing or snoring through the thin walls) it was a cute little three-bedroom house in Portsmouth in an ok-sort-of development. Shit. I can’t actually write about this – it’s too raw still. Maybe another night.
But the long and the short of it is that my friend said she’d looked him up on Facebook. And, with mixed feelings I typed in his name in the ‘search’ box. He didn’t have a photo of himself -- and his profile is one of those protected ones (typical and true to form – he remains closed and deeply suspicious and self-protective) but instead had the logo for the SA rugby team. Now THAT was a surprise! He hardly ever watched rugby – was more of a Grand Prix fan --- and that’s besides the sailing… It creates quite a sense of dislocation when you think you knew someone exhaustively inside and out (especially after living with that someone for 11 years!) and discover new or unusual behaviours. I asked M if she’d seen him since I left last June. Says she walks past the house every single day taking her daughter to school and ALWAYS the curtains are closed. (I remember how we used to fight about that. I always wanted them open to let in the fresh air and the light. He always wanted both the windows and curtains closed to keep out prying eyes and, to keep it dark so he could use his laptop minus the glare of daylight. Nothing’s changed there.)
There are so many things I wonder – like seeing S, his Spanish lover (?) on his Facebook. Are they officially together? Was it all my imagination?? As work colleagues they often went away on business, and also always worked late into the night. Skype kept them connected during the day – they were literally CONSTANTLY connected. B wore his headphones all day long – and I’d hear him chuckle – and my stomach would twist with uncertainty. S also used to visit us – sleeping over at our place. He’d show me how to make authentic Spanish tortilla – and we’d sit at the table chatting, laughing. Then I’d go to bed. Alone. He was one of those blatantly effeminate men – with magnificently manicured hands, metrosexual style and body language to put Nataniel or Evita Bezuidenhout to shame! And my husband would actually complain about this apparent ‘gay-ness’… A smokescreen? And when B flew out last December to divorce me, he brought dear S along with him on holiday. A couple of people remarked on how much more pronounced B’s once effeminate gestures were when they saw him at the yacht club. And that’s besides the apparently obvious connection the two of them exhibited towards each other. But, I didn’t see any of it with my own eyes, so all of this remains mere conjecture – but like a puzzle being put together piece by piece, the picture is becoming more and more clear as the months pass.
Enough of that! I feel suddenly strange and uncomfortable – like I’ve been hurled through time to a nightmare I hoped was long forgotten but now I see will never go away. Perhaps only fade.

21 x 2007, Sunday afternoon
It’s now quite a bit after 3pm and I’ve just arrived home from work! My colleague, predictably unreliable, was sick with stomach cramps (probably anxiety-induced as she’s terribly neurotic at the best of times!) so I had to fill in for her… My Sundays are precious and I can’t remember the last time I worked on one, but I thought I’d make an exception today. (Not entirely a wise or informed decision considering last night was my boss’s pole-dancing farewell party AND the rugby World Cup final…)
Almost 8pm. It’s hot here in my little piece of heaven I call home. But while I have the lights on I keep the windows and doors to outside because the area I live in has a terrible midge and mosquito problem – especially in the warmer months. If I had to open the window now, the roof and light fixtures would be obscured by clouds of mozzies and pesky midges which then end up in my food, the food simmering on the stove – and then on my skin so they can bite me and suck my blood all night so that I sleep badly and wake up very, very grumpy. And in the morning, they’ve all died and coat the worksurfaces and tabletops in grey weightless bodies.
About a month ago, I committed myself to look after a friend’s two little children so her and husband could attempt their first romantic evening in 3 or more years. Stupidly, I just said yes and didn’t consider the date – but realised early last week that it was the night of the rugby World Cup final!! Not that I’m a rugby fan – but I’m a fan of my country – and how could I miss watching 30+ men running around in tight tops and short shorts?! Thankfully she phoned to cancel yesterday morning. And this meant, of course, that now I could also go to my boss’s farewell party. She’s headed to Saudi for a couple of months – and so she organised a pole-dancing party… I’m no prude – but the thought of learning a stripper’s basic moves and performing my own little dance in front of my boss, colleagues and a sprinkling of our clients just didn’t have me jumping up and down with enthusiasm.
The thought of this premeditated dancing made me suddenly feel like a wallflower who wished she had an excuse to cancel! As I got ready for the evening, my biggest problem was choosing what to wear. I don’t possess a single item of questionable virtue or made from black fishnet or red satin – I don’t even own pair of raunchy stilettos! Issues I had to take into consideration :
1. I wasn’t in the mood for my amply plump thighs and tummy to be on wobbly exhibit for a group of drunk moms / colleagues.
2. Socialising with my clients in such a starkly different context left me feeling dry-mouthed and quite anxious indeed : I teach them, their husbands and babies --- I am the ‘sweet, knowledgeable, nurturing and motherly teacher’ who they ask for help regarding why their child isn’t crawling yet or do I think their child has the potential to be a bully… So me dressing up as a prancing, dancing whore just didn’t gel with me.

