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

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!

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....

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!!)

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

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 ;)

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

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