Of Avocados and Guinea Fowl

 I have been floating in shallow water lately.  We took a week off and headed for Sedgefield. Picture this: a beautiful warm, (but not too hot) sunny day, a slight breeze, water lapping gently on the sandy shore and a shelf of water, warm because it is no more than half a meter deep.  Bobbing in the salty water is as close to feeling at peace with creation as I can be. My usually over active mind can be still and my worries can drift into nothingness.  It is a profound experience for me.  We rowed out in the trusty red row boat to a secluded spot across Sedgefield lagoon, and - unbelievably, because it is such a perfect day - we had the entire place to ourselves.  

Sedgefield is an outdoorsy place. I spent  most of the time there sitting on the stoep, mug of tea in hand.  Inbetween reading (Mother Mary Comes To Me - a beautifully written memoir), scrolling (I know, I know...) and playing board games, there was time to just Be. 

Stoep sitting is a family affair for us, usually each doing our own thing.  A couple of wild tortoises kept us company, munching on grass patches and getting chased by nosy birds.  Our other wild companions included guinea fowl.  (Named Guinea Flowers by our son when he was 4 after encountering them at Kirstenbosch botanical gardens.)  They are odd looking creatures - all scrawny neck, wild eyed and ineffectual flapping of wings.  They can actually fly short distances, but rarely seem to get the urge to bother.  Like us, they seem to enjoy doing things in family groups.  We would watch as they pecked and squarked around the garden too.  Sometimes they ran up and down the chicken wire fence, trying to get out.  Or in.  Or one was out and one was in, and they seemed agitated by this. Our lovely daughter would send encouragement out to them, as in "You can do it! Jump! Fly!", but English doesn't seem to be their first language as they ignored her.  Finally, in desperation to help, K  went to fetch the sliding gate remote and opened it so the creatures could walk through and be reunited.  Logic doesn't seem to be one of a guinea fowl's competencies either (they do have very small heads and brains) because they couldn't figure out this route either.  Compassionate K tried this a couple of times, but no luck.  The squarking continued.

 In their own good time, and without any human intervention, the birds flew over the fence and went on their cheery way.  Sometimes, with the best intentions in the world, we need to let problems resolve themselves because, try as we might, our solution is not what are needed right then.

The other occupation of stoep-sitting, is seeing the passing pedestrian traffic.  Some people greet and wave, others tug on their dog's leashes and move on quickly.  We are, after all, outsiders - it is a holiday cottage-  amongst an established suburb. (McLeary Cottage was one of the original dwellings in Sedgefield, built by my grandfather in the 1950s, surrounded by trees and not much else, so I rather feel like an original settler rather than an outsider.  The property now belongs to my brother.) 

One local resident waved, said hello, and then paused at our gate.  Unlike the guinea fowl, he knew what the sliding gate was for.  He sat with Andrew and me on the stoep and introduced himself as a new neighbour.  After the polite hellos and potted history which included his views on "The Covid Conspiracy", he came to the real reason for popping in.  The avocado tree.   Planted by my parents long ago, it is well established, tall and generous with making delicious avocados.  It overhangs the side boundary fence onto a copse owned by no one.  The problem though, he told us,  was that the local children from the over-the-hill, out of sight poorer area of Sedgefield, were picking the fruit and eating the avos.  Did we know?   We assured him we did, and that my brother really didn't mind - in fact he is glad the avos are harvested when we are not there and delighted they don't go to waste.  But, the neighbour continued, sometimes "the bicycle gang" jump the fence to take the avos from inside the property. He couldn't understand that my brother didn't mind this either.  South Africa has a huge economic divide, and food security is an everpresent issue.  Children die from lack of food (and hope) .

We would have to agree to disagree, and I wondered how I could encourage him to go away.  "You can do it! Jump! Fly!" I was tempted to say, but politeness won the day.

 I am hoping that this newcomer to Sedgefield will find the time to pop down to the lagoon and float in the salt water.  Maybe it's healing properties and calmness will create more space for a generous spirit and kindness.   

 There is little more comforting than being able to drift - arms outstretched- in a safe and buoyant environment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Colour me beautiful.