And so, I chose low-slung, wide-legged black jeans, a lowish-cut black top and the highest heels I possess. Certainly I was the most conservatively dressed woman there – besides my boss and her best friend. One of the moms (of twin girls) arrived in knee-high leopard print, high heel, pointy-toed boots, tight black pants, pink corset and a long black wig – and enough eyeliner and mascara to render her completely unrecognisable! The other mom is the local ‘sister’ of her own pre/antenatal clinic who everyone speaks about in tones of hushed awe. Her fishnets and shiny black peep-toe stilettos competed for attention with so much glitter on her eyes, lips and cheeks that she put Priscilla Queen of the Desert to shame! Both in their VERY late 30s, these two provided all the fireworks and fun necessary to make the evening a spectacular (though not very sexy!) success!
Having been to Teazers and Mavericks a couple of times, once on a solo mission of discovery and adventure, and then once with an older male friend, I found the idea of learning what seems to be a universal repertoire of choreographed ‘sexiness’ both boring and just a little distasteful. The first time I went to Teazers I was newly married (only JUST!) , twenty one years old and doing my Masters degree in sculpture (my work having a definite feminist dogma driving it.) I popped in on my way home one day because I was incurably inquisitive about this idea of men going in groups to strip-clubs – both as an almost rabid feminist and a young little wife. My husband had apparently been ‘dragged’ into the Moulin Rouge in town on the night of his bachelor’s party – his hands even bound with insulation tape! (The backs of his hands were black with bruising even a week later on the day of our wedding… And he broke down in tears when he ‘confessed’ having gone to the stripclub the night before… When I left last year, he told me one night on the phone that he’d licked salt off one of the girl’s nipples before knocking back a tequila. Perhaps he thought it would hurt me by telling me 6 years later? I remember how violently anti he was about even having a bachelor’s party. In retrospect, it’s no damn wonder!!)
I parked my car outside Teazers in the blazing late afternoon summer sun, sweaty and tired after a day in the library and mentally preparing to cook supper, iron clothes etc. What was I wearing? Oh yes. A long black dress – pretty ordinary in style, I suppose. Black Birckenstock sandals (orthopaedically flat, ultra-conservative and super-unsexy!) My hair in a rough bird’s nest of a bun, glasses and no make-up. And under my arm, my journal and constant companion. As a woman, the bouncer said I didn’t need to pay a cover charge. It was surreal, entering such a dark (in both senses of the word) and smoky space as a young, fairly innocent wife who had to still go home to perform her domestic duties… My eyes took a few moments to adjust to the darkness – seeing the bar to my right, a table full of overweight married men – the rest of the room scattered about with solitary men sitting at tables stuck through with thick floor-to-ceiling poles. Half-fascinated and half afraid, I felt disgust creeping in at the outer edges of my mind like approaching nausea… But still, my curiosity propelled me forward to buy a drink (it was an icy Savanna with a twist of lemon) and find a corner where I could sit and observe. ( I don’t have time to finish writing about this right now – have to prepare some extra work for tomorrow… And I’m also meant to go to my Al Anon meeting, but what with the weather being so foul, all I want to do is climb into bed with my book…)

My very excitable, considerably younger colleague poured all of us a MOER of a shooter to get us out of our tightly-laced inhibitions and get down and dirty as wannabe stripper-sluts. All I remember was its foul taste and colour – much like apple-green cough mixture – and an entire glass of it : not just a shot or two!! It did the job though, and I participated with ample gusto. I sipped red wine for the rest of the evening until we headed down to ‘my local’ on the beachfront to witness the second-half of the Boks thrashing England. The whole afternoon and evening had been filled with the sounds of cars hooting and people shouting out their car windows. It was as if a kind of nationalistic lunacy had possessed us as a whole – and, admittedly, I was a little concerned about being on the road that night even though my drive home was a mere 3km. I fell into bed at midnight – feeling a bit like a reverse-Cinderella as I kicked my heels off, my feet aching and red. All I can remember is lying, collapsed, in bed (I’m sure I was smiling) my bedroom window open wide – and hearing a veritable symphony of victorious shouting, exuberant hooting and police sirens : the sounds of national triumph!! Like a lullaby almost.
In the luminous grey of pre-dawn, I woke up thirsty and with an oncoming truck of a headache, only to find my front door left wide open to catch the cool night air – and any potential intruder! Two Disprin dissolved in a deep glass of cool water and a couple more hours of sleep did the trick, and I woke up feeling almost as fresh as a daisy – except for my allergies which had my eyes red and watering, my nose snotty and blocked – and my chest tight and begging for my asthma pump and a dose of cortisone! I rushed off to work and actually ended up enjoying the day – though it was MUCH longer and much harder work than I anticipated! Have you ever watched Vanilla Sky (an American re-make with Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz of a Spanish art film ) ? The main character wakes up to find he is utterly alone in the middle of New York City. The silence is eerie and heavy. He is SURE it’s a dream. And this is what it felt like this morning as I drove to work in the grey overcast aftermath of Our Win. Completely surreal.
Arriving home just after 3pm, I let myself into my flat – hands full of packets and a one-track mind: I was in critical need of a nap! Putting my packets down, I felt, intuitively, something amiss. Near the door where I keep my keys, there was a yellowish-brown little puddle of what looked like bird-poo – but I couldn’t be sure. I looked up to see I’d left the window above the basin wide open, so it WAS quite possible a bird had been in the flat. Then I noticed one of favourite antique paper-thin glass vases was lying smashed over a sinkful of dishes. There were three other vintage antique glasses on the sill, two which’d also been knocked off the shelf. Mercifully the turquoise one, also quite fragile, lay unscathed in the rinsing bowl! I found another 2 places where the bird had obviously dispelled his guts in a state of claustrophobic fright. Walking carefully and quietly through the house, I half hoped to find the little thing – having had a quiet passion for little brown songbirds over the last few years – using them as part of my self-portrait since 2003… But, it must found its way out to the hot afternoon sky at last. But what I cannot explain is a profound sense of having been visited. Like an omen. A good one. And though one of my favourite vases had been shattered and I had to clean up a good deal of gooey bird poo, a residual glow remains with me even now - knowing that a little bird had been here.

