Hamba Kahle Tata Madiba

Rest in peace Tata, you'll be missed.

Cooking with FIRE

I love South Africa in the summer. And despite the dooms-day naysayers it still is an awesome place to live. Summer sun sets later and nothing is about but Christmas beatles (it's that time of year), mozzies (I look like a mosquito-bite leper) and the thick smell of braai fires every weekend.

And since we have been down on our luck and looking for simple pleasure we rediscovered fire. Which is strange because the farm has only fire to cook with and in Big Smoke we become lazy to build fires. No longer.

We have built a fire and eaten lush about once a week for the last few weeks. It's heaven, the smell alone is intoxicating. All that smoke and familiar smelling fare brings to mind endless days of childhood in swimming pools or zig-zagging through sprinklers. It smells like hide and seek in the late night at the coast when the shy cicadas are out and singing their songs and we have to be wary of fruit bats overhead. It smells like the ocean, or the back yard, or your friend's house, or your brother's place, or that awesome birthday you had. It smells like when we were young and could still run. It smells like life lived at its best.

And you know it might seem that I am waxing incredibly lyrical about something as silly as a braai fire but when life is in tumult it is so good to light a fire and remember great times. Times when worries concerned a new bathing suit or a song name you don't know and might be quizzed on by the cool set at school. Times when anxieties were contained in childhood dreams about not being prepared for an exam. Nice times. And the present? This current time with smoke curling into the curly willow overhead and three near-depleted candles blinking around the grill, settling deep into that chair that is so comfortable even though it's only meant for gardens, looking at Tristan and hearing the hiss of the sausage as it drips it's fat onto those white hot coals?

This time isn't so bad either. Despite so many worries and anxieties and what if's, this time could always be worse.

Besides, we get to light fires and cook our food. Nurturing ourselves with the deepening realisation that all of life is connected and that happiness is a decision.

I am grateful for the smoke that seeps into my clothes and makes them smell muggy, the same smoke that burns my eyes and those errant coals that splinter onto a bare thigh in summertime when thighs are known to be bare and cut-grass lawns in suburbs remind me of my horses and the constant smell of sweet feed in the car. The smell of the rain always lingering and the fresh blast of ozone from highveld storms that somehow still manages to take me by surprise.

But mostly I am grateful for the fire of life and coming to realise that both good and bad times are connected. And that gives me so much to think about.

Found this online, too good not to share, will do a photo post with all our braai pics next :)

Cook with fire, you won't regret it.

The thing about dying one day...

IT'S not really that I am afraid of it or whatever. Instead I am annoyed by the things I may miss and mortified that my funeral might suck. Of  course I realise I'll be dead and I won't actively be feeling any sense of loss, but...

I always think that the very week after I die scientists will pull the Loch Ness monster out of the Loch or whatever, and discover that not only is there a for real, 100% certain, monster in there but that monster has family and monsters are real. That would be annoying...

I also really worry about missing that inevitable House Hunter International scandal. I mean I am pretty sure that show is completely fake but wouldn't it be awesome if those couples weren't couples at all but strung out sex workers being paid with crack or something? And then the media seeks them out like a bloodhound tracking a corpse and discovers them living in down-town slums and all that talk of first world budgets was completely fake and I don't have to be annoyed about being from a third world country.

Also, my mom. She means well but she does those 'this person has died' brochures or orders of service (or morbid death book or whatever) with sad looking pictures of our departed loved ones where she not only embellishes everything, and conveniently changes major aspects of someone's life and character but she also makes so many spelling mistakes. She loves the melodrama. It's hard because I am sure she thinks we'll seem like better people if she adds heaven's metaphorical embroidered cloths to our tapestry but sheesh. I know I am not perfect and I like it that way. I cringe when I picture my death brochure in comic sans saying something mom-like above the worst picture of me in existence via a totally shitty crop job.

I also worry about what she'll speculate about me to put some meat on the bones of my death release...something like...