When I was 14, I went a pale shade of yellow.  It was not a good look on me, particularly as the whites of my eyes were more mustardy than light ivory. Luckily not too many people saw me looking like that as I was confined to bed for a couple of months.  I was in Standard 7, and missed the entire second term of schooling.  All thanks to hepatitis. I slept.  And slept and slept, waking only to eat some thin mixed vegetable packet soup - the only nourishment my body would accept.  I was aware that my grandmothers took it in turns to come and sit in the house with me, as Mom and Dad were working, but I don't think I was very sociable (or much trouble to look after.)  It was the better alternative to the hospitalization our friendly GP suggested.  

After my deep sleep (alas no handsome prince to hack through a thorny hedge pitched up to wake me...) I remember managing to do some needlework and some scrapbooking.  I found those large A3 blue-paged books a few months ago, and finally threw them out.  After looking at them again, of course.  I reread the notes my classmates sent me on a daily basis.  Not about schoolwork or what homework I was missing, but little bits about themselves and their everyday lives.  These notes were not just from my limited supply of friends either. People who were way too cool for me to have thought they even knew I existed, wrote regularly and kindly.  It was - and is - a huge gift.  To be included.  To be cared about. That kindness embedded itself in me, and lines the memory compartments in my head like a bubblewrap of kindness, cushioning other thoughts which may intrude.  People are generous.  People are thoughtful.  Thank you, classmates, for helping me get better.

After my yellow phase, I have - off and on- had blue phases, red phases, and green phases.  And now I think I am entering a Purple Period.

Did you know (I didn't, despite my being remembered by a work colleague as "that Librarian who spent
her spare time reading the dictionary....") that the word purple has an interesting derivation. Long story short it comes from a Greek word for Sea-slug, as the expensive dye was made from the creature's slimy mucus.  No wonder it was reserved for the rich.  I imagine a lot of mucus would be needed to create the aura of wealth associated with the cloaks of kings and priests and other members of the upper crust. These days you just need to combine some chemicals C₂₀H₁₂N₂O₂ and Voila!, (or should I say Violet!) the colour palette is available to the masses.  

 I nominated this year as my purple phase after looking out of my bedroom window to see tall watsonias waving to me. They were a vibrant, life affirming shade of beautifullness. And if I looked deeper into the flower beds, splashes of purple were popping up between the oranges and yellows and pinks.  Spring was a calmness of colour. (Sidebar: I was going to use the usual phrase "riot of colour" but the thought of associating the gift of a garden with violence, protest and unrest didn't sit well with me. End of sidebar.)

I am aware that these days purple is crudely made by mixing blue and red, if we are talking about primary school poster paint.  So maybe I haven't left my blue and red phases behind altogether, maybe I have just combined a splotch of a sadness with a dab of anger to create something more manageable - an understanding of purple. 

 

PS Who remembers that book, Colour me Beautiful, wildly popular in the 1980s, and prescribing what colours people should wear to enhance their natural beauty.  In my family it was always disparagingly referred to as "Colour me luvvvely."   It sat on my bookshelf for years before I tossed out (along with my shoulder pads) the notion of being told what colours I liked. 

 

 

 

 

 

Fools Gold

 We came pretty close to chucking up city life and buying a smallholding 23 years ago.  We had the offer to purchase papers in hand, pens hovering over the space for the our signatures.  The plan was to buy a beautiful, treed plot near Millwood in the hills behind Knysna, and grow carrots. Or was it radishes - I forget.  There was no electricity, no water on tap - just vast expanses of fertile land, a dam and a river and the peacefulness that isolation in the back of beyond offers.

The plot that got away...

  We hesitated long enough to see that we were really not being sensible, or fair to our son who would either  have to spend hours commuting to a school in Knysna or become a child of the forest like in a Dalene Matthee novel.  

Millwood is a breathtakingly beautiful area though, and I left a little bit of my heart there.  We have visited it on and off my whole life, as it is near Sedgefield where my family spent our holidays.   It is also a very interesting area for two reasons.  Firstly, the indigenous forests had been home to elephants. Sadly now only one is  known to be living wild, the herd having been hunted and frightened by urban creep.  Secondly the area is well known  because in the 1876, there was a short lived gold rush.  Millwood was the name given to the settlement that developed for the hopefuls. The gold yield was not enough to keep the mining going, and the tin homes and shops and taverns were abandoned.  One or two have been restored, and some of the mining equipment and caves are still there for exploration.  Jubilee Creek is an excellent spot for a visit and picnic and a wander in a stream. It is well worth the time when you are next visiting the Garden Route.

