Did the Americans Eat All The Turkeys?

On October 1st, I declared Christmas cancelled due to lack of interest.  Mine. You would have done the same if you weren't going to be home for the damn thing, your kids had other plans anyway and your home, newly placed in a holiday rental pool, due to be occupied by strangers.

My titanium inner strength grew a pair...of super strong shoulders to shrug off Him Outdoors' ceaseless requests to put up the tree and a few decorations. There are no half measure Christmas's in my house - it's all or nothing and frankly, I've lost the energy and interest in going hell for leather just because the calendar ticked over into December.

A few weeks ago Number 2 son announced his plans to visit for a week just before we leave.  OK, always delighted to have him home.  But no, still no Christmas happening in this house.

"Hello, are you cooking Christmas Dinner?" enquired Number 1 son last week. "Good question," I parried, wanting to see where this was leading, although my ears pricked up and I had a good tail wag going.  He had a December weekend free and thought he would come home too.  Nice.  Absolutely everything to do with a perk of his new job - free air travel, and wondering who he could visit on one of the airline's routes - rather than a sudden desire after 5 years to spend Christmas with us.  He, too, was given the constrained dates and now apparently has to manipulate some training hours in order to get here.  So nothing confirmed from that side yet.

But the deed was done and I've tipped over into the Dark Side.  The perfect Christmas meal has to be planned, shopped for and prepared on a few days notice.  With the house packed up ready for tenants and the thought of spending three hours putting up two huge boxes of decorations up just to take them down the following day brought on a fit of the vapours.  

Improvisation is key.


Find a dead branch thingie and spray it silver as a pop up Christmas tree (original plan white but no white paint in the shop. New spontaneous, calm me improvised.  Silver.)

Write copious lists.  Drive to nearest city twice in two days.  Spend a total of 5 hours seeking a turkey. And Christmas napkins.  

Hold on.  We are 20 days before Christmas and the grocers don't have turkey in stock yet?  Responses ranged from "We apologise but this branch of Woolworths won't carry turkey this year.  Please visit another branch." Except the ginormous Woolies Food store down the road isn't getting stock this year either. 

Plan B. Visit large branches of Pick n Pay, Makro and Checkers.  Nope.  No turkey to be had.  

Super Spar.  They tout themselves as local versions of Harrod's Food Store and we have two branches.  First branch - "Sorry mam, our turkeys haven't arrived yet.  Soon."   This is not happening - did we have an influx of Americans in town for Thanksgiving?  Did they eat all the turkeys?

Shoulders drooping with fatigue, I enquire at the meat counter in the 2nd Super Spar.  Blank looks.  No turkey.  Disconsolately staring at two chickens, knowing full well none of us actually like turkey and would prefer chicken anyway, it was hard to accept defeat.  Today's Grand Turkey Hunt had fruitlessly gobbled two hours I can ill afford to lose.  

Something stopped the passing manager in his tracks.  "Can I help you with anything?" "Turkey?" I whimper.  "Not in my section.  But lets check the freezers."

And there it lay.  One solitary Baby Turkey (who knew they were an option? Now I'm a child killer!) lay in icy splendour.  Mine.  

Now to make choc chip cookies, trifle and dig out enough of the packed crockery and Christmas decor to make a passable effort at former seasonal magnificence. I never did find Christmas themed napkins but red ones will do.  See how I'm mastering control of rampant OCD!

For someone who always had the entire Christmas meal, decor and gifts long sorted by 1st December, doing a 180 degree U-turn on events and throwing it all together in less than a week is spectacular.  And joyous.  The Christmas CD's are  playing and that wonderful spirit of Christmas, when family are close together, in mind if not always in body, surges through my veins.  I adore this time of year - comfortable family tradition brings warm memories and love and a reminder that no matter how old my children are, a thread of what we created when they were young continues to pull at us all.

Whoosh!

And in the blink of an eye, September melted into December and here we are, confronted by another Christmas and end of year rush when the memory of clearing up after last Christmas is still fresh.