"Yolande (or as we called her 'Chubby Childless Angel') loved the music of Mariah Carey and we will play her song 'Hero' to commemorate CCA right now. Also she often read from the bible and loved giving entire salaries to the church. She very much loved orphaned children and forced me to bring an entire orphanage to her death bed where she sung her other favourite song 'Barbie Girl' from the Venga boys to them to cheer them up. She always smiled and never had a bad word to say about anyone. I will miss her because she was my best friend and we were extremely close."

I mean I am speculating here but I am pretty sure that's how it will go down. Then she's likely to cremate me and stuff my ashes in a wooden box and keep it in her office next to the photo of my least favourite uncle and that nephew I just can't get along with.

This my friends, above all else including pain and long months of suffering, is why I am afraid of dying. I am afraid that if there is an afterlife my funeral will shame me in front of my new friends and long lost relatives and seriously impact on my after life popularity. I won't be puffing on the spectre of a cigarette in the ghostly mirage-like glimmer of the boys' bathroom with all my cool new friends. I will be alone in the ghost library reading Jane Austen and sobbing audibly into the real world. Maybe those ghost sightings are just the ones who didn't make friends and their long-lost relatives pretended not to know them?


*sigh*

Adolf in the springtime...

Flowers are coming up :)

All that glitters!

DOWN chips are a good way to decide if you have made the right decisions in life.

As it turns out, I have.

Vet bill bonanza (the latest being Bishop trying to make a jump into an adjoining camp and landing up on a dropper) has seriously hamstrung us financially. Of course it doesn't help that things aren't great at work.

And yet, we come through. I feel like we have found loads to love in little things. The orchids and other household plants affirm my love of caring for living things. They are glorious. As it happens I only ever purchased two orchids but I am caring for six - all those unwanted birthday gifts left to wilt and then passed off to someone who is interested.

I have managed to save them all convincingly. I also care for two succulents, a pretty bonsai, two strange flowery plants and a love bamboo. And that's just in JHB. On the farm I have every plant Silman and I put into the ground. All that jasmine, lavender, herbs, veg, succulents, daisies, dianella, wild garlic, saplings, irises (almost time for them to bloom) the list is endless. With the help of my fantastic groom and all-round excellent person Silman. He deserves a picture on here, I'll remember to take one.

Last night I was lying in bed while Tristan read Lovecraft out loud to me. I fell asleep eventually and slept until this morning. It was glorious! My first proper sleep since spring leapt upon us. In fact I'd argue summer is here entirely.

Later we shoot off to the farm so I have to get my bags packed. I can't wait.

love, pub quizzing, picnics and other memories

WARNING: this post rambles.

I have been loathe to sit down and write a blog. We have really been living - eating terribly and drinking too much. It saps your energy levels and seriously ruins your sleeping patterns. Guys, I am totally going to own the fact that my new love is chicken and mayo pizza and that my diet has gone out the window.

 I know you have been rooting for me Wolfie, so I'll add that we are going to start training for a marathon soon - in aid of mobile mammography trucks to travel out to less advantaged communities and get those women some much-need early detection facilities and educate them. I am PUMPED to be a part of it :)

I have been ablaze with ideas for my masters, but I ran out of momentum lately. A long farm visit and a few wonderful memories an amazing experiences to throw into the memory banks have derailed my obsessive thinking and I happen to think that might be a good thing.

But of course, knowing me, the process was riddled with the odd calamity or three. And some of them were rather shameful. Shameful or not though, we have to make time to create new memories.

On the topic of memories I am cooking this blog post inspired by the 40 Days of Dating saga that lead me to ask a few exes about our relationship - with the aim of posting it here and talking more about past experiences and LOVE (a key aspect of this blog). The responses were a mixed bag. One wonderful account that literally had me smiling, one encounter with a douche bag I can't believe I felt anything for and a new discovery on my journey with Tristan. Amazing heh? More on this later.

So Monday we snuck out of work early to go and have a picnic in the park. We took a few bottles of beer, a cooler box, loaded Big Dog into the car and picked up pizza en route. We had a wonderful time. Unfortunately where we decided to set down all our gear was FAR away from any, erm...ablution facilities.

I got to know that tree a little better later during the picnic

What were we thinking??