Overgrown mining equipment at Millwood

A lot of South Africa's wealth - and a large chunk of its misery - has been built on gold. Gold threads are woven into our history since it's first discovery in the  mid 1800s.  In 1967, the South African government decided to mint a gold coin to allow citizens to buy and own some of the wealth of the land.  So it said. And Andrew's parents decided to invest in 3 Kruger Rands (named after Paul Kruger - the President of the Boer Republic where gold was first discovered), one for each of their children.

Andrew remembers being given his.  His parents traditionally pushed coins into the steamed Christmas pudding, and when he was 18, his slice of pud contained this generous gift covered in brandy sauce.  It was a rainy day investment, and one which needed to be kept safe.  After we married, and moved into our tiny fixer-upper home, we chose a cunning hiding spot to fool any would be intruders (and we did have a couple of those who helped themselves to our worldly goods.)  When we put some extra electrical plugs in the house, we hid the Kruger Rand in the wall socket and screwed on the plug coverplate.  Brilliant hiding spot, don't you think?

So good in fact that when we moved 8 years later, in the chaos that packing up one's life entails, we forgot.

It plagued us for a long time.  Perhaps we had hidden it so well that it was still there, and we could retrieve it. It felt like unfinished business, something that needed a resolution. The house had passed through a couple of families before we plucked up the courage to give it a go.  Armed with photographs of us (looking so young!) and our house renovations to prove we were the legitimate owners of the coin, Andrew rang the doorbell.  The new owners were charming, and obliging, although they said, they had had electricians in to create double plugs, but Andrew was welcome to look. Screwdriver in hand he removed the coverplate. Obviously the treasure was gone. 

It had been a fool's errand and yet it was an important one.  We no longer wondered if the investment was there waiting to be found.  We could make peace with the fact that we had made an expensive mistake and there was nothing we could do about it.  We could - finally - let it go. In fact we could even hope that the coin was a windfall that the finder truly needed and somehow we had inadvertently put some good back into the world.  (That is just a fantasy - new found gains can also be destructive.)

Also, I realised, I tend to hang on to past mistakes for far too long, hoping to go back and see if by magic I can undo them.  I can't. But it is good to get resolution and not always be wondering "what if." Let it go, Wendy, let it go.

Besides I have unminted wealth that can't be locked away in hiding places.  And I am pretty sure my children are grateful I didn't send them out elephant hunting or panning for gold in Jubilee Creek in their formative years. One day I will ask them.

 

 

Bagpipe lessons

 

Not very many months ago, Andrew woke up from a good night's sleep and announced he needed to learn to play the bagpipes. Just like that.  So he did the research, found a group and asked if he could have a look.  Looking turned into wild enthusiasm, wild enthusiasm turned into the purchase of the required chanter, and the purchase turned into daily practice.  His only regret, he says, is that he didn't start sooner.

There comes a time when we all think that: I wish I had done something earlier in life.  For me, that wish is that I would have liked to write a moderately successful novel.  Nothing flashy - just a masterly crafted, well thought out, gripping tale of intrigue, grounded in a rich tapestry of well rounded characters' lives.   Luckily I don't take myself too seriously, and can chuckle at such grandiose ambitions.  I am happy to scribble stories into soft cover A5 notebooks which I chuck away when they are full. 

But the concept of You Are Never Too Old to Learn is an excellent one.  I remember the awe I felt when I was involved with adult literacy and I watched people who had been denied an education determinedly and patiently tackle letters and sounds until they could read. The age group ranged from thirty to eighty, and the stumbling blocks  (economics, home language, work and family responsibilities...) gigantic. But determination is a great empower-er, and that is worth remembering.

Being open to learning is perhaps one of life's greatest skills.  It requires a healthy sense of self, so we don't feel we  have to go around proving ourselves or always being right. Or always knowing.  I wish the education system taught the art of questioning in the curriculum.  I would have benefitted from that as a teenager. And as an adult.  

Some questions we need to ask are not just about how things work or gaining skills.  Some are about the why and wherefores of human behaviour. Starting with the self, of course.  I want to know where I fit in the world, and who I am in relation to you.

