21.6.09

Julie Andrews and Favorite Things

A friend sent me this in an E-Mail and I am sure that if you are old enough (like me) to remember the legendary movie, Sound of Music, you will enjoy this as much as I did. I think Julie Andrews is a beautiful lady and I am still a fan of hers to this day.

To celebrate her 69th birthday (can you believe it?) she made a special benefit appearance at Manhattan's Radio City Music Hall. One of the musical numbers she performed was "My Favorite Things" from "Sound Of Music". She used the following lyrics and it is much better if you sing it out loud to yourself. (I can fully identify with these new Favorite Things.


Botox and nose drops and needles for knitting,
Walkers and handrails and new dental fittings,
Bundles of magazines tied up in string,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Cadillacs and cataracts, hearing aids and glasses,
Polident and Fixodent and false teeth in glasses,
Pacemakers, golf carts and porches with swings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

When the pipes leak, When the bones creak,
When the knees go bad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don't feel so bad.

Hot tea and crumpets and corn pads for bunion s,
No spicy hot food or food cooked with onions,
Bathrobes and heating pads and hot meals they bring,
These are a few of my favorite things.

Back pain, confused brains and no need for sinnin',
Thin bones and fractures and hair that is thinnin',
And we won't mention our short shrunken frames,
When we remember our favorite things.

When the joints ache, When the hips break,
When the eyes grow dim,
Then I remember the great life I've had,
And then I don't feel so bad.



It is reported that she received a standing ovation from the crowd that lasted over four minutes and repeated encores. I am not surprised and can you believe she still looks like fifty?

19.6.09

Road Trip to Bloemfontein

I love going on a road trip. We live in Limpopo, the most Northern province of South Africa and my husband's family all live near the coast in the Western and Eastern Cape, the most Southern provinces. We try to visit them every three years and this means travelling about 4,000 kilometres by car over a period of three or four weeks.

On these trips, we are never in a hurry and we stop regularly to fill up with petrol, have meals, freshen up or sleep over if it is near nightfall. We travel on the N1 highway all the way from home into Cape Town, 1,700 kilometres away. This is the major, very busy, road to Africa. It runs all the way from Cape Town to the Zimbabwean border where it changes names and continues up into Africa.

Dotted all along the N1 are large, modern petrol stations where you can stop to refuel, have a meal in one of the restaurants and freshen up in clean and comfortable restrooms. Another option is to turn off the highway into one of the many towns and villages if you want to experience the unique hospitality of rural South Africa. Some of the best meals I have ever had were in these villages, feasting on the matchless lamb chops of the Karoo.

When I was a child, road trips were never this comfortable, but they were equally exciting. The longest road trip we ever quite regularly undertook was to visit my grandparents in Bloemfontein, about 200 kilometres away in the Free State. There were two routes to Bloemfontein, one via Petrusburg, a gravel road in those days but now the beautiful new main road, and the tar road through Boshof and Dealesville, the road we travelled. Before my father bought the Humber Hawk, his new car, he drove an old Nash. In those days, driving an old car meant regular stops on your way to anywhere further than 50 kilometres away. Pit stops to check the oil, check the petrol, check the water, check the tyre pressure, etcetera, etcectera. Thinking back, I sometimes get the impression that these old cars used more oil and water than petrol.


(Dutch Reformed Church and Anglo-Boer War memorial in Boshof)

Our first stop on the way to Bloemfontein would be at Boshof, 52 kilometres out of Kimberley. Boshof was a tiny, farming village that consisted mostly of traditional "nagmaal" houses, where farmers from the outlying farms would come to spend a week or weekend every three months when the Dutch Reformed congregation gathered for Holy Communion

There was one filling station (garage as it is known in South Africa); a general dealer, selling everything from groceries to car parts and animal feed; a hotel with the inevitable "lounge" (for the ladies) and bar (for the men) attached. The cafe where you could buy cold-drinks, ice cream and sweets for the children was part of the garage. The black population lived on the edge of town in a "location" but I have no idea what it was like in there as it was unthinkable for a white person to go into a location in those days. This was, and in many cases still is, a typical rural village in South Africa.