I need to ditch this filthy habit

But we got some serious relaxing done

Seriously, this guy slept through most of the picnic

We had trekked to the far corner of the park with a heavy bag containing extra layers of clothing, sunglasses, hand sanitizers, napkins you name it we had it, a heavy cooler box, a bucket with a 5 litre supply of water for Big Dog and some doggy treats for him, my massive camera bag, our matchy hats that make us look like a lame couple, a big heavy duvet, the box containing our pizza lunch and probably a few other things I forgot about. It was heaps of stuff to trek away to the bathroom.

Ooooh yes, we have cheesy matchy hats!

 So I did it, I peed behind a tree. It was liberating... and I never want to do it again!

Then, last night we went out to dinner, got a little tipsy and decided to do a quiz. A pub quiz. I am ashamed to admit we are no good at quizzes and we came last along with three other teams. Ahahahaha! Look, I don't know anything about rappers or how many babies Gwen Stefani has had - so I don't feel too bad about it.

(Un)Dead Parrots will be back for a rematch next week, sporting a third team member. The nerd is strong in that one

 I think All My Friends Suck came first, so there you go. But of course the two-prong team that comprised (Un)Dead Parrots has a serious set-back in the second to last round. As my guts started to ache immeasurably and I felt an overwhelming burn in my stomach I at once realised my chicken might have been passed it's sell-by date. That's right, I was started to go through the first stages of food poisoning. Right there! The plot thickens. I needed to dash off to the loo too many times, and when we got home the party started in earnest. I haven't been to work today and suffice it to say I am full of medicine and glucose energy drinks.

Le Sigh!

Stay tuned for the second instalment - we will rise again!

Farm scenes...

Adolf of the Goofy Smile

Bishop samples some tree, always getting into things this boy

Hey life, give us lemons already - I'd like to use them in my cooking

The origanum has found interesting ways to grow

Sun sets over the farm

Farm cows

Chocolate cake

Fat cat

Seeking shade

Beautiful Special

Mind my crusty halter it still works, Paddy rescued from the SPCA (twice, once quite literally) in 2009 decked out in his winter woolies

The half brothers: Phat Louie and Joe, draught horse crosses

Coming up for air

COMING up for air is harder than it sounds. It’s like running into a brick wall. It hurts, it makes you want to give up.

My meds clearly need some adjusting. I want to sit at home and not go out to see the sun. I don’t want to do anything. I am afraid of everything. I have to force myself to be in the world. Sometimes Tristan has to cheer me on. It’s humiliating.

I feel at ease in my bed. In all that green of the walls and blue of the sky and the orchid with a brand new spike, two others flowering still (after so many months) and two that I am trying to breathe life into. I am confident one won’t make it. The air rushes through the white curtains, gusts and gusts of wind. Those cheap white curtains look almost bridal. One has a huge browns stain at the bottom and its hem is in tatters. Adolf does that to curtains.

With all the heavy losses we have suffered over the last two years I have become a ball of nerves. Who’s next? Who else will die? What other incredibly rare malady will hit? I think of Prince who is 30. His eyesight going. I think of how cold he gets in winter and how carefully we always need to feed him. I worry. All.The.Time. I think of the chickens.

 I think that I think too much.

Be brave dear friends. Try to be brave.

On 'strictlers'...

WORD to the wise; when trying to recruit a brilliant copy editor don't ask for a 'strictler for facts' in your brief. This will make those truly OCD copy monsters (the best sort of proof readers) squirm with discomfort.

And yes, this is a true story!

I worked as a sub editor for some time and during that period I learnt that the best copy editors work with capable journalists. Literally just capable, not brilliant. The ability to write two paragraphs without changing tenses eight times will greatly alleviate a copy editor's work load. The ability to spell everyday words such as National Geographic (and not National Georgraphic) will really lessen the tension in your average editor's life.