Andrew's bagpipe group spends time socializing after practice.  This give the experience a wholeness, I think, and this camaraderie is crucial to the learning process.  He is still on the chanter phase - the bags and pipes will follow in due course - and he can knock out quite a few recognisable tunes.  I am looking forward to following his progress, and will, I promise, post a photo when he reaches the full regalia stage.  I think a kilt will suit him.

As for me - well who knows.  maybe after a good night's sleep I will one day know exactly the plot of my unborn novel.  And I will need to write it. In the meantime I will make a list of all the other things I wish I had done earlier, and see how many of them I can tick off in the coming years.

 

  

Weeding after rain

 It has been a wet winter - one that reminds me of childhood.  Rain has lashed the windows for  days on end.  There have been big puddles to splash in, the odd rumble of thunder and cold winds.  It has felt like a proper Cape Town winter.  This past weekend the sun smiled weakly on us, so once the washing was hung, I decided to do my Sunday meditation by gardening.  Weeding, mostly.  The ground is wonderfully soft from all that rain and that makes it easy to de -root the pesky onion grass. It was satisfying work and at the same time I could admire all the bulbs that are shooting up after the rains, and imagine the riot of colour that will hopefully fill the garden in a couple of months.

 The only thing about weeding in wet soil, is that a lot of the ground tends to come out with the pulling.  A dilemma!  I didn't want to knock the roots - the onion grass seedlings  fall off and reroot themselves and multiply the problem.  But neither did I want to throw away the excess soil  - what a waste that would be.  The obvious answer was to get the inherited garden sieve out of the wendy house, but I didn't fancy that time consuming and laborious task one little bit.  Plan B:  allow the sun to dry the weed pile and then it would be easy to separate soil from spoil. 

Sometimes when I am working through the weed -thoughts of my life,  the task is easier to do if there is some moisture around (so to speak.)  Weed thoughts are those things that choke out the happier memories - we all have them - the regrets, the if-only's, the painful bits of relationships, health wobbles...  And the moisture is a good old fashioned cry.  I remember when I was younger and could snot my way through a box of tissues. Crying was a relief, and I recall sleeping deeply after a good howl. These days, I can (and do) tear up  quite frequently and easily, but I seem to have lost the ability to commit fully and do those embarrassing sobs.  So working through whatever is bothering me seems like hard work at the moment.  I have to dig deep to get to the root of what is going on, and sometimes the thought breaks before I can pull it out because the mind soil is arid.

Of course there is always the danger of pulling too much out when I am weeding, and getting a little too enthusiastic about trimming, so careful, mindful work is required if I am not to destroy the roots of the wanted plants.

I am quite proud of my system of letting the sun dry out the weedpile before separating the weed from the chaf .  It is energy efficient and effective.  I can return the soil to the flowerbeds and encourage new growth.  Airing our sadnesses for a while is a good idea; allowing happy memories to dry out the other ones will allow us to reuse the good, and compost or destroy the unwanted.   The patch I weeded last weekend is looking better - the ground looks richer and neater and less cluttered.

And it very much looks like it is going to be a beautiful Spring.

 

 

Legacy

 

As a child I was drawn to owls, giraffes and ducks, a diverse collection of  creatures that held my attention and seemed to resonate with my anima.  I was at that stage when I had just graduated from thick chunky crayons to the magical Crayola box with a sharpener. Remember those?  A coveted item in childhood.  The giraffes I drew all had the the requisite long necks, but rather stumpy legs, if I recall correctly.  Probably because I misjudged the length of the page and proportions weren't high on my priorities list.  Owls were easier, as I had a stock standard oval shape I used, with the wings being part of the round body, and the beak and eyes being the focus of the drawing.  And ducks?  Maybe I drew them because my mother made me an appliqued duck cushion which I hung onto like a Linus blanket.

My mother believed in creativity.  Every week she schlepped me off to the Frank Joubert Art Centre (Now the Peter Clarke centre) and waited the hour in the car while I was allowed to express myself messily on paper.  The thing about that art centre is that it taught me true art - they encouraged us to find our own visions, and no two children's project looked the same.  They actively discouraged colouring in books or even keeping colour within the lines.  This was a stark contrast from my school art.  Two teachers in particular would make us 6 and 7 year olds copy their drawings by making us all draw the same shape at the same time, and add to it as instructed until all 30 pictures were identical to theirs and to each others.  It was really boring. 