Funny, I can't remember what I was doing last Tuesday but packing away the seasonal decor, always an awful chore, resonates like a pulsing headache.

Why are we always surprised when the year end creeps up on us?  Honestly, December happens with singular regularity.  Every year.  On cue.  Yet every one a coconut, we greet the month with exclamations of how the year has flown, it can't be Christmas again and we generally behave like ostriches who've pulled their heads out of the sandpit and are totally amazed by what they see.

Nah.  I think every month slips past as quickly but the point of difference is the immutableness (yes, I made that word up) of the 25th December.  And summer holiday bookings have fixed dates.  So if the 5th August is just a day gone by with the usual frustrations of not getting everything done, things slide over to the 6th. Or 16th.  Or maybe even September.

But Christmas Day stubbornly refuses to move out to a more convenient time slot. And those annual business and school shut down dates stick to their guns - their time, not yours.   

Adding to the overcrowded diary is the sudden inrush of invitations and commitments as the whole world realises that days are min and the year is on the final approach to ending.  So 365 days worth of social, school, business and celebratory invitations are crunched into about 35 days.  Commitment overload of the best, and worst, kind.

Minutes, days, weeks and months flow by like the Zambezi River approaching the Kariba Dam wall.  Increasingly funneled towards the inevitable end point, the water smacks the wall and is literally stopped in it's tracks.

And so it is with our year as it reaches December.

Wishing you all strength, patience and fortitude over the next four weeks.  You'll need it!

The Yank Invasion Continues...

The onslaught of Yankee Doodle cultural infiltration continues to creep into our South African way of life.

In the beginning, thanks to the Equity ban of the 70's and 80's, music, movies and TV were left wide open for American occupation.  Slowly, our Christmases changed from easy, summer family affairs into competitive table decor, Bing Crosby crooners and nibbles for the hardworking reindeer.

And yes, I fell into it.  With glee.  American culture made Christmas beautiful, colourful, fragrant and iconic.  Retailers everywhere celebrated, the Christian roots withered away but oh, my, did our table groan while our house glowed and glittered in every nook and cranny.

Then Halloween arrived, replacing Guy Fawkes and Bonfire night.  Backed by genius American marketing we painted and pasted yucky wounds and monster faces, peeled grapes (for the eyeball trick) and sent the offspring on their way to load up with unwanted and unnecessary sugar.  And saw nothing wrong with that, either.

Fortunately, Thanksgiving is passing us by (TWO turkey dinners in four weeks would blast both budget and waistline) but social media still gives it a good tonk and insidiously Thanksgiving is a familiar date on our calendars too.

Yet bizarrely, Black Friday has landed and slipped tentacles into November's last Friday.  Why?  This is a day exclusively linked to Thanksgiving Thursday.  Which we don't observe.  So why a day devoted solely to shopping and money spending a stone's throw away from Christmas should plant itself firmly in South Africa is a mystery.  

Or maybe not.  Checkers, a discount food grocery chain proudly brags that they brought Black Friday to SA in 2014.  And trumpeted that Black Friday 2016 would be the biggest and best yet, with markdowns of up to 50%.  How they must be regretting that after photographs of the horror queues at their store in Port Elizabeth flooded social media on Friday.  Online shopping websites across the country crashed and optimistic shoppers got to the virtual checkout only to have their baskets melt down. 

A sign of desperation in these fraught economic times, or that crazed bargain hunting gene gone wild?  Perhaps a bit of both.    

Meanwhile, the Social Media Social Conscience Keyboard Warriors (SMSCKW) have added their two cents worth by flooding the airwaves with urban legend and rumour in an effort to ruffle and stir up a collective guilt wave.  Black Friday was the day way back in the 1800's when Southern plantation owners would discount their slaves on the sales block.

Bollocks.  But when did a little research ever come between a keyboard warrior and an inflammatory post?  http://www.history.com/news/whats-the-real-history-of-black-friday

Black Friday began in the 1950's in Philadelphia when local cops were all out on duty struggling to cope with hordes of people and vehicle traffic in town for some pre-Army/Navy football game shopping.  By the mid 1980's, retail marketers saw the gap to rocket sales stratospheric-ally and embraced a huge, discount shopping day.  They'll tell you it changes retail balance sheets from the red into the black, which is a spin stretched quite far.  A few days into the final month of the year, these poor businesses finally get to turn a profit?  