So when HR posts a brief that they got from an editor (ahhhh yes, you can bet your bottom dollar!) with a spelling error then you know you are in for a nightmare. Actually let me rephrase that: I'd like to say 'spelling error' but let's face it, 'strictler' is not a word. I won't confine that mistake to the realm of spelling, I'll let it ooze over into the realm of, ahh you know...life in general. Seriously interwebz, if you could see my face right now... I look like I have a foul smell stuck to my face.

So of course, for the sake of brevity, I replied to the lady in question and pointed out that 'strictler' is not a word. I don't expect a 'thank you'. It's eminently more possible that I shall receive a 'tank you'.

Don't misunderstand me, I am NOT a pedant. I am not some letter-writing maniac who complains about every mistake and is a complete stickler for facts (see what I did there?). NO! I just have a hard time coming to terms with someone trying to recruit a proof reader when they can't spell. How do they propose to test the mettle of their applicants? Because clearly Microsoft has failed them already.

It's a tough time out there folks...yes it is.

Oef!

Still coming to terms with the loss of baby girl, and it has been rough. Like always though, when it rains it really pours. I have flu, some strange energy-sapping strain. I am not surprised because I am not built for winter at all. Happily, I spied a handful of naive blossoms on the tree outside. Perhaps things will turn sweeter again soon.

Today I'll be hunting for my camera charger because I miss taking pictures.I have also been busy thesis-ing and I am so so grateful to the university and to my Prof for keeping me busy and out of trouble. My prof recently lost his beloved, aged, special needs cat and after mourning for a while he was ready to take on a new companion. I hooked him up with a wonderful welfarist who runs an awesome no-kill organisation where, after home checks etc, he decided to adopt THREE lovely, joyous kittens. He named the Viola, Sebastian and Ferdi - after the characters once lost and then found. He is THRILLED with them. When next we visited he had cat scratch posts and anti-ant bowls and the works. And they are too gorgeous.

I suppose if we look hard enough, we'll find joy and love and beauty SOMEWHERE. And knowing that spring is coming makes it easier to look forward.

PS: I recently attended my cousin's wedding in the frock Jane helped me pick out many moons ago. Sans the shape wear and her fresh, excellent advice I struggled to get into it. I remember now why I hate it so much! Just a few days before the wedding I noticed the store where Jane worked and the frock was purchased burnt to the ground (no injury or loss of life). I think that the inventors of 'bridal sizing' should see this as an omen.

Love + relics

Flowers! Can you imagine? Maybe someone does read my blog after all :)

They are sitting there brightening up my pilfered bookshelf, right next to my pilfered chair next to the hand-me-down dining room table. I arranged them in those two hand-me-down vases no one had a use for. The glass giraffe is the only surviving one of a pair purchased in the Kruger National Park when I was a child. Old, and still awesome. I love our things, as ramshackle as they are.

And look at my favourite BREAKFAST. Seriously, breakfast food is my absolute favourite. This scrummy plate was served to me right on the couch. I am very spoilt.

Seed loaf Fench toasts with cheddar and a liberal dollop of tomato sauce. Tristan makes them the absolute best. The story, however, is that stoneware plate with the Dutch design. I loved these plates the minute my parents bought them in the very very early 90s. I thought they were lost, little did I know Oumie had them and she carefully kept them all these years. Finding them after they cleared out her flat was like finding a present. Six perfect plates and side plates. I remember lugging them to school as a youngster for our 'restaurant day' and our wonderful English teacher telling me how beautiful they are. Years later, they are our everyday plates, and I still think they are beautiful.

Gillooly's in the last two weeks

Hamboogy!

ALMOST on a weekly basis Tristan and I engage in a delicate, potentially deadly, dance. I call it the Hamboogy…and we do it with our clothes on and our stomachs rumbling.

We are lazy eaters…the sort of eaters who wait until we are slightly dizzy from low blood sugar before we decide to make a plan for dinner.

Lately, the Food Network has intensified our dance. All it takes is 30 minutes of Food Wars before we are drooling, quivering, hungry, near-Hobbesian primates. But in polite society we refrain from hysterics and violence (only just!) in order to talk it through, strategise, put on our black leather gloves, rip out the laptops and think our way through it. The dance begins, it’s a delicate Cha Cha of modesty:

‘I’m starving!’