Art is about believing in the self, and being in an environment that encourages, rather than frowns upon,  seeing things from different angles. I am forever grateful to my mom for this gift.

She also used to take me to museums during the school holidays.   We would wander together around these treasure troves of the past, and see history through the eyes of those who lived through it.  Or at least through those who curated the exhibitions.  Mom looked for the unusual places in addition to the larger well known places. I loved our times together, creating memories while observing them.

But perhaps most importantly, Mom believed in reading and libraries.  When we were small children, Pinelands did not have an official library.  Undaunted, Mom drove us to Mowbray to use the City Libraries stock, and when I had outread that children's section, she took me to Goodwood.  All of these were out of her way activities, and considering she was juggling 4 children, running a household and a full time job, the sacrifice of her time cannot be underestimated.  She nurtured my love of reading - a skill and a pleasure that I can't imagine life without.

It is Mom's birthday today, and this year, the loss of her presence is hitting especially hard. I remember sitting in the car with her after the doctor had told us there was nothing more medicine could do for her (in 2018), and admitting to her that I couldn't imagine a world in which she did not exist.  But the world keeps revolving and my own children carry her legacy with them - they too are creative, intelligent, thoughtful beings.  The circle of life enfolds us all and carries us through the sad days.

 

Mom and her parents in the 1950s

 

 

 

Journey into the interior

Freedom was calling.  The convergence of a long weekend and a Home Exchange request from three Italians visiting Cape Town en route to AfrikaBurn, meant one thing:  Road Trip!

Andrew hauled out the unwieldy huge paper map which has all the roads we have travelled marked in red kokhi, and looked for a gap in the squiggles.  Our fingers landed on the tiny dot of Heidelberg, a small country village most famous for its petrol station.  And the attached Wimpy restaurant, of course.  We had whizzed past it umpteen times on our way to Sedgefield, but we have never  ventured off the National Road.  Why would we?  Our expectations were not high.

But it is a lovely little gem at the start of the Garden Route.  What we found was a beautiful, green country village, brimming with quirkiness, history and friendly people. We stayed in a unusual, hand built (by the owner) French styled chalet.  It was set in a garden of peacefulness.

  Perfect.  When we weren't eating or playing board games (no Scrabble or Crosswords this time!!) we sat in the garden and read our books.  We did stir our stumps to wander through the village, turning left at the railway line on day 1, and right on day 2.  Heidelberg is proud of its history - many of the buildings have information boards up and we could piece together parts of the Anglo Boer War conflicts that happened in the area. It was a complicated time in South African history, and one which casts long, dark shadows on British colonialism.  

One building in particular intrigued me.  It was a corner shop with Christmas decorations still in the window, despite Easter having just come and gone. (Perhaps its a place where time stands still.) It was not one of the most attractive buildings in the area, being drab and non descript.  I would have walked straight past it if it had not been for the information board. 

In 1901, the British opened fire on the Afrikaner Commando with casualties on both sides.  The British didn't want to admit that there had been losses on their side and so buried the bodies of three soldiers under the floorboards of this building.  Their skeletons were discovered when renovations took place, and the good people of Heidelberg held a Town meeting. They decided to leave the bones there and concrete over them, so I assume, they are still there.

The thing is, when South Africa became a Union in1910, Britain agreed to hand over all property and grounds to the new South African government with the exception of grounds where British soldiers were buried.  That means that this corner shop is technically on British soil.    How weird is that!

 We all have skeletons we have buried (don't we?) .  Often when renovating our lives we decide to leave them there and concrete over them.  That's ok, I think, as long as we remember they belong to foreign powers. I wonder though if the families of those three British soldiers would have been comforted to know what really happened to their sons, brothers and fathers.  Covering up old wounds is not always helpful for the survivors.  Sometimes admitting our losses rather than trying to pretend they didn't happen is the more helpful route.

Our road trip took us over little used mountain passes, through landscapes that morphed from verdant pastures to rocky outcrops.
It reminded me that adventures are easy to find close to home and that sometimes deviating from the main roads can take us on an enlightening journey of discovery.