Onwards and upwards.

 My Mother-in-law was a very practical person, and would often try to help me by showing me the right way to do things.  In my early years of marriage I probably wasn't as receptive to her advice as I could have been - youth doesn't often favour the wisdom of the next generation, I realise.  One of the useful habits I did pick up from her, was always to crack an egg into a cup or empty bowl, just in case it is rotten.  Then the whole mixture/ cake will not be wasted.  This advice stuck, and I still crack eggs one by one into a cup before adding them to a recipe, despite not often finding green eggs.  Yesterday was only the third time ever.

A rotten egg is pretty disgusting.  The greenish brownish slush stinks and needs a quick disposal to avoid stomach repercussions. And so the Malva pudding was saved yesterday, thanks to ancient wisdom.

I am not superstitious - I am perfectly comfortable with the number 13, black cats are delightful, and ladders are my friends (except when I broke a toe colliding into one whilst painting the lounge...) But rotten eggs make me uneasy.  I connect them with disaster.  There is a reason, which isn't very interesting, so I will skip the details.  It was  coincidences of bad eggs and bad news, but the feeling stuck.

So when I broke the egg yesterday my headspace looped into a bit of dread.  Easily shaken off with logic. Not so easily shaken off with heart.

What will 2024 be like? Andrew turns 60 in less than a month.  I will be turning 27 again in May (it will the 30th anniversary of my 27th birthday....) We are getting to the mildly decrepit stage of life.  I will give you an example:  we decided to go to the movies a few nights ago.  The film was bewilderingly bad, but we were happy that a) We had gone out, and b) The seats were really comfortable.  Sounds a bit fuddy duddy doesn't it!  So I am hoping to regain a youthful spark next year, and get stuck into some projects that are just for me.  For many a year it has felt as though I have been the background to other people's lives:  A support structure making sure they can get on with what they need to do.  But roles shift and change, and now maybe there is some more freedom to tentatively dip my toes in the ocean of otherness.

It is a bit of a void, and a little daunting.  Maybe that was yesterday's heart space.

Onwards and upwards, always....as we say in our family.  Happy New Year. May 2024 bring peace.

 

 

 

Documented proof that green eggs are not particularly appetizing at first glance.....

And on we go....

 2023.  Are you ready for whatever is going to be flung at us this year?  For South Africans, the year has started with up to 10 hours every day without electricity.  And the most upsetting part of this is the feeling of powerlessness that comes with it.  Frankly, it scares me.  There is no way an economy can grow, or even survive, without the power to work.  And from here, it is pretty much down hill into a deep, inextricable mire of societal issues.  Even more than we face now.

Despite my gloomy start to this blog, my year actually started off Very Well.  As midnight rolled the years over, we - the 5 of us - were still eating the feast that our son and his partner (S) had prepared for us in Cambridge.

  And what a feast it was - scallops on cauliflower puree with pomegranate seeds, cheese souffle, roast beef with potatoes and asparagus, and a rich chocolate tart - all locally sourced ingredients  cooked to perfection. What an immense gift to start the year surrounded by my lovely family.

Christmas was just as special.  S was still in Cape Town, so the 4 of us spent the most relaxing, leisurely day celebrating love, and being together.  Some days are stand out moments in life.  This was one of them.

We spent most of our holiday in Cambridge itself.  It is a beautiful place, small enough to have most things in walking distance, and big enough to find new places to explore every day.  I love the cobbled streets, the river, the quirky sense of humour scattered around the place.

(Check out https://www.dinkydoors.co.uk/ as an example.)

And we had SNOW.  It dazzled and delighted us. How wonderful to be surrounded by blankets of white fields.

We took a lot of photographs because snow is a strange phenomenon for us at the bottom of Africa. 

We ventured into London twice. (There is an excellent parking app if anyone is needing that sort of info - people let out their driveways or front garden space for a day, and it is much cheaper and works much better than trying to park officially anywhere in the outer London area. Park at the edge of zone 2, and use the underground - it's quick and affordable....)  Our daughter had prepared a "treasure hunt" (my description, not hers) and mapped out a route to see the unusual side of London.  So we went to Hoxton to see a Monster Supply Store.