‘I could eat too.’

‘What do you feel like eating?’

Narrators note: instead of replying truthfully by saying ‘oh dear Lord, feed me the worst most shameless hamburger in the world with seven sides and at least 3 sauces’ we count on our dance partner cracking first in order to avoid seeming like the greediest pig in the relationship.

‘I don’t know, what do we have?’

‘There’s stuff for Greek salad and also some smoked chicken?’

‘Ahhh, I see, well then.’

‘What do you WANT to eat?’

‘Erm, well what do YOU want to eat?’

‘I could use a burger?’

Narrators note: at this point eyes twitch neurotically, stomachs contort with hunger a sweat may, or may not, have started to bead on our upper lips.

‘Well then, home made is healthiest, I mean we’ll have to see what stale rolls we can buy at the local this time of night but I am sure we can whip something up.’

‘Ahh sure, yes, home made.’

‘Or, we can get something to go.’

Narrators note: hope flashes between us, electric and full of possibility.

‘So do you want take out or do you want home made.’

‘Erm, whatever’s easy. I’m cool I don’t mind either way.’

Narrators note: the dancers get shaky with sheer hunger. Crankiness is starting to set in.

‘Just tell me what you want babe?’

‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’

‘I’ll take the shameless gourmet take-out burger with onion rings…’

‘Why didn’t you just say so?’

‘I eat ice cream for breakfast, I didn’t think I needed to say it…’

No offence to vegetarians, but we are proper meat eaters and FI's t-shirt here pretty much sums up our feelings on burgers.

---------------------------------------FiN-------------------------------------

Goodbye Baby Girl :(

OUR Zita passed away this morning, right after being readmitted to the vet hospital. Turns out, she is one of the 20% who just did not make it.

I am so heartbroken.

I love you baby girl and you have ripped open a huge void in my life that will never be filled. You'll ALWAYS be in my heart.

I wish that I could make you understand now, that I would have done ANYTHING, anything at all, to save you.

                                                                  xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Revengy Lovey Thesising

SO, as I mentioned in a previous post I am starting work on my Masters again. A brief recap: 75% of the work is done but there is 1.5 years sitting squat and terrible between now and the last time I worked on it.  Time is a miserable, impossible squatter to evict... or exorcise.  And I have tried dear interwebz, oh how I've tried.

So what exactly tempted me back into the madness of my Masters? A kindly old man, with a glint in his eye and a message to me sitting in my inbox...accusingly. The thing about literature professors is that they have an enormous gift with words. They can use words to accuse us to the point where we squirm in the agony of having disappointed them. Their words can, conversely, make our hearts swell with courage and with pride.

Damn them.

So the email I got was 'very innocent'. It starts: "Dear Y, I would like to know if you would be interested in completing your MA. If you are not up to it, I shall accept it and never say another word about it again, I promise." – At this point I can see big kindly Bambi eyes beseeching me to work with a wonderful professor.

"If you would be interested then I would be very glad for it and we can start work immediately!" – Uh oh, Bambi has that manic edge of a rabid animal about him...

How could I resist? The University scrambled to get me resources, from as far afield as a Women's College in Tallahassee.  Imagine that? All of that effort to HELP me...it's a humbling experience.

So, I pulled up my socks, put on my big-girl panties and started working on the beast again after all the years. With sheer determination and caffeine- fuelled rage I evicted the squatter that is time, cleared the cobwebs, wiped the floor, dusted the bookshelf, stole a more comfortable chair (hey, how do we embark on a romantic quest without a touch of theft?) and started afresh.

A trained eye would see the maroon of a stolen chair :)

It wasn't long, however, before I ran into a big fat Coxe. The world is crawling with Coxes, we have all had to deal with a Coxe here and there... but this specified, plodding, opinionated, Wordsworth disparaging Coxe has really funked my cool and slowed my stride.

Big old useless Coxe

So I am ignoring the giant Coxe for now, and moving on to a much kinder Winters or Lowell.

Wish me luck!

PS: Zita is doing well, we are collecting her today :)