Notes from an exhibition

Have you ever heard of a small Karoo town called Hanover? No - neither had I until last Saturday. 

 It is almost exactly half way between Johannesburg and Cape Town.  Andrew and I were travelling home from the ElectraMining exhibition and were just looking for a good night's rest.  But what we found beneath the dust and chipped paint of an old village, was a charming guest house with - and this was unexpected- the most beautiful stained glass windows. 

3 Darling Street, Hanover

Hanover is a small place. While we were waiting for our supper at the owner's pub, we left our drinks on the table and took a stroll around the whole village.  It took 15 minutes.  And we did sleep well - loadshedding meant that our government encouraged us to get an early night by turning off the lights at 8pm.

 

Which meant that we could get up early and watch the sun rise from the koppie* .I think this experience might be my highlight of the whole trip.  It involved soft, comforting light, a 360 degrees view of the karoo stretching 60 km into the distant landscape, a sense of peace and a white horse.

 

 

 

It had been a long (good) week.  ElectraMining is a trade show held every 2 years (covid excepting of course) that brings together suppliers and interested parties in all aspects of mining, in the automation, manufacturing and transport fields.  It is held at Nasrec in 5 large halls, with outside space offering excellent viewing of South Africa's Big 5 ( Articulated Dump Trucks, Excavators, Drilling rigs, Bulldozers and Graders) . I enjoyed meeting and speaking to the diverse visitors to the show - boiler makers, MDs, students, management , the curious and the amblers.  We are proud of our work and products, and although I am not a natural sales person, I have my Johannesburg persona, and she worked the floor!

It was exhausting.  Setting up the stand over the weekend after 2 days travel (we overnighted at Bloemfontein on the way up - a land locked city with a Naval Hill....) depleted energy levels.  We had taken up flat pack furniture from Decofurn (think Ikea) for the stand, and the instructions are wordless diagrams that are designed to entertain  (think Frustrate!!) rather than instruct.

By Monday I was feeling feverish and, I am afraid to say, I decorated the streets of Roodepoort with the contents of my stomach.  But we persevered, and ended the week on a high note, giving away in a lucky draw, a radio controlled excavator to one very happy stand visitor.

 

Other important notes and tips from the exhibition:

1. Take your own tea bags.  Coffee drinkers have the pick of the beverages.  You could have caramel coffee, chocolate coffee, frothy coffee, fancy coffee....but no tea. I bought a box of my favourite brand to see me through the exhibition. Towards the end of the week, the lady in hall 9 who dished out the free drinks to the exhibitors, saw me coming towards her, and kindly poured my hot water and milk.  And Andrew's cappuccino.

2. Wear shoes with ankle support.  In the past I have worn flat pumps.  Not a good idea.  This year, I wore closed boot type shoes (No high heels obviously) and my feet survived much better.

3. Proudly fly the flag.  We discovered we were opposite a very large stand offering vaguely similar technology to ours.  It was a foreign company, so we decided to play to our strengths of being a locally designed and manufactured product.  After an internet search we found some South African flags...at a local Chinese market.

4. Strangers are kind generally.  We needed some pages printed 5 minutes before the show opened on the first day. It was a bit of a panic. Printers were in short supply, but the person in the Media office helped with such a kind and gracious attitude.

5. Elevated altitude does not make you look younger. Johannesburg is  1753m above sea level (Cape Town).  We were automatically given the pensioners' discount at the food shop. Sigh.

6. Eye contact makes all the difference.  When talking to people, you can gauge their level of interest or persuade them to stop for a minute by making direct eye contact.  And smiling.

7. Believe in yourself.  One of the best compliments of the week was when someone asked me if marketing was my profession because he could see my passion for being there.

The end of exhibition look!!

 

* a koppie is the South African term for a small hill in a generally flat area.

 

Stationery v Stationary

I went to a school - Rustenburg- that demanded conformity and comparative excellence.  (Remember those dreaded mark readings at the end of term, all fellow Rustybug Ghurls.)*  Two areas of note for me were spelling and penmanship.  It was indeed a celebratory day in Std 4 /grade 6, when a pupil was allowed to move from writing with a pencil, to using a Tropen - a refillable fountain ink pen with a  split nib for very beautiful writing. 