Anyhow, back to the beginning.  Why, oh why, is this intrinsically American phenomenon, linked to a holiday South Africans don't celebrate, putting down roots in our culture?  Are we so eager to fit in under the shadow of that huge nation we grasp excessive commercialism rather than explore, and exploit, the many cultural possibilities on our own doorstep?

Personally, I prefer my Black mixed with White!

This CAN'T Be My Life!

You know how it goes - you've just finished school and escaped the prison of parents and home to enter uni and res.  Life is bloody fantastic and stretches ahead to infinity while you can do anything, know everything and by the time you've had your say and fixed the cock-ups of your parent's generation, the world will be a better place.

First job - magic.  No exams or assignments to hand in.  No one to set curfews or control the purse strings.  Your salary is your own, your hours (outside of the office) are yours to squander as you wish.  Life is marvellous.

Marriage and the early stirrings of Grown Up begin to rustle.  First property ownership, gardens to manage, dinner parties to organise.  Not bad, though you say it yourself.

Oh, your circle of mates begin to sprout offspring.  Fancy that.  Well, why not?

Good grief, the kids are in Matric and that dreaded Matric Dance (which seems to create more hysteria and hype than the actual school leaving / university entering exams do!) is causing household chaos.  At least we're all in this together and wine, a mother's best friend, is lavishly shared.

Can't believe it - every weekend seems to bring yet another 21st party as the 'crowd' your sprogs belong to hit this milestone like bird-shot.

Emptied the postbox and found an ornately scribed, heavily embossed invitation to the first of my varsity friend's child's wedding.  Can't believe my mate is mother of the bride - how middle aged!

What'sApp delivers a photograph - a black and white scan of some kind of blob. Oh, the first grandchild hits our circle.  Huge gushes of emotion pours from us all as we coo and ahh over every single development until the main event.  Then we are completely toast - those precious fingernails and eyelashes sweep us into a wet huddle.

The retirement village calls - your father, the tall, imposing figure of strength and security has been admitted to hospital.  The empty hours left by fledged children are now filled with responsibility to someone who is a husk of what you remember.  Good thing he CAN'T remember what he was.  Or what he said three minutes ago.  There is such sadness to watch our roots, our memories, our foundation of who we are desiccate before our eyes. 

First parent shuffles off the mortal coil, delivering a swift thick ear.  Shaken up by the realisation that someone who, for better or worse, has been around for your entire life has gone and you no longer have parents, you have a parent. And quickly, that parent becomes a late-life child, requiring attention and help which you've never been asked for before.  Commiserating with friends as like ten pins, their own parents begin to fall or to fade away into a twilight zone of ill health, both mental and physical.

Sometimes, it feels as though I'm acting in a movie of someone else's real-life story.  This can't be mine.  Firstly, I was going to live forever.  Secondly, I'd like to, please.  Or reincarnate as a fly - I'm passionately invested in my sons' lives, I want to be there, discreetly on the wall, watching them to infinity and beyond. How is it possible for time to sweep past, not only at warp speed, but so invisibly I've been completely unaware of it's passing for decades.  S'true.

Most annoyingly, since early childhood my parents and grandparents have trotted out the trite sayings - enjoy it while it lasts, time flies, live in the moment blah blah fishcakes.  So not only was I oblivious to my passing life, but my mother was right after all! 




   

Impulsive Extemporaneous Me

The saddest part of losing it was not realising it was lost in the first place!  Oh, you can mock age related degenerative memory but admit it, when was the last time you were spontaneous? Oh, dear, you can't remember?

Well, I've found it! The freedom of yielding to sudden impulse, seizing a spur of the moment opportunity and not doing the expected or planned. Spontaneity. 