  (It's really a front for something far more sinister than monsters - it raises funds for creative writing courses.  Monsters won't scare the world, but creative writing just might).  We found, after much searching, because it is UNDER the Bloomberg Building, the Temple of Mithras.
We went to Novelty Automation (https://www.novelty-automation.com/). We explored St Dunstans, a casualty of the second world war. Another treasure was an Algerian coffee store that has been around since 1887. 

Our visit there was fleeting because our feet were sore and it was raining.  We did the mainstream stuff too - Hamleys, Burlington Arcade, Selfridges etc and rocked up home at a respectably late 11pm.

I am worried I am making you all a little jealous, so I won't go on and on about all the fabulous times we had, or the delicious pub meals, or seeing beloved family, or the hilarious games we played, or our trips to Leicester, Norwich and Surrey.  Or the London Christmas lights and atmosphere, or the quirky house we stayed in (The house swap thing worked well) I won't even mention the Kings Speech bingo, or the swans on the river Cam. And I will avoid stories about the snow wanderings and wood fires with mulled wine. Suffice to say, you would have wanted to be there too.

I seem to have written myself out of my load shedding bad mood.  Remembering all the good stuff is an important balance when life seems a bit dark.  The Monster Supply store is definitely onto something- creative writing is an excellent way to tame a Kraken.

Happy New Year?

This year, for many people, Happy New Year was more of a hesitant question than the bold exuberant greeting.  For the buoyantly optimistic, it is the start of what has to be better times, but for many jaded people it is a whispered sigh of disbelief.  There is just too much sadness, confusion and tiredness going round to believe that this will, indeed, be a happier new start to the previous years.    

In decades past, Andrew's parents were part of the street party generation.  On old year's eve, the neighbourhood would gather with their filled tupperwares and bottles of wine and party the night away.  At midnight, they cranked up an old siren and welcomed the new year in loudly and enthusiastically.  My family of origin were often in Sedgefield and as there was no electricity (or water - we pumped our water supply by hand from ground water....), it was a quieter affair. I liked that we rolled with the rhythm of nature - sunrise and sunset being our clocks.  (The Fiddler on the Roof song comes to mind.....one year following another..........)

The turn of the century was probably one of my most memorable New Year's Eves.  We (Andrew, R and me - K was an unborn treasure at that point) went to Milnerton beach, and watched the fireworks across the bay.  Do you remember the underground panic that was doing the rounds at that time? The Y2K phenomenon was seen as a Clear and Present danger. The threat was all/most/some technology would stop working because of the date change. (Here's a wiki link for you Young People who haven't heard of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem ) January 1 2000 came and went and the Y2K worry faded into obscurity.  The scientists handled the problem, and the conspiracy theorists found themselves without a cause. If only 1 January 2022 could have been as unremarkable...

This year, we were roadtripping over New Year.  Andrew's sense of adventure (and direction) leads us on some offbeat paths.  We were cruising the dust roads in the mountains behind Barrydale when we came across 2 farm gates stacked one on top of the other.  Tall cattle we assumed.  Or giraffes, we laughed.  But no....rather unbelievably, we saw elephants. We had stumbled across a private nature reserve (in case you are thinking elephants roam the streets in South Africa....).  What a treat to observe these magnificent creatures. It felt like a gift.  Barrydale was lovely too, and we saw the new year in after playing board games with friends, clinking our sparkling wine just after 11.30 (I decided we had waited long enough!) 

But I am ever mindful of the time of loss we are in.  I think one of the greatest losses is our ability to have the confidence to be happy and care free.  We are all too aware how everything can be snatched away in the blink of an eye.  Life is fragile. 

Happy New Year?  Let's wait and see.

Magnificent animal

 

View from the stoep in Barrydale