I am not sure that cursive writing is still used in schools, but in my day, we had weekly handwriting classes, practicing light upstrokes, and hard down to create calligraphy styled letters. I am glad we were taught the precision of neat lettering, because it was in a way mindfulness before mindfulness became a thing.  And taking care with what you present is never a bad practice.  Possibly the competition aspect of the graduation could have done with an overhaul - we were always pitted against our classmates, and there was a rank in getting your Tropen sooner rather than later in the year.

 

 It was also in Std 4 that I spent most Thursday afternoons in detention.  To be clear, I was a conformist, and the detention was not about bad behaviour, but underachieving spelling test results.  I was a rotten speller.  Looking back, I think it was not so much about not being able to spell words - I was a voracious reader, and loved words in general - it was more about having the confidence to believe in myself that I could actually write and spell.  For years and years after school, I used to write with a dictionary next to me, and check and recheck the spelling of basic words which in my heart I knew were correctly written.  These days spell check takes away any angst.  I have also learnt the benefits of free writing - just getting the thoughts down on paper, and then coming back to correct grammar and spelling. 

We were taught little tricks to help with confusing words:  PENS, PENCILS and the such are Stationery, because they have "E"s in them.  The other Stationary was a stopped CAR, with an A in it.  It made sense to my 10 year old brain, and I (obviously) still remember it. 

By the time I was in high school, I had found the joy of writing.  It was, and sometimes still is, my preferred form of communication.  I spent my teenage years writing short stories, or poems, or sometimes doodling elaborate patterns, when writers' block took grip.

And still, when I am feeling Stationary - stuck in a rut, or unable to move an idea, I turn to Stationery to unclog my brain.  I write lists.  I write random thoughts, I write down some dreams I have.  I write to move on.

I was 6 years old when my grandfather died.  It is all a bit fuzzy, as old memories often are, but I do remember "inheriting" a battered brown suitcase that had belonged to him.  It was full of blank pieces of paper - lined, unlined, blocked, faded, A4, A5.  It was a treasure trove, and one of my precious childhood belongings.  Blank paper to you.  But to me, it was space for untold stories, a way to be heard, and a portal to a world that combines imagination and reality.

Fun fact for this blog:  If I am feeling overwhelmed or in need of a treat, I take myself off to the local shops and trawl around the stationery sections.  I found a delicate, blue Fineliner last week :)

* Mark reading was a gathering of the whole grade in the hall or library, and the headmistress would read out the academic marks.  Those with the highest grades, read out in order 1st, 2nd, 3rd......, were congratulated and sent away to bask in their success.  The rest waited in trepidation for our turn. It was a form of public shaming, but it worked in its own warped way.  I was determined to climb up the mark chain.  It was a dreaded day each term, and I wish we had rather been taught that education is not a competition, but a gateway to understanding ourselves in the world.

Ghurls is a phonetic appellative used by the Headmistress.  She encouraged us to speak as if we had a hot potato in our mouth.  (!) Ah, fond memories!!

With a bit of spit and polish, this old house will do nicely

 A few years ago we joined Home Exchange.  As implied by the name, it is a scheme to swap homes with another family anywhere in the world, to make holidays more affordable and comfortable.  We almost had our first swap a couple of years ago, but, you know, Covid...

 The angst that comes with leaving your home to strangers is real.  It's daunting. What if it isn't what they are expecting, despite the myriad of photos on the web?  We don't photograph the cracks or idiosyncrasies, do we. We wait for the light to be good, and take "best scenario" photos with the cushions plumped and slightly too short curtains gathered into a fetching pleat.

Or what about the practicalities? Friends who stayed in our house while we were away earlier this year, diplomatically pointed out that our house is, shall we say, "complicated". For us, it is just home, but for newbies getting the hang of the rain water toilet flushing system (and the pump decided to be glitchy just then) or that our hot water is solar panel heated except when it is too cold (and Eskom was making everyone's life difficult just then), or that our alarm is a little fussy about where on the pad you press the button (etc) can be challenging . We blip over all this stuff because we are used to our own muddles and systems, but for visitors it may require some explaining.