We were born with this treasure and lost it along the way to grown up-hood. Note, grown up, not adult.  Officially we are adults somewhere around 18 or so, but growing up is a choice and once you've bought property, a mode of transport or birthed offspring, you've grown up.

Bills, responsibilities and the chilling prospect of rearing young humans rapidly sucks impulse from each and every cell in our bodies.  You're adulting when your own, miserably serious and sensible parents spew unbidden from your lips. Money saving lifestyle habits like packed lunches, travel mugs and switching off lights are the norm and snuggling up in front of an old dvd is more appealing that donning stilettos and queuing for hours to get into a club. Hey, tomorrow's a work day, remember?

I'm caught up in the sight of carefree children squealing with delight, spinning round in circles and falling into dizzy heaps or begging to be pushed higher and higher on the swing.  How quickly their attention switches, one minute totally absorbed in something which is rapidly discarded when another, more interesting nugget passes by.  No responsibilities or duties weighing them down.

One of 2016's most satisfying moments for me was hearing No 2 Son wail about how 'adulting' was killing him - lectures, car ownership, managing his student digs and life on his own had sucked all the joy from his 21 year old soul. Ha. Payback, baby!

Ahem. We are the anchors of our own lives.  Eagerly swallowing tons of tie-me-downs like krill-munching Humpback whales, we wallow in uber-organised sensibleness.  But it doesn't have to be so and when an unplanned trip into the Kruger National Park to meet a visiting friend for lunch morphed into 'we have room in our chalet, stay the night' it took one very deep breath, a visit to the Park shop for a toothbrush and Bob's your uncle, I played truant from my own life.  

Now how sad is that?

The Secret of her Failure

If you've popped into this blog before, you may have read about Anushka, the Scaredy Cat we adopted from Pro Life in October 2014.  She spent the first 5 months living under the bed, incurring substantial vet bills treating the hay fever allergy stirred by the dust.  Regrettably, she's not the least bit grateful either for the thousands of Rands blown on Pheromone infused collars in a vain attempt to calm the cattiness between her and the feline already in residence.

I'm happy to report that today Anushka is out and about and absolute Queen of the Household.  Him Outdoors is not impressed, calling her a "Pampered Princess", which may have something to do with the daily grooming she demands.  That process started out as a necessity - this cat sheds strands of fur like confetti, she's a one-cat ticker-tape parade.  It's quite a sight to see her stalk across the lawn enveloped in an aura of pastel-hued fur.

Tired of wading through her leavings, I took to a daily brushing which removes handfuls of fur and, contrary to the belief that cats cannot be trained, she recognises the question "is it time for a brush?" and scampers to the brushing station.  Anuschka is in heaven during this process, eyes glazing over while she adjusts her position constantly to ensure every body part is reached while chatting vociferously throughout.

Heaven help my being too busy for the daily routine because she barges into the office, yowling loudly and making sure everything is dropped and she's followed to the grooming spot.

Having trained her humans to feed and brush on demand, she was free to check out the garden poultry.  We have a wonderful variety of garden and wild birds popping in for seed and fruit and Anushka rather likes this arrangement, having dedicated a particular spot on the railing where she can comfortably settle at eye level with the birdfeeder.  Unfortunately for her, we'd got her measure and while the feeder may be at eye level, it's well out of cat paw or even leap reach so all she can do is whimper piteously at the bevy of Bronze Mannikins twittering away.  Not as well trained as the household, the birds ignore her completely; refusing to flutter closer and deliver themselves into her quivering jaws.

Despite ample, rather upmarket cat food in her bowl at all times, she'd much rather have a fresh bird and every feathered creature that flutters, hops, walks or flies in and around our premises is fair game for stalking, with a spectacular lack of success.  Considering how many hours Anushka spends leopard crawling, sinking her podgy body as deeply to the ground as possible and lying in wait, nary a bird meal has come her way.  Sometimes, it's the pathetic mewling that slips out past her salivating lips giving the game away.

Mostly, though, it's the thrashing tail frantically thudding side to side like a pendulum, striking the ground so hard she raises dust.  In the crispy dun landscape laid bare by the drought, Anushka is perfectly camouflaged and it's really amazing to see how close she gets to flocks of Babblers or the Mocking Chats.  If only she could control that overactive tail!  That frantic flickering protuberance loses the game every time and is her tragic flaw.  Hubris! 