Almost 1am. The bottle of Pinotage I opened at 6pm now sits with its last few drops in my smoky grey wine glass. And Maria de Souza schmoozes scrumptiously in the air all around me – a voice like chocolate and jazzy guitar falling all around me like warm syncopated summer rain…
After I’d finished writing about my little bird visitor, I settled down to a lengthy Mxit chat with the primary school teacher that has somehow managed to capture a part of my heart despite all of my best efforts to remain detached. I think I mentioned it before – that I was his first kiss. And how we hooked up on Facebook. And when he was in Cape Town, met me for drinks and then asked to take me to lunch which turned out to be a rather protracted affair… And how he flew down a month later ‘just to get to know me better’. (And how he spoiled me with thoughtful, romantic kindnesses like flowers and wine and running a bath for me, and filling my fridge with groceries…) And now he is due to come and stay with me for another whole week in November! Half of me can’t wait – and the other half hopes anxiously that the trip’ll be cancelled. And only because I’m so unsure of my feelings for him – and with all of my sick, fucked up little heart, I don’t want him to be hurt if I can’t return his affections… Yes – I HAVE been transparently honest with him. But still, this does not prevent certain heart-actions form occurring – which I am afraid is already too far gone to reverse. Still, he is the most gentle and thoughtful man I have ever met – and who somehow manages to remain ardently and almost voraciously, passionately and imaginatively sexy! His build is (as he says) ‘skinny’ – but to me his lean muscularity is um… perfect. Big, over-pumped muscles have never been able to excite me…
(lots of editing here --- a private bit of writing...)

26 x 2007, Friday evening – just after 6pm, and the chill wet mist so much a part of the west coast, has turned in for the night like a thick, grey blanket. A shroud?
I have the lights turned on low, soft and gold – and the CD playing is ‘Mona Lisa’ – mix made for me by C which he posted down to me from PE. The first song is a love-song called ‘Vermilion’… and the rest is his favourite Guns ‘n Roses songs. And when I listen to it I see him before me vividly – it is almost as if his scent and warmth materialise bodily here with me in this room. This is the magical voodoo of music. It has power – the power to beguile and seduce. The ability to conjure up mighty emotion and memory- or to calm the wildest sea. (I should probably make myself a healthy supper – but I know that once I get started with either a drawing or writing, my appetite dissolves and it is only at bedtime that my stomach rumbles remindingly that I neglected to feed it!)
Tonight I was meant to meet a man I’ve never met before at a nearby restaurant for dinner at 8pm. Two weeks ago, I cancelled with him because the state of my heart was, plainly put : pretty damn confused and hurting like hell! (And as a result of years of emotional pain at the hand of my ex-husband irrevocably bubbling and boiling to the surface) And that ain’t never a good recipe : going on a date with a strange man to soothe the loss and pain of someone other man’s previous destruction – it’s like drinking on an empty stomach : i.e. dangerous, stupid mistakes inevitable, you’ll make a fool of yourself blah blah blah. And so this stranger persisted in asking to take me out – and in a moment of weakness I agreed, but then churned and chewed over it all week, anxiously feeling guilty for ditching him. Why do I continue to wrestle with this demon of not being able to say no? And yet once I’ve said it, it releases me like a bird into the open air and I wonder what all the struggle was about. But watching these little babies and children I work with all day long, and witnessing first-hand the development of their personalities and skills expand and change literally from week to week, it has made me recognize the devastating impact mother, father etc have on the child’s psychology. From around 15 months old, children begin to realise their separateness from their parents and others – and especially the ability to say NO. And it is this crucial stage of boundary-building that many parents often bulldoze over with either their own forceful desires of they ‘know best’ – or quite unconsciously the child’s position amongst older or younger siblings. It seems to be a conclusively predictable outcome that a child of 15 – 24 months who is forced into constantly acquiescing, or into surrendering everything they know as important theirs (i.e. a parent’s attention and a handful of toys) because of a sibling or two, never develops the ability to say ‘no’ or healthy boundaries. It is perilously crucial that a child of this age knows his NO is respected. I have read that they become ‘NO-addicts’ even saying no to their favourite things like ice-cream! And besides the obvious impact this has on the self-concept and personality development, the Butterfly Effect is seen in frightening proportion later on in early adolescence and as the child becomes and IS an adult - the ability to withstand a bullying boss, sexual pressure, peer pressure, develop healthy relationships etc.
Now that I seem to have ended my digressive explanation, let me return to the point : my inability to say no and my constant distress as to what people will think of me. It is this very thing which kept me stuck in my abusive marriage. And, from the bottom of my heart I do not want to blame anybody for the tragedies of my life, because we all have a choice – always. But it is becoming clear to me that when my twin sisters were born when I was 15 months old, I had to surrender so much (sjoe – even just writing about this makes me feel like I’m trying to pin the blame on everyone but myself…) My mom, even, has expressed as much – that having to give up so much and suddenly be a little, miniature, helping adult has had an obvious and visible impact on my life and the choices I have made. My father, too, has been like a meteorite in my life – fascinatingly magnificent, powerful, crushingly destructive.