Which is why we are working on a home manual.  It includes all the basic information, and the quirks of the home: why our tortoises have to remain in their allocated garden sections; that a neighbouring cat likes jumping on the glass roof of one of the bedrooms (Alarmingly scary if you are not expecting it.) Or how some robins think this is actually their home, and fly in daily to see what's new and happening. Come to think of it , it is quite a long document.  (But indexed - order in chaos)

We are keen to go ahead with the house swap plan anyway.  We love our home, and hope whoever stays in it will love it too.

All this got me thinking.  According to good psychology, houses represent the Self in dreams.  And I wonder if the doubts about imperfections and quirkiness that I have about our home are similar to the doubts I have about myself.  I don't think I am alone here (or am I?) in thinking that sometimes we think we might disappoint others when they get to know the real deal, and not just the social or choreographed  images we share.  We all put on our "best scenario" selves in public, but what about the cracks and cobwebs?  Or perhaps I am too complicated, and sadly, no user manual can help with that - indexed or not.  External (what I look like, what I wear, for example) and internal (am I likeable, do I live my best) insecurities have almost always plagued me.  Nothing, and no-one is perfect, and that is something I can celebrate (yes, celebrate!) more and more the older I get.

I have a few houses that crop up in recurring dreams - one on a distant hill, one on a suburban road - the ying and yang of my life. And I still have dreams about projects I want accomplish and places I want to see in this vast world.  So house swapping seems like a really good idea.   Apparently a lot of home owners share my angst about their homes being suitable - there are lots of FAQ on the topic.

 With a bit of spit and polish, this old house will do nicely. 

 

Round the bend

I am learning to lean into the curves. This does not come naturally to me at all, as I usually strive for balance, which often means leaning the other way.  I am specifically talking about  being a passenger on Verdi, the Vespa.  When rounding a corner,  I have learnt to follow Andrew's lead, and relax into the direction of the bend, instead of my instinctive first thought to lean the other way.  Which is dangerous, of course.  I enjoy - no, love!- this new-to-us mode of transport.  Andrew has been telling me forever about his dream of getting a scooter for us to tottle around on in our advanced age, and finally after lock down, I made him an offer he couldn't refuse.  We had the Vespa within a week. 

As always, there have been some funny tales to tell along the way.  Standing in the traffic department queue to book a learner's licence test, the kind security officer offered to escort me to the front of the line in honour of my age.  (Sigh.  I am really  NOT THAT OLD).  I declined, but when I finally reached the desk and told the clerk why I was there, he told me that people older than 65 are not allowed to book learner's licences. (You are, btw, with a certificate of good health.  And I am NOT THAT OLD.)  It was a relief to pass the test, and not have to go through that ordeal again.  I have yet to get my motorcycle driver's licence though, which is why I am the passenger.....

One of the things I enjoy about Vesparating, is the immediacy of the senses.  For example, I could smell the horses when we rode through rural Constantia.  I can feel the wind over Ou Kaapse Weg.  Hearing kids laughter on the beach front at Kalk Bay. I think the helmet and leather jacket create an alter ego for me, and that makes me smile too.

I am learning to lean into the metaphorical curves too.  Sometimes it is counterproductive (even dangerous) to always try to balance things by leaning outwards.  Sometimes it is better to go round the corner without resisting, to relax into the issue instead of fighting it.  (Not always, of course)  And it helps to be travelling with someone I can hold onto and trust to navigate safely.  And, always to put safety first so that when we fall off the metaphorical bike, our heads and hands are protected with helmets and gloves of common sense and practical work. It has been an interesting lesson for me to learn.

Last weekend we went for a trip around the Atlantic Seaboard.  This is near Llandudno

 

There are other curves I am learning to live with too, the ones that come with eating too many slices of chocolate cake, or scones in this case :)

Tea at the Twelve Apostles Hotel

 

 

 

 

 

Verdi theVespa is green (rather obviously.)  A classical motor racing green, which was part of Andrew's vision.  We are safe, middle of the road riders and the fuel consumption is very low.  I am just telling you this in case any of you have an unfulfilled dream that needs to be re examined.  Sometimes we just need to Carpe Diem. Even if others think we are round the bend.