I must say, the secret of her failure is not lost on me - absolute stillness and silence sometimes have their place when in hot pursuit of a particular goal.

Mirror Image Strangers

Motes of dust hanging in the air dance in the rays of light sliding slowly down the paneled walls.  Johnny's Pub is filled to capacity with six tourists, Johnny and the Bar Wench so the bubble of conversation along with the musty smell of old wood peculiar to old, tin clad buildings is overpowering.

But hey, it's Friday night in Pilgrims Rest and Johnny's is the place to be.  We're the vanguard for tomorrow's photographic club outing to Pilgrims.  OK, I admit, under the guise of "wouldn't it be lovely to get away for the weekend and combine that with the club outing?" there may have been some ulterior thoughts of getting a jump on the group and unearthing some photogenic nuggets but nonetheless Him Outdoors enjoys any excuse to get away and so we did.

A friendly stranger called Stuart introduced himself, adding that he'd been sitting there longer than he ought to and the wife was beginning to make noises.  We, however, apparently looked like fun people so he graciously called for his ABF and we began the discovery process of getting to know each other.

In the odd way of Africa, Him Outdoors found out that he and Stuart had worked for the same company in days of yore and had many acquaintances in common. And Stuart's wife, Anne, lived in Pilgrims Rest while Stuart lived and worked at Sun City, returning home once a month.  Another Long Distance Marriage - We Are Not Alone.

You could play the opening bars of the Twilight Zone theme music here, I guess. Anne turned up in search of her husband and magically an ABF appeared in her hand while Stuart, having finished the practise round, began his real ABF.  That Bar Wench is really good!

The War Story swopping changed from sales to LDM's. Anne, according to Stuart, is totally entrenched in Pilgrims Rest with her work at a nearby luxury hotel, her social group, painting and lifestyle.  Which he grinds away under difficult circumstances to financially support.

Anne (displaying an impressive array of facial expressions behind Stuart's back) gave the true account.  They both really enjoy living apart for much of the month and getting on with their individual lives.  Time spent together is heartily enjoyed until that magic clock ticks over just before departure and the niggle factor roars in, leading to the huge sigh of relief that accompanies the cheerful hand wave she directs at his departing car.

It could have been Him Outdoors and I telling this tale and interestingly, both Anne and I were highly entertained by the male versions while the men's indignant cries of 'woe is me' rose higher and higher.

Proof that women lead full, engaging lives and don't need a full time partner? Or that life is so frantically busy we don't notice they aren't there?  

It was wonderful to meet two lovely people and to discover that we aren't abnormal.  Unusual and not mainstream, but not completely off the reservation.   

The Big Issue

This Blog is named "Lightly" for a reason.  It's a space for lightness - of soul, of humour and of being.  There is plenty of angst, anger, frustration and forceful opinion in the world without adding more fuel.

But today, Friday 23rd September, I'm drooping with Issue Fatigue.  Over the past few months, I've consciously avoided diving too deeply into the daily news, or entering the social media fray about anything.  A bit mushroomy, yes, but my head is exploding with the constantly growing and endless fug of rage over Issues.

The list is endless - it's quicker to itemise the South African politicians, Councillors and Government officials NOT mentioned in dodgy deals or trough hogging than to name and shame those unveiled daily.

Then, of course, the relentless squawking over municipalities and Government departments who are not doing their jobs properly, infrastructure collapsing, water (when we have it) a poisonous morass, poaching, theft, abuse of power, neglect, crime, students, incomprehensible and obviously moronic decisions affecting the country and a bunch of spouses murdering their dearly beloved fills page after page, airwaves and bandwidth to bulging.