29 x 2007, Monday “The Night of the Gnats”
With hands red and raw from scrubbing my kitchen floor on hands and knees and overpoweringly smelling of Handy Andy (the Lemon kind!) I sit down for the first time today to do something relaxing – and seeing today is my day off, I reckon I more than deserve it! With a kitchen sink overflowing with dirty dishes and a pile of fresh laundry waiting for me on my bed to be folded, I feel a little guilty sitting down to write but heck – I worked all of Saturday and yesterday from 8am to 6pm without so much as a glance towards a break!!
With the South Easter blustering and bawling outside, I know that at least tonight I shall be able to have some windows open : a howling gale means NO MOZZIES! Last night, there wasn’t a breath of wind, so I knew to keep the windows closed where I had lights on – closing off the bedroom and bathroom in the dark with the windows wide open for the fresh cool night air. At one point I went into the bedroom for something and wondered where on earth this pesky, biting mosquito could have come from. Slapping it away for the fourth time, thoughts of an itchy, sleepless night crept into my mind – something HAD to be done about it!! Pulling back my curtains I saw in panicked horror the bedroom window was wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide open! Looking up reflexively to the bedroom light, the scene was worse than I thought possible : the ceiling was literally grey with midges, gnats, moths and other be-winged night-thingies! Disaster! Chaos! Rummaging under the sink, the Tabard candle was thankfully exactly where I remembered it. Burning furiously, the smell of the candle was enough to chase me away, let alone an army of midges!! My next weapon of defence : a broom! My immediate thought was to swipe and smoosh them into oblivion off my ceiling. But the thought of a thousand dead and crumpled insects in my crisp white cotton bedding was almost more horrifying than being chowed all night long! New tactic brainwave : I placed the burning candle on my windowsill, turned off the lights, grabbed my duvet and pillow, closed the door and retreated into No-Mozzie Zone. The sleeper couch was adequately comfortable though a touch on the narrow side (especially after more than a year of having a double bed all to my ownsome!)
Recipe : cold chai milkshake : generous pinch of chai spice (mixture of cardamom, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and black pepper) mixed into a teaspoon of honey (or more if you want it sweeter). Add a small amount of boiling water to melt the honey and enhance the flavour and scent of the spices. Then just add super chilled cold milk (ya – this is a quick fix for the desperate : no ice-cream or elbow-grease!)

4 x 2007 . Sunday
Sitting at Pakalolo’s with the sea wild, dark and grey behind and the air wet and salty with its fierce pounding. After a difficult and stressful day at work (aren’t Sundays meant to be a time of rest??) I still have an article to write for the newsletter we send out to clients about the cognitive and etc etc benefits of art for very little children. And here I sit, contemplating my navel and sipping a warming glass of Shiraz – the anaesthetizing hum of conversation like a blanket, the nostalgic smell of a just lit match, and acid-reggae pumping it all along like a lazy little heartbeat.

19 xi 2007 Monday

So much time has passed since I last had a chance to write. Quite what it is that has been keeping me so busy eludes me – though I think it has been a mixture of work-related fatigue, a good novel and my present company – the visitor from PE (who now lounges back on my pink sari-covered couch, reading a book while I sit here and sip a glass of green tea, rose incense curling dreamily around the room in tendrils and curls.) Tonight he is cooking me a roast chicken complete with roast potatoes etc. His plan is to pour me a glass of red wine while he cooks in the kitchen and I sit at the table and work on my current art piece. Sjoe. I may just have stumbled upon Shangri-lah! (My dear father’s verdict on this sort of behaviour is that it would wane quite quickly. But incredibly, his thoughtfulness and romantic sweetness seems only to be increasing with time. (Out of the corner of my eye, I see his book has dropped to his chest and his eyes have closed.)
It is such a very strange tale of how we came to be in love with each other… Hmmm... the story would need to be told from the very beginning – reaching all the way back into 1990 when we were both just entering what I’ll call ‘turbulescence’ (i.e. turbulent adolescence!) We were in Standard 4 or 5 (can’t pinpoint the precise year) and I had a dreadful crush on C who at that stage was tall-ish and skinny and dark, with big, brown gentle eyes and an impish quietness (which has since turned into gentlemanly mysteriousness.) He told me about how he remembers a little love-letter I wrote, calling him “Mr Puppy Dog Eyes”. Nauseating to my 30 year old sensibilities but oh so cute when you’re just 12! Our first kiss was stolen behind the curtains in the music room... What is fascinating about all of this is how we both spent almost two decades wondering about each other…
His patience with me has been of saint-like proportions. After his last visit I gingerly explained my way around my wounded mess of a heart to him, saying I was in no way of fit mind to be able to understand my feelings or make any emotional decisions. i.e. basically, that I was too fucked up. And yes, most males would have run more than just a mile at this rather un-oblique admission. C decided I’m not fucked up at all, but whatever my decision, he was a-ok with it. Miraculously, my past didn’t threaten or frighten him at all. (a quietly hushed ‘wow’).
Other MAJOR plusses:
1. he adores my quirky and sometimes bizarre uniqueness in personality, the way I dress and the way I’ve decorated my little housie.
2. he created a list for me of all the things he admires about me, and they’re all the things I’ve yearned for a man to love about me. He actually ‘gets’ me. I am completely and vulnerably myself with him (another ‘wow’!!!!!!)
3. near the top of his list was my love for children and my ability with them. (Most guys seem to have been quite nauseated by this aspect of my personality and working life.)

Ag, there are many things but because I feel as if I have stumbled upon secret treasure, spilling my guts completely would ruin how extraordinary all of this is!
The Clincher for me – the thing that stole my heart – was the surprise he’d planned and organised more than a month before… But even before I picked him up at the airport that stormy Wednesday night, my heart had already decided for me.

LISA’S SURPRISE (more to follow)

23 xi 2007 SWEET NOVEMBER RAIN

Velvet pink and lavish lilac skies cover the early evening with soft, kind light – letting the four little Xhosa boys prolong their game of makeshift cricket for as long as Mommy doesn’t call them back home, leaving twig wickets behind them, marking their moment of play.
(--- obviously got very distracted by something… Craig was cooking me dinner, so I probably ended up taking my glass of wine with me to the kitchen – jumping up to sit on the counter while he peeled potatoes for the roast so we could chat…)

26 xi 2007 Monday.
And still the rain continues. This sweet November rain. I sit here at my laptop perched on this cold white marble Singer sewing-machine table all veined with grey, a glass of Pinotage to my right – along with an almost finished roll of masking tape, a twisted dry pale pink hibiscus flower and the wrapped up birthday present I made for my friend’s birthday tomorrow : a deep sage/olive green mohair brooch crocheted in an organic random shape and then embellished with tiny seed pearls and miniature haphazard embroidery stitches, then wrapped in a piece of old dressmaking pattern paper and tied with a little wooden button and a piece of string. And seeing as it’s the end of the month, my ‘gourmet’ bowl of 2 minute noodles cools in the microwave after its 1 minute 30 second cook! And exploding from my CD player is one of Craig’s ****in’ awesome Linkin Park CDs. (Yip, I took him to the airport this morning… This frightening weather caused his plane to PE to be delayed by a couple of hours… He returns in the first week of January to take up his teaching post at a primary school in Durbanville.)
And now that we’re on the subject of Craig, let me briefly outline the adventure he planned for our last day together on Sunday while I sat babysitting little Matthew and Thomas on Saturday night (before telling you all about “Lisa’s Surprise”).
Though I got home much later than expected on Saturday night (i.e. more like Sunday morning), he stayed awake to open the driveway gate for me, my headlights picking him out against the fierce and blusteringly black night in his blue boxers, hoodie and Hang Ten slipslops! e-tv’s hilarious pseudo-porn ooh-ed and aah-ed in the lounge while we chatted about little Matthew’s antics – then gently Craig reminded me the bath he’d run for me was getting cold. A steaming bath complete with golden candlelight and a soft, pink, fluffy towel! (Ladies – all I can hear you say along with me is “YOWZERS”!!!)
Early Sunday morning played through my bedroom curtains with almost riotous, sunshiney joy! For the first time in a week, the wind decided it was time to let us Capetonians play! The first part of Craig’s plan was an unhurried breakfast at Pakalolo’s – sipping excellent coffee and mopping up Worcestershire sauce and runny egg with nicely buttered toast while the turquoise calm of the bay glistened languidly beneath its matching sky. From there, it was a quick drive to Milnerton market where we perused like excited, specialist treasure-hunters amongst dusty lanes of salmon pink ‘40s glassware, a splendid brass floor lamp adorned with crystals, rust-covered plumbing supplies and mould-ridden books – the vendors as intriguing and random as their wares. Quite the Stephen King enthusiast, Craig unearthed a dog-eared and dusty novel to add to his collection for just a coupla bucks, while I bought a zillion treasures and trinkets in my rather wild imagination : accidental couplings of random English tea-cups and saucers, delicate glass vases and glasses in all the retro shades from beer-brown to blood red to peacock… In the end, Craig bought ‘us’ a luminously grass-green dyed Springbok pelt for only R50! There’re about three or four ways I could use it in my rather bohemian apartment, but at the moment it remains rolled up on the floor next to the still unpacked bag of beachtowels, SPF30 sunblock and my ‘camo’ hat…
Right at the most dangerous hour of the sun’s day, we hit the beach - uncommonly crowded -with bikini-clad housewives, whining and sandy toddlers, as well as bunches of Congolese playing soccer along the surfline in their underpants…
Settling myself down upon a big purple beach towel, I watched as a man hopped along the cold, wet sand with crutches and just one leg. As usually happens (and I’m sure you’ll agree) I tried to pretend it was a ‘normal’ sight, but my heart just ached and ached and ached while I tried not to look… Overwhelmed and humbled, I watched how he abandoned his two crutches just beyond the reach of the climbing waves. Crashing and tumbling, the cold, surging power of the waves pulled and tugged and rolled his sitting-down body… it was almost as if his sheer alive-ness controlled those very waves which threw and dragged his half-body backwards and forwards… What indescribable joy at just being alive!
(Slight anti-climax: then it was home for a nap before heading to my folks for a braai and to watch their latest televised compulsion : “Idols”. Chook, roasted tender and juicy on the Weber and an abundant sufficiency of red wine, the evening was perfectly rounded off with cheesecake and goodbye kisses.)
And now, alone, I sit here, sipping my second glass of red wine and gripped by the reality that “I have a boyfriend”. As much as I resisted this man, his sheer consistent kindness – and his passionate thoughtfulness – he finally melted this hard and fucked up heart of mine : and here I sit enthralled by how he is the very first man to have given me wings to fly. And, as my sister Mandy says : he is ‘fuel for my fire’… (If I continue, I am sure I’d make half of you ‘vrek vokken naar’ with how deeply happy I am!!) OK – time for LISA’S SURPRISE!

LISA’S SURPRISE
Halfway through unpacking his bags the night I picked him up from the airport, Craig handed me a long white envelope, with ‘Lisa’s Surprise’ written in neat blue ball-point across the front. A couple of sparing clues given me over the previous month did not prepare me for what I unfolded from this innocuous envelope.
Five pages evidently printed straight from a website, my mind soaked up text and images in happy disbelief : a weekend away in a dreamy tree-house overlooking a river and nestled in a mountainous valley… Besides the fact that surprises are one of my favourite things EVER, it was this element of surprise, combined with the thoughtful planning, sheer expense and uniqueness of idea that made my heart contract with an excruciating combination of elation and regret : this was the most romantic gesture I’d ever been gifted! (my heart pumped : ‘wow….wow….wow….wow…wow..’)
With my little green Ford Fiesta packed with towels, food, beers and books, we headed out towards Malmesbury along the way to Citrusdal – the sun hot and dazzling through the windows – my car heater somehow managing to have gotten stuck on the red a week before (no comment.) After stopping at a quaint, road-side café near Citrusdal where we were the obvious attraction/distraction for the day – an icy Coke(horribly abrupt break in the story - sorry! - but I promise to contimue writing tonight till it's finished!)

2007-10-28T01:32:00.001-07:00

After finishing work near 3pm, I dashed home and jumped into my bikini, slipping on a white linen sundress on top and throwing sunglasses, my book and a huge purple towel into a bag - cracking open an icy Savanna which was the perfect way to toast the most delicious summer's day we've had in a long time! The parking lots along the beachfront weren't nearly as full I imagined it'd be on such a gorgeous day - so after parking my car and slipping off my sandals, the sinking of my feet deep into the warm, soft sand reminded me of being a little girl! The thought of playing 'sandcastles' was a serious consideration ; )
After setting everything down, my big fluffy towel just begging me to plop down onto it, I realised two things :
1. I didn't have sunblock
2. There were some very strange characters populating this spot of beach. One tall man dressed in black, his pants rolled up to his knees literally circled me quietly twice, and everytime I looked up - he'd quickly look away...
And besides these one or two unsavoury and unsettling moments, I was also in danger of being decapitated by two guys learning how to fly those big kites... I stayed on the beach probably an hour or so and then headed to Pakalolo's for another Savanna. The single klerlgsrgjklejkljklv y8u9fsdzewt (oops - that was little Jessica who ran into the reception area and climbed onto my chair and got hold of the keyboard. Yip - I'm at work on a Sunday...) OK, let me try that again : the single Savanna turned into two glasses of wine and another two Savannas! And needless to say, the guy I was chatting to at the bar magically turned from ordinary and not very intelligent to incredibly, sensually handsome and deeply absorbing... His eyebrow piercing even stopped being an eyesore!
PS. Anyone know of a quiet spot along the coast here where I can sun my lilywhite flanks in peace?

Random ramblings

2007-10-24T05:36:00.000-07:00

21 x 2007, Sunday afternoon
It’s now quite a bit after 3pm and I’ve just arrived home from work! My colleague, predictably unreliable, was sick with stomach cramps (probably anxiety-induced as she’s terribly neurotic at the best of times!) so I had to fill in for her… My Sundays are precious and I can’t remember the last time I worked on one, but I thought I’d make an exception today. (Not entirely a wise or informed decision considering last night was my boss’s pole-dancing farewell party AND the rugby World Cup final…)
Almost 8pm. It’s hot here in my little piece of heaven I call home. But while I have the lights on I keep the windows and doors to outside because the area I live in has a terrible midge and mosquito problem – especially in the warmer months. If I had to open the window now, the roof and light fixtures would be obscured by clouds of mozzies and pesky midges which then end up in my food, the food simmering on the stove – and then on my skin so they can bite me and suck my blood all night so that I sleep badly and wake up very, very grumpy. And in the morning, they’ve all died and coat the worksurfaces and tabletops in grey weightless bodies.
About a month ago, I committed myself to look after a friend’s two little children so her and husband could attempt their first romantic evening in 3 or more years. Stupidly, I just said yes and didn’t consider the date – but realised early last week that it was the night of the rugby World Cup final!! Not that I’m a rugby fan – but I’m a fan of my country – and how could I miss watching 30+ men running around in tight tops and short shorts?! Thankfully she phoned to cancel yesterday morning. And this meant, of course, that now I could also go to my boss’s farewell party. She’s headed to Saudi for a couple of months – and so she organised a pole-dancing party… I’m no prude – but the thought of learning a stripper’s basic moves and performing my own little dance in front of my boss, colleagues and a sprinkling of our clients just didn’t have me jumping up and down with enthusiasm. I have the reputation of being an incredibly erotic dancer in the belly-dancing manner, but this comes from a deep place of visceral desire (as well as maybe too much red wine!) And it’s spontaneous!
The thought of this premeditated dancing made me suddenly feel like a wallflower who wished she had an excuse to cancel! As I got ready for the evening, my biggest problem was choosing what to wear. I don’t possess a single item of questionable virtue or made from black fishnet or red satin – I don’t even own pair of raunchy stilettos! Issues I had to take into consideration :
1. I wasn’t in the mood for my amply plump thighs and tummy to be on wobbly exhibit for a group of drunk moms / colleagues.
2. Socialising with my clients in such a starkly different context left me feeling dry-mouthed and quite anxious indeed : I teach them, their husbands and babies --- I am the ‘sweet, knowledgeable, nurturing and motherly teacher’ who they ask for help regarding why their child isn’t crawling yet or do I think their child has the potential to be a bully… So me dressing up as a prancing, dancing whore just didn’t gel with me.

And so, I chose low-slung, wide-legged black jeans, a lowish-cut black top and the highest heels I possess. Certainly I was the most conservatively dressed woman there – besides my boss in her old-fashioned slacks and long turquoise top! One of the moms (of twin girls) arrived in knee-high leopard print, high heel, pointy-toed boots, tight black pants, pink corset and a long black wig – and enough eyeliner and mascara to render her completely unrecognisable! The other mom is the local ‘sister’ of her own pre/antenatal clinic who everyone speaks about in tones of hushed awe. Her fishnets and shiny black peep-toe stilettos competed for attention with so much glitter on her eyes, lips and cheeks that she put Priscilla Queen of the Desert to shame! Both in their VERY late 30s, these two provided all the fireworks and fun necessary to make the evening a spectacular (though not very sexy!) success!
Having been to Teazers and Mavericks a couple of times, once on a solo mission of discovery and adventure, and then once with an older male friend, I found the idea of learning what seems to be a universal repertoire of choreographed ‘sexiness’ both boring and just a little distasteful. The first time I went to Teazers I was newly married (only JUST!) , twenty one years old and doing my Masters degree in sculpture (my work having a definite feminist dogma driving it.) I popped in on my way home one day because I was incurably inquisitive about this idea of men going in groups to strip-clubs – both as an almost rabid feminist and a young little wife. My husband had apparently been ‘dragged’ into the Moulin Rouge in town on the night of his bachelor’s party – his hands even bound with insulation tape! (The backs of his hands were black with bruising even a week later on the day of our wedding… And he broke down in tears when he ‘confessed’ having gone to the stripclub the night before… When I left him last year, he told me one night on the phone that he’d licked salt off one of the girl’s nipples before knocking back a tequila. Perhaps he thought it would hurt me by telling me 6 years later? I remember how violently anti he was about even having a bachelor’s party. In retrospect, it’s no damn wonder!!)
I parked my car outside Teazers in the blazing late afternoon summer sun, sweaty and tired after a day in the library and mentally preparing to cook supper, iron clothes etc. What was I wearing? Oh yes. A long black dress – pretty ordinary in style, I suppose. Black Birckenstock sandals (orthopaedically flat, ultra-conservative and super-unsexy!) My hair in a rough bird’s nest of a bun, glasses and no make-up. And under my arm, my journal and constant companion. As a woman, the bouncer said I didn’t need to pay a cover charge. It was surreal, entering such a dark (in both senses of the word) and smoky space as a young, fairly innocent wife who had to still go home to perform her domestic duties… My eyes took a few moments to adjust to the darkness – seeing the bar to my right, a table full of overweight married men – the rest of the room scattered about with solitary men sitting at tables stuck through with thick floor-to-ceiling poles. Half-fascinated and half afraid, I felt disgust creeping in at the outer edges of my mind like approaching nausea… But still, my curiosity propelled me forward to buy a drink (it was an icy Savanna with a twist of lemon) and find a corner where I could sit and observe. ( I don’t have time to finish writing about this right now – have to prepare some extra work for tomorrow… And I’m also meant to go to my Al Anon meeting, but what with the weather being so foul, all I want to do is climb into bed with my book…)

My very excitable, considerably younger colleague poured all of us a MOER of a shooter to get us out of our tightly-laced inhibitions and get down and dirty as wannabe stripper-sluts. All I remember was its foul taste and colour – much like apple-green cough mixture – and an entire glass of it : not just a shot or two!! It did the job though, and I participated with ample gusto. I sipped red wine for the rest of the evening until we headed down to ‘my local’ on the beachfront to witness the second-half of the Boks thrashing England. The whole afternoon and evening had been filled with the sounds of cars hooting and people shouting out their car windows. It was as if a kind of nationalistic lunacy had possessed us as a whole – and, admittedly, I was a little concerned about being on the road that night even though my drive home was a mere 3km. I fell into bed at midnight – feeling a bit like a reverse-Cinderella as I kicked my heels off, my feet aching and red. All I can remember is lying, collapsed, in bed (I’m sure I was smiling) my bedroom window open wide – and hearing a veritable symphony of victorious shouting, exuberant hooting and police sirens : the sounds of national triumph!! Like a lullaby almost.
In the luminous grey of pre-dawn, I woke up thirsty and with an oncoming truck of a headache, only to find my front door left wide open to catch the cool night air – and any potential intruder! Two Disprin dissolved in a deep glass of cool water and a couple more hours of sleep did the trick, and I woke up feeling almost as fresh as a daisy – except for my allergies which had my eyes red and watering, my nose snotty and blocked – and my chest tight and begging for my asthma pump and a dose of cortisone! I rushed off to work and actually ended up enjoying the day – though it was MUCH longer and much harder work than I anticipated! Have you ever watched Vanilla Sky (an American re-make with Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz of a Spanish art film ) ? The main character wakes up to find he is utterly alone in the middle of New York City. The silence is eerie and heavy. He is SURE it’s a dream. And this is what it felt like this morning as I drove to work in the grey overcast aftermath of Our Win. Completely surreal.
Arriving home just after 3pm, I let myself into my flat – hands full of packets and a one-track mind: I was in critical need of a nap! Putting my packets down, I felt, intuitively, something amiss. Near the door where I keep my keys, there was a yellowish-brown little puddle of what looked like bird-poo – but I couldn’t be sure. I looked up to see I’d left the window above the basin wide open, so it WAS quite possible a bird had been in the flat. Then I noticed one of favourite antique paper-thin glass vases was lying smashed over a sinkful of dishes. There were three other vintage antique glasses on the sill, two which’d also been knocked off the shelf. Mercifully the turquoise one, also quite fragile, lay unscathed in the rinsing bowl! I found another 2 places where the bird had obviously dispelled his guts in a state of claustrophobic fright. Walking carefully and quietly through the house, I half hoped to find the little thing – having had a quiet passion for little brown songbirds over the last few years – using them as part of my self-portrait since 2003… But, it must found its way out to the hot afternoon sky at last. But what I cannot explain is a profound sense of having been visited. Like an omen. A good one. And though one of my favourite vases had been shattered and I had to clean up a good deal of gooey bird poo, a residual glow remains with me even now - knowing that a little bird had been here.

Almost 1am. The bottle of Pinotage I opened at 6pm now sits with its last few drops in my smoky grey wine glass. And Maria de Souza schmoozes scrumptiously in the air all around me – a voice like chocolate and jazzy guitar falling all around me like warm syncopated summer rain…

contemplating my navel

A Self-Indulgent Little Yarn!

Patriot Games & Poetry Pie

Goodbyes (and the eternalness of an ellipsis...)

Pearls Before Breakfast!

A is Apple, B is for Benefactor

Layla Sleeps = Mommy Writes

Look out for Thenjiwe Bunu's Infallible Samp Recipe: COMING SOON!

The Mohlee Method!

Humiliating Heathrow...

Milky Lane Mama (Part 2) : Reality Bites

Chutzpah/balls/voema/gusto?

The Musing Magpie

Curl Up & Dye – Part 2

Curl Up & Dye (i)

Prison Break...

Jacky D Ice-Cream!!

A Lighter Shade of Pale {green...}

What it means to a mother who writes!

Write Yourself Sane/Happy/Free!!

Aphro*dizzy*ac!

All I Want for Christmas (in July!!) Is.....

BOOBY TRAP!

The Shape of a Mother

Touched With Fire...

Breaking News: Laziness Cured By Nap!

Part 2: Chubby and Proud!

Chubby and Proud!

I cheated... {blush}

Wishes versus Resolutions...

Keeping abreast of the situation!

Dark, grey, gloomy...

Mother & Child, and Father...

Teething pains...

Domestic Distress!!

Vixen

Muddy Metaphors -- and Weddings on the Wild Side

Treasure Hunt!

Exhausted, exhausted...

My New Life! (said with definite irony and ... JOY!!)

She arrived!

The Sheer Glamour of Birth

Wishes DO come true.

Candid Camera

Anyone with tents to rent? Preferably in floral or stripe prints.

Frozen Vegetables and The Great Film Debate

A Week of Work!

Hush little baby, don't say a word...

On Writing

The Fine (and Expensive) Art of Fly Fishing

Adios!

DIY -- at your peril!

Dr Who?

O wat 'n skande, Mevrou Oosthuysen!

Staying in touch...

On cravings and carboot sales

Not Keyne on Milton Keynes...

Tring-tring...

British Wintriness (is there such a word??)

Zen & the Art of Housekeeping

14 and a half weeks (a third of the way!)

10 weeks and counting...

Of bunnies and Noah's Ark

It died after 3 weeks and we paid 200quid for the thing!!!

pink wellies and pink eyes

Xenophobia (backdated to 24 May)

Home Jerome!

The Village...

My first attempt...from a thousand miles away..

A long, long time... An eternity, in fact!

Kunskop....

All Gymboreed out (sjoe!!)

Blah blah blah

The Silly Season

Oliver...Annie....?

"Lisa's Surprise"

Verbosity in extremis...

Random ramblings

Aphrodizzyac!