 

 

Picture Perfect

 Since we know each each a bit better now - you have seen the contents of my pantry, and had a look at other bits and pieces in the dining room - I thought I would invite you into the bedroom. I have thought long and hard about this, as some things are Pretty Personal, and this is, obviously, one of those spaces.  But here we go:  This is the painting that hangs on my bedroom wall:

I love everything about this water colour:  the tumbling water, the moody sky, the feeling of remoteness and tranquility of the countryside mixed with the chimneyed warmth of home. And a few stray sheep to add a sense of the space being inhabited.  We found this painting in the early 1990s, wandering around Art in the Avenue in central Cape Town. ( A space where artists would set up their work out in the open in the tree lined avenue next to the Company gardens, near St Georges Cathedral.  A wonderful wander on a Sunday afternoon, with squirrels to feed, and surrounded by heritage.) The art -and the artist- spoke to us and told us to buy it and enjoy it forever.  We listened, and over 30 years later, it still brings me an enormous sense of peace.

Fast track to 2004, about 10 years after our Sunday meander.  Something unbelievable happened.

We were purposefully lost, driving  an unplanned route somewhere in Yorkshire. The four of us were in the UK, travelling in a hired car off the beaten track because we were in no hurry, and wanted to absorb as much of the beautiful countryside as we could.  On reflection, kudos to our kids, who were 10 and 1 years old at the time, and quite happy to go on gentle adventures with us without traumas and tantrums. They were the easiest of travel companions. Anyway.   The road was narrow and winding, connecting hills with dales and only a squiggly thin line on the big paper map.  Not a major route or tourist path. Andrew slowed down, and then reversed the car a little, and we sat and stared, mouths open, in a mixture of wonder and disbelief.  This is what we saw:

I don't understand how that could be.  How had we managed to find the same river and the same house out of the millions and millions of possible places to travel?  It felt as though we had stepped through the picture frame in our home in Cape Town to a surreal reality.

It is hard for me to describe how much this experience means to me, or why. I just know that I felt a cosmic connection, a sort of bridge between imagination and reality, space and time, brush strokes and bricks and mortar.  It remains a deeply personal part of my life, a part that does not have to be understood, just enjoyed.

Art plays a role in the shared consciousness of us all.  It is a language that crosses continents and cultures, an expression of our interpretation of the world we live in and the lives we lead.  Every morning, I awake to see that the real and imaginary worlds have collided and it is possible to inhabit both simultaneously.   That is the gift of this painting that hangs on my bedroom wall.

 

 

 

The Great Easter Hunt

 When our two were little, Easter Sunday started with a treasure hunt : sometimes marshmallow eggs led them to a chocolate bunny,  or when they were a bit older, we drew maps or wrote cryptic clues. And when when one of them was diagnosed with type1 diabetes, the Easter bunny cannily switched to sugar free treats for a while. The process of finding was, I think, more enjoyable to them than the actual eating. As is often the case in life.

 I have studied the art of "finding things out".  The course module wasn't exactly labelled that, but part of my training to be a librarian, back in the dark days before online searches, was to learn how to ask the right questions, and find appropriate content of information to answer the queries from all types of people asking all sorts of questions.  Matching the right book to the right reader is a satisfying art and a skill worth having. ( I worked mainly as a reference librarian in the central branch of City Libraries). Some borrowers are more memorable than others, of course.  One particularly obnoxious woman begged me to get permission for her to borrow a reference book, which normally was not allowed out of the library.  She promised to bring it back the next day, and assured me, that as a minister's wife, she was particularly trustworthy.  Obviously, after I got permission from the head librarian, she disappeared with the precious book, and it took me weeks of phoning her and asking, pleading, reminding her, before she returned it without an apology. 

Librarians get twitchy about missing books, so I can only imagine the horror experienced by the staff at Cambridge University library in January 2001. The irreplaceable Charles Darwin  notebooks were nowhere to be found. These books dated from 1837 and contained Darwin's drawings and ideas about evolution by natural selection. It was an enormous loss to our civilization records. Twenty years is a long time for something to be missing, and hope of ever getting the books back must have been dwindling. It's is hard to keep believing that the books even still exist, let alone will be returned.

So the pink gift bag on the floor outside the Head Librarian's office a couple of weeks ago must have been an unexpected mystery. The message attached wished the librarian a Happy Easter ( maybe a nod to the concept of resurrection of the dead, and redemption through faith!)  The notebooks were returned in excellent condition, in the same blue box they had been stored in.  A good news story indeed.