And as the Issue Platform groans and sags beneath the ever growing pile of Issues dumped upon it daily, the keyboard experts and specialists rub their hands in glee and jump in.  Before you know it, a shared post about so called 'students' smashing a venerable, and valuable, education property has been hijacked by social media trolls and insults between the commentators fly like horse dung. The main Issue is trampled under foul, abusive language thrown around by people who don't know each other at all, let alone well enough to have an opinion of the other's intellect, social standing, upbringing, morals and beliefs. Which doesn't hold people back for a minute from publicly airing their views and judgement about someone they have never, nor will ever, meet.

It's the very lowest form of discourse, yet grows like a horrid virus.  Even the Issues have Issues now, nothing ever seems to be resolved and removed from the pile as we build a wobbly Tower of Babel.

Please, for the love of all that we hold dear, can we Stop, Pause, Touch and Re-engage?  Quietly, politely and respectfully?  As any veteran of marital strife will tell you, shouting at and over each other doesn't sort out issues, it just leaves the combatants hoarse and exhausted.  (Maybe those murderous spouses realised this and chose a more active option?!)


Don't get me wrong - I love living somewhere that has real issues to solve.  It's just the infinite number that continue on and on, growing little issues of their own like pimples upon carbuncles, that are getting me down at the moment.

No wonder there's no room for happy stories, the Issue Platform bulges sky high.  And deep down I KNOW that what is out there on the Issue Platform, like the protesting students, is a fraction of what is really going on day to day. There are good, generous hearted people getting on with their lives and being kind to those around them.  Bank clerks and mechanics who go the extra mile. Car guards who beam cheerfully as they help unload into your car a staggering amount of groceries they couldn't afford in a month of Sundays. The warmth of the Police sergeant eager to show off his K9 partner's skills. 

Anyhow, with that all off my chest and seeing as it's Friday, and I really, really want to begin the weekend with a smile, here's a chirpy song especially for you from the awesome Pharrell Williams.  If this doesn't cheer you up and get you smiling and bopping, there is just no hope!

Happy weekend everyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM

Home Town Through Outsider Eyes

It has to be said that we see more of many of our far-flung network of friends and family now that we live in a little, out-of-the-way town than we ever did when we lived in the big smoke.

Jacaranda season - Chief Mgiyeni Khumalo street becomes a lilac dell

Some, bless them, make the journey east over the escarpment specially to see us but an astonishingly large portion visit the area regularly anyway, and naturally drop in to while away an hour or a few days with us.

Lekker! (an Afrikaans word difficult to translate but usually uttered with glee, approbation and a great deal of satisfaction.  You get the drift.) Our home at times has a revolving door, spitting out ex-pat-now-Australians as it envelops Joburgers. Along with a birdsighting list, we should have an Origins list, which this year alone includes Australians, Yanks, Brits, Joburgers, Durbanites and more ranging from 11 years of age to 77 and with diverse interests. 

And that's before we include the guests we've hosted in our small accommodation venture, so you can imagine the bustle of busyness in which we live. Exhausting indeed but always so special to retie those friendship knots more firmly and to meet an assortment of lovely people for the first time.

Water, agriculture and town all in one view

The second duty of hosting after ensuring guests are comfortably ensconced with a glass of wine is, of course, to play area travel guide.  Kruger, naturally, generally tops the list (but if ONE more visitor returns with tales of seeing the Big 5 before lunch, travelling the same road we've driven ruts into in our regular vain attempts to do the same, they will check out sooner than planned!)

And going to Mbombela Stadium to watch rugby will never be the same again after watching SA-Argentina with the Karlsson mob, supplemented by running into a few of Him Outdoors' old rugby mates who'd travelled all the way from Hartebeespoort to support the Boks.

Unexpectedly, it was the Wobblie's eating and drinking tour of White River town that opened our eyes to the lovely places under our noses that we haven't popped into yet.  Dad's honeymoon with Val had us in stitches, as the Lovebirds posted photograph after photograph onto Facebook (yes, really!) of them washing samoosas down with a craft beer at Phat Boys and buying game pies, game pate and naartjie preserve at Carmel (which they swear has the best cake in town). Until they went to Sip and were entranced by the Alice in Wonderland decor and decadent pastries.