(A group doing Volkspele at the Voortrekker Monument)

Boshof might be small, but it has a number of historical and interesting chapters in its history. This is the birthplace of Volkspele, the traditional dance of the Afrikaner nation. Afrikaans people did not have a traditional dance, probably because of their difficult history and serious, religious lifestyle, but in 1912, Samuel Henri Pellisier, who was a teacher in Boshof (at the Rooidak school for those who know the town), visited Sweden and attended an evening of folk dancing with friends. He was very impressed with the dances and when he returned home, he adapted four of the Swedish dances and taught them to his pupils. The four dances were first performed on 28 February 1914 at a picnic on the farm Vuisfontein, 3 km outside Boshof and today this spot is graced with a monument marking the spot where Volkspele originated.

In the Boshof cemetery the graves of several well-known figures can be found. Charles Marais, brother to the famous author Eugene N. Marais, and Speaker of Parliament was buried here as well as a number of British soldiers who died in the Anglo-Boer War. One of them, Sergeant Patrick Campbell, was the estranged husband of the actress Beatrice Stella Tanner (stage name Mrs Patrick Campbell) who was the mistress of George Bernard Shaw at the time.

(Depiction of the Battle of Boshof on the statue to De villebois-Mareuil in France)

The original grave of Colonel Georges Henri Anne Marie Victor, comte de Villebois-Mareuil is also here and although the original gravestone, paid for by Lord Methuen, is still here, his body was reinterred at the Burgher Monument at Magersfontein in 1971. In 1895, De Villebois-Mareuil resigned his post as Colonel in the First Foreign Legion of the French Army and joined the Boer forces as General of International Forces to the Free State forces. He led a party of about 75 foreign volunteers (French, German, Dutch and American) and 11 Boers, to blow up a bridge on the Modder River, South of Boshof. On 5 April 1900, they encountered a British force of 750 men and 4 field guns under leadership of Lord Methuen. In this battle, to become known as the Battle of Boshof, De Villebois-Mareuil was killed by a bombshell. The Comté Pierre de Bréda and the Russian Prince Bagratian of Tiflis was killed in the same battle. A monument was later erected on the Farm Middelkuil, 10 kilometres East of Boshof, where the battle took place, to commemorate this battle.

(Bronze statue of Sol Plaatjes in the Sol Plaatjes Museum in Kimberley)

Boshof is also the birthplace of Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje, one of the most gifted and versatile black South Africans of his generation. He was in the forefront of the public affairs of the African people for the greater part of his adult life as politician, writer and journalist. He was born on the farm Doornfontein on 9 October 1876. Plaatje belonged to a small group of mission-educated African intelligentsia that in 1912 founded the South African Native National Congress, the organisation renamed in 1926 as the African National Congress and he served as Secretary General to the ANC. He is buried in the West End Cemetery in Kimberley. The Sol Plaatje Municipality, in which Kimberley is situated, was named in his honour.

(An example of the San Rock Art found in the Free State)

My spinster aunt nursed an old gentleman, Gerrie Wessels, on the farm Merriesfontein for a period and once, on our way to Bloemfontein, we stopped off here to visit with her. The younger Gerrie Wessels, son of my aunt's patient, took us children to look at the San rockpaintings on the farm. This was my very first experience of this indigenous group of people that lived in my country long before my ancestors arrived on its shores.

From Boshof the road turns South East to Dealesville, our second stop. However, Dealesville will have to wait for another day. As they say in the classics: To be continued....

PS: Thank you to all the unknown photographers who supplied the photos.