While on the topic of Cambridge libraries, one of the privileged moments in my life was a visit to the Wren Library, Trinity. It is a restricted access place, so I could savor the books and manuscripts without crowds and noise.  Imagine gazing at an 8th century copy of St Paul's letters to the Galatians and Ephesians.  The  calligraphy and illustrations were breathtaking.

  A few meters away were Isaac Newton's handwritten notes.  A step to the right and Milne's original Winnie the Pooh manuscript and some unused illustrations by Shepard.  Some Shakespeare.  Some Milton.  Ramanujan's so called "lost notebook" (The Man who knew Infinity is a wonderful movie about this remarkable man - well worth seeking out and watching.) Such a collection of creativity and brilliance.  Just being in the presence of these great works enriched my life enormously.

So Easter can be a time of finding lost or new treasures.  Some treasure hunts are looking for happiness, some are looking for steps to lead us on to new beginning.  Sometimes we are just looking for chocolate.  

 

Creating safe spaces

 We all need a place of refuge.  That space that allows us to drop all defences, all other people's expectations of us, all their judgements and Just Be.  If you have crawled high up Maslow's Need hierachy*, that space is probably internal, and thus accompanies you wherever you go.  Some of us haven't got that far in the self actualisation pyramid yet:  I am one of those who needs physical places to retreat to while the world is at war.

Parenting is (or should be) the process of creating that safe environment for a child to test boundaries, explore, fall, jump, fail, learn and get up and dust themselves off.  Home should be a safety net for freedom. (This is what I hope Andrew and I have at least partially achieved these past three decades.)

But I am sorry to tell you that I created an unsafe environment for one of our baby tortoises at the end of last year.  I meant well.  I wanted the two littlies to have a larger garden to explore with more rocks and plants to discover : a bigger playpen.  So I bricked off a substantially larger space than they were used to.  And then we went away for four days.  Nano must have decided to explore the rocks, and he, I assume, got stuck on the top of a ridge in the sweltering heat.  I found his paper thin shell - that was all that was left- on a Friday evening.  Poor Nano.  I had failed him through incompetence and ignorance and being blase.  Kind people have consoled me that this is nature - everything and everyone dies - and in the wild many baby tortoises don't make it to adulthood.  But I feel guilty, and sad, and the heaviness can drag me down. Pico - the remaining baby tortoise - now lives in a crate:  a safe, contained environment.  But it must be boring, so everyday, I walk the tortoise, so she can eat the fynbos, and build leg muscles. I watch her carefully, mindful of the fragility of life.

Globally, safe spaces are becoming harder and harder to find.  There are so many people who have been displaced by the greed and atrocities of a few. We watch with horror as people are killed, houses are bombed, threats of escalation of hostilities echo around the media.  And yet this never ends.  There has never been a time in history without conflict.  

Leadership is (or should be) the process of creating that safe environment for citizens to thrive socially, economically, and personally. World leaders are doing a dismal job.  Which leaves it up to you and me to create peace, internally and externally.  This is not an easy task in these volatile times, but it is a brave choice we can make.  Peace (and a safe environment) requires hard work, careful thought, tolerance, patience and the strength of self to be able to admit we all fail, all make mistakes, all have things that we need to apologise for. 

I was mulling over safe spaces yesterday and landed right back in my childhood home, in a cupboard I used to crawl into when I wanted to retreat from the world or have a bit of peace and quiet. 

I was never lonely in there though, because it was crowded with a kitten, a wolf, a frog, a young girl, an old man and various other friends.  I collected Pelham** puppets. 

It was a wonderful obsession.  I still have all of them, and when our kids were little, we hung them on our dining room wall for fun. 

 

  I have since found more spacious, brighter places with real people ( and no strings attached) to go to when I need a break from expectations, judgements and the craziness of the world.  I get grumpy and lose perspective without these islands of centering. 

Imagine if everyone in the world felt safe.  I imagine there would be far less conflict.

 

 

* Google, of course, can offer introductions if you haven't met Maslow yet.  A simplified version  of the theory can be found at https://www.thoughtco.com/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs-4582571

 

** Pelham puppets were first manufactured by Bob Pelham in 1947.  Every puppet is handmade and hand painted so each has an unique appearance.  The clothing was also cut by hand.  They are true pieces of art. (imho)

 

 

Beloved Nano - RIP