And it wasn't just the gourmand offerings, either. Rae Kirton from Dynamic Vision spent ages repairing Dad's spectacles and refused to charge.  Overall, the travelling Wobblies fell head over heels in love with White River.  The people, the friendliness they encountered everywhere, the beauty, pace of life and the myriad of special little offerings, nooks and crannies that make up the town.  They commented on how clean the main street was and how much they enjoyed being able to wander on foot from one coffee shop to the next, browsing at all the shops in between.

Listening to their excited recounting of the day's adventures every evening for a week was a sharp reminder about how easily we are blinkered to our closest surrounds.  It's time to ramp out of the rut and utilise more of what's in our backyard instead of travelling the same old path.


  


    

Groundhog Day on the Bucket List

Long before the phrase 'bucket list' was coined, I had a list - places I wanted to visit and experiences to have before shuffling off this mortal coil. There's nothing unusual about having a list nor the choices on mine:
Zanzibar
Cuba (before McDonalds and Holiday Inn get there)
Morocco
The Camargue
Russia
The Great Migration (particularly a hot air balloon trip above it)
Sossusvlei 
Mexico
Tunisia
Turkey
Antarctica
Norwegian Fjords by boat
Northern Lights
Okavango swamps and delta
Madagascar
Goa

Way back in 2003, Zanzibar got a look in when travel companies started pushing it as the destination de jour. So off we went, a friend and I, and oh, my, Zanzibar delivered everything imagination had conjured up, and more, soaring way above expectations.  How delicious it was to tick off a listed item and discover it went beyond what was hoped.

What more natural decision, then, to want to share this treasure with Him Outdoors and honeymoon there in 2005?  Life Lesson number 4876 - never, ever revisit a ticked off list destination, disappointment is sure to follow. 

Ferocious marketing of package tours during the intervening two years had changed the atmosphere.  No longer were we frequently accosted in Stonetown by eager locals, keen to shake hands, say 'Jambo' and welcome us to Zanzibar with no further expectations than just welcoming friendliness.  Now, constantly buffeted by salesmen and panhandlers, the final straw was Him Outdoors being scolded by an elderly lady one evening when out for a stroll.  It was far too dangerous for Mzungus to be in the streets of Stonetown after dark, she said. Drugs had established themselves on the island and desperate people would knife you for a fix.  Innocence lost.

Now, before you strike the island from your list, don't.  It's awesomeness outweighs the consequences of an influx of outsiders.  The beaches, diving, historic places of interest and sheer beauty are hard to match elsewhere.  The point is this - once you've visited a longed for destination, tick it off and don't return, it will never be the same.

Back to the list.  The second item to be crossed off was Tanzania's Serengeti National Park during the migration and again, it lived up to expectations despite our not being lucky enough to witness a river crossing.  My heart was truly sore when we left, though. Somehow it didn't feel like enough and a little part of my soul remained behind on the savannah.

How lucky am I?  Him Outdoors got a contract in Kenya so in 2015 we watched the migration from the other side of the border.  We've just relished our second in-season trip to the Maasai Mara, returning to loll in the magnificent luxury of Spirit of the Masai Mara lodge and yet again, their Maasai guide delivered us into the core of the Mara.  We couldn't want for more, getting up close and personal with lion, cheetah, hyena, leopard, jackal, elephant...you name it, we saw it and were lucky enough to have many sightings to ourselves where we could just sit and watch the behaviour rather than tick off the mammal sighting list and move on.

And like the previous two visits to East Africa's magnificent spectacle, a little bit of my soul was left behind and I'm already counting the days til we can return.

What hope of clearing the bucket list now when I'm so happily reliving the same experience over and over? What happened to Rule 4876?!

Maasai Mara Road Mechanics

The scene could be anywhere in the African bush.  A group of people leaning back into well-worn canvas chairs, icy beer in hand and booted feet casually resting near the flames of a wood fire.  Overhead, gazillions of stars blink like crystals nestling on a blanket of plush velvet. The deep exhalations of sheer contentment push thoughts of anything outside the circle of presence as far away as can be.

And then it begins.  Landrover vs