16.6.09

Child of my Child

Child of my child, Heart of my heart

Your smile bridges the years between us
I am young again …
discovering the world through your eyes
You have the time to listen
And I have the time to spend.
Delighted to gaze at familiar loved features…
made new in you again
Through you …I’ll see the future
Through me…you’ll know the past
In the present… we’ll love one another
As long as these moments last


I have never posted about my granddaughter. Why? I do not know, but just maybe it is because my feelings for her is so deep and so strong that I am a bit jealous of sharing them, and her, with the rest of the world.

My son was only twenty, and her mother only eighteen, when she came into our lives. They have known each other for many years and it was accepted that they would get married sometime in the future. Still, the news that they were to become parents at such a young age, came as a huge shock and cause for dismay. Little did we know at the time that those feelings of dismay would turn into feelings of pure joy... Joy that this little bit of humanity would bring into our lives.


I love my own children and adored them as babies, yet it did not prepare me for the feelings that I experienced when I held her in my arms for the first time. It was quite overwhelming! Bonding was instant and this has not changed in the past seven years.

From birth she spent part of every day with us in our house as her mother lived only a couple of houses away. She even lived with us for a month when she was eighteen months old. Unfortunately her mother and her father eventually drifted apart and over the ensuing couple of years, her mother moved around a number of times but we always managed to see her regularly, even when they were living in Durban and Cape Town, many hundreds of miles away.


(Happily asleep where she belongs... in her Oupa Eddie's chair - Dec 08)

She is now seven years old, in school and living 500 kilometres away, yet she is still as much part of our family as any one of my own children and of course, equal to my own children and yet quite separate from them, she holds her very own, very special and very permanent place in my heart.

A Tiny Miracle Update

Three months ago I published a post in which I told you all about this tiny baby girl that was born at 28 weeks gestation, weighing only 890 grams. She was born on a Saturday and was so strong that her oxygen support was removed on the Monday. With it I published a photo of her in her ICU "tent", just a little baggage of skin and bone with pipes everywhere
.
Well, that was three months ago. Here she is now! A true beauty and the pride of her parents.

My only comment? "GOD IS GOOD!"

15.6.09

Back to the Garden

I love gardening, but over the last couple of years, for various reasons, I have left the gardening to Hubby. He is not a keen gardener and the result was that the garden was just kept from returning to its natural state of Bushveldt chaos. (Maybe that is a bit unfair as it would probably do the same with me). When the Summer rains begin, the Bushveldt and everything growing in it, explodes with life and keeping up is very difficult. If you do not cut back trees, shrubs and other larger plants on a weekly basis, you will very soon lose the battle against nature reclaiming what us humans seized from it.
Lately, mostly inspired by Arley, (http://theodonnell7.blogspot.com/) I have experienced pangs of guilt and sudden urges to start gardening again. This lady must have Superman as one of her ancestors as she definitely has some of his genes in her make-up. She takes care of her house, her beautiful and delightful children, does home schooling, keeps up a very interesting blog and is currently well into her sixth pregnancy. Yet she still finds time and energy for gardening. I honestly do not know how she manages all that but she is a definite inspiration (not to mention challenge) for me.

So, on Saturday morning, as I said, inspired by Arley and I suspect more than a bit by guilty feelings about all the champagne I consumed on Friday night after finding out that I am going to become a grandmother again, I decided that today is the day that I will tackle the jungle around my house and push nature back to where it belongs. Into some nice loose gardening clothes and old tackies (my favourites) and out came the spades, rakes and pruning shears.

I decided to start outside the backdoor (the door on my stoep) as this is the part of the garden that I look out onto when I am busy on the stoep. As you can see from the photos, it was a lovely sunny day and within the first fifteen minutes, off came the long sleeves and on went the short. Although it is the middle of June we have really not had cold weather. During the week it was overcast with very gentle rain on and off, but the temperatures remained mild. As a result of the rain the soil was soft and smelled heavenly - fresh and rich and I really enjoyed getting my hands into it and some of it under my nails for a change (I have actually forgotten many of the little pleasures of gardening).

Finding this beautiful fungus shortly after I started was a real surprise. It is really big - bigger than a dinner plate at least. I accidentally stepped on it while it was still hidden and even my considerable weight did not do much damage to it. The photo does not do justice to it's rich brown and green colours, but it is all I have. (Hey, I never claimed to be a photographer!)
Once I cleared the old growth and cut back the overgrowth from the summer, I started lifting the Cannas that grew in this bed before, but then decided to leave them as their foliage makes a beautiful show against the brick wall. I will just plant something smaller with different foliage in front of them to create a bit of contrast and interest.

It was when I decided to fill some pots with soil from this bed for later use, that it went all-wrong and I found out that a rake makes a pretty good substitute for a crutch! I carried one of the pots of soil (not even big or heavy) to put it out of my way and when I put it down, I did not do it properly (you know, bending the knees!!) and twisted my back. So my gardening came to a sudden halt for the next two or three days! (I must really get used to the idea that this body I am living in is not keeping as young as the person living in it!).

Luckily the kids were home for the weekend and I could spend most of the time on my back on the couch while they took care of whatever needed to be done. Oh well, I guess I needed the rest also...

PS: I am determined to be back in the garden soon and will keep you updated.

14.6.09

I'M HAPPY, HAPPY, H-A-P-P-Y!!!!

Elizabeth Stone said that having a child is momentous as it means "forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body". I have experienced this very wise quote to be true with all three of my own children and even more with my grandchild.


I LOVE BABIES!

I love the smell of them...
freshly bathed
or freshly soiled

I love the feel of them...
softly peaceful

or rigidly indignant

I love the sound of them...
murmuring gently

or venting ear splittingly

I love the look of them...
angelically sleeping

or angrily demanding

Most of all what crumbles my heart
is their absolute honesty
their total trust
their utter dependency
without expectations of gain.

(Here ends being mature and calm and sensible!)

.....AND WE WILL HAVE ONE OF THOSE IN THE FAMILY AGAIN EARLY IN THE NEW YEAR! YEAH! (Jump, jump, dance, dance, scream!).

My son and daughter-in-law are pregnant after making us wait for almost two years! How will I survive the next couple of months until he/she or they arrive? I cannot wait!

11.6.09

Mama Lotto - a remarkable person.


This morning I received what would have been an extremely exciting E-Mail, if it was not a scam. This is the opening sentence of the E-Mail:

"GOOGLE GIVE-AWAY WINNING NOTIFICATION!!!
This E-mail is to inform you that your e-mail emerged as a winner of £500,000.00 GBP (Five Hundred Thousand British Pounds) in our online Give-away draws.....".

If only it was not sent from a "hotmail" address, I might have become a little excited! However that made me think again of Lydia Nkoma.

Lydia came into my life in 1982, shortly after my son was born. I did not have a maid at that time as I did not work and could handle my household quite comfortably. One afternoon while I was kneeling in the garden weeding a flowerbed, this pair of rather thin black legs appeared next to me and a heavily accented African voice asked me if I needed a maid. I did look up but did not even stand up and replied, rather rudely I guess, that I did not need a maid and in any case, no maid could keep my house in order like I could myself. The thin black legs turned and walked away.

A couple of days later, I was busy bathing my baby son and heard a knock on the backdoor. Thinking that it was one of my neighbours, I called out to come in. Who would appear, but the very same thin black legs... this time with a body and face attached. She stood in the door with her hands on her hips and said: "I can clean your house better than you can" as if we had our first conversation only a minute earlier. To fully appreciate the moment, you must understand that in those years no black person spoke that cheekily to a white! For heaven's sake, we were in the middle of APARTHEID!

This attitude and the proud way in which she held herself, fascinated me but I had to tell her that with me not working, I could not afford a maid. She explained that she has three children back home and their father left her and she does not know where he is. She has a common-law husband now who takes care of her and her children but he wants her in Pretoria where he works and she is in desperate need of somewhere to stay. Her children lives with her mother in Naboomspruit, which in those days, were a little village somewhere in the back of beyond that I have just heard off but has never seen. After some discussion, I hired her for an absolute minimum wage and free accommodation in the outside room.

We very soon became much more than madam and maid. There was a very proud, intelligent and wise person living in that thin body and we connected in a way that persons of different races in those days just did not connect and we became firm friends. She was extremely capable and by the time my son was eight months old, I returned to work as by then, she had taken over the running of my home as well as the care of my son to such an extent that I felt quite comfortable going to work and leaving him with her. Of course, with me working, I could also pay her a much better wage.

She stayed with us until my husband was transferred to Saldanha at the end of 1985. When we moved to Naboomspruit in 1989, one of the first things I did was set out to find Lydia. This I did very quickly as Naboomspruit was still a tiny village then. We met again and I was very happy to find out that her children were quite grown up and settled and that she had a very good job in Potchefstroom.

This story has a very happy ending. In 2002, Lydia struck gold... she won R10,2 million in the Lotto (South Africa's official lottery). I was very excited and happy for her but I was a little concerned about what all this riches would do to her as a person. How would it affect her? How would she cope with all the hassles that would come with so much miney? I need not have worried. When I met her again a few weeks later, there she was, still walking all the way from her home to town to do her shopping, still wearing the same style of clothes and headdress (headdress is a bit of a status symbol in the African community) and still living in her old rundown house. All that money did not spoil her on little bit. Really a person with remarkable strength of character.

Today she owns a car and has a driver that drives her around, but when she sees me she still rushes over and gives me a huge hug. She is known as Mamma Lotto in the black community and is known for all the good she does with her money. She now lives in a beautiful new home (built on the exact spot where her old rundown house stood), but this house she had built only after she had a house built for her sister and a new church building for her congregation.



PS: Must remember to ask her if she has a job for me when I see her again!

8.6.09

Home, Sweet Home

How I love my little rural village. Two traffic lights, one shopping centre, eye contact, greeting, lots of parking, open spaces, friendly smiles... all so different from the city.

I lived in various cities for many years and I used to love it, but no more, I have become accustomed to better. At one time on Saturday, I was waiting for Liz (my daughter) outside a shop and as I watched the passersby, I realised that they do not make eye contact, they all try their utmost to ignore everybody around them.

Then I purposely tried to catch their eyes and when they did make eye contact, I smiled at them. Their reactions were quite amusing. Some started smiling back (oh, here's somebody who knows me), then a sudden, penetrating look (oh no, I do not know this person) and then a really artificial smile (but just in case it is someone I should know...). Others just looked away quickly. Well, anyway, I am back home in my little friendly town where friendly people live and where we greet one another, even if we do not know the other person.

Shopping went well and I did find a pair of lovely soft leather shoes for wearing with slacks to work and I also found two long-sleeved shirts. However, my good intentions of actually buying decent slacks went by the wayside and I came home with another pair of jeans. You will remember that I intended for some of my shopping to land on Liz's account, well that never happened. Instead a lovely scarf that she liked ended up in her bag and the charge ended up on my account. ("No fool like an old fool" comes to mind. I get caught every time.)

What went even better than the shopping was our visit with old friends. We stayed with them for the weekend and even Liz ended up spending the weekend. Nineteen years ago our two families moved into the same street on the same day. We soon became friends and although they moved away three years later, we remained friends. We still see each other regularly and speak on the phone at least once a month. If it were possible for friendship to grow into kinship, we would have been it.

Something else that I did notice while driving around Pretoria was the progress that has been made with the Gautrain (a new high speed train service between Oliver Tambo Airport, Johannesburg and Pretoria) in preparation for the Soccer World Cup next year. I am not a soccer fan but could not help feeling excited about the tournament coming to South Africa.

Driving on the freeways in and around Pretoria and Johannesburg at present is hell. There are road works going on everywhere. All the main roads are being widened and upgraded which causes bottlenecks every few kilometres, but when I think of the improvement it will bring in the end, I do not mind suffering a bit of inconvenience and frustration. I do however feel sorry for drivers that must endure this everyday.

Okay, that was feedback on the weekend and I think that is enough of my boring little life at the moment. I promise I will write something more interesting in my next post.

5.6.09

Update on my life

Life moves along so quickly that I sometimes feel I can't keep up, so I have decided to every now and then blog about my life just to make sure I keep track of all that is happening.

Work is hectic! My boss is retiring at the end of July and we are busy compiling his handing and taking over documentation. For a military unit the size of ours, this is quite a bit of hard slog. He also decided that he wants me on the committee arranging his Change of Command parade and I am responsible for the protocol and admin surrounding the parade as well as the unit's farewell function a week later. Just to top it all off, our dear General requested that he prepare a preliminary strategic plan and budget to assist the new OC (who has not been identified or appointed yet). So yes, I come home at night to get a chance to breath.

Kids are well and busy (thank you God, I know how blessed I am) but there is still no grandchild on the way, so maybe, at least one of them is not busy enough! They will all be home next week-end for Father's Day. I will let you all know how that went if I survive the happy chaos that happens on such weekends.


A while back I posted on me getting a new drivers lisence. Well it came at last and now I am legal on the road again. At the risk of scaring you all to death with the photo of Daisy de Melcker (the most infamous female murderer in the history of SA), here it is!

We are off to Pretoria this weekend to see some friends, attend a Gideons conference (only Hubby) and to do some shopping for winter clothes (Uuugh!). At least Liza will go with for the shopping bit and that should smooth over a few of the hurdles of fitting my dear little body into something acceptable and comfortable. (Wonder what the standing of her credit is, maybe I could move some articles over to her account.... yeah right!)

My absolute favourite restaurant was burned to nothing. I am really sad about this as I know the owner well and that makes it even worse (experiencing the loss with her).

Hubby never received his pension pay out this month and was informed that it will only be available by next Tuesday - the efficiency of our people nowadays are.... sorry, I do not know a word to describe it! So, before we can go, I must visit the bank to make some arrangements. (I hate it when this happens because I live and spend according to a strict budget and when other people mess up and leaves me in this position, I get really angry!)

So there it is, a few things that happened this week. No I am off to the bank and then to Pretoria to see my best friend and do some shopping.

3.6.09

SEDIBA

Sediba means "a place to gather and talk" in Sesotho. In my own experience it means a place of good food, warm companionship and respite, where you could sit on the deck and lose yourself in the beauty and space of the Bushveld. A place to spend Sunday lunch with loved ones and also a place to celebrate engagements, birthdays and any other special occasion.

To the general community of Naboomspruit it means a place to spend Saturdays watching rugby on big screen television and to celebrate victory, or drown the sorrows of defeat after a match. To many city dwellers on holiday in the "Bosveld", it means a typical rural restaurant and pub where you share in the hospitality of the "platteland" (country). To almost as many overseas visitors, it means a place where you savour traditional South African meals and experience genuine South African hospitality.

My Mother's Day lunch was spent at Sediba, with my husband and Jozeygirl. While there, I took a number of photos of the view you have from the deck and when we left, on the way to our car, Jozeygirl suddenly turned around and took a photo of the front of Sediba. At the time none of us realised how significant this photo would become.



This morning we were shocked by the news that Sediba was destroyed by fire in the early hours of the morning. This beautiful, unique, place to gather and talk, simply does not exist any longer...



...but we do have the photos from Mother's Day to remind us of the beauty and many happy hours of Sediba.

Tonight, as I sit here on my "stoep", I am sad, not only because my favourite restaurant is gone, but I am sad for Alida, the beautiful woman who poured all her energy and passion into making Sediba such a special place. Yet, I believe that this is not so much the end, but the beginning of something even bigger, better and more beautiful than what she had before. Whatever she decides to do next, I wish her only the best and am quite sure that it will be a success... just because of the kind of person she is.

PS: Photos are from Jozeygirl and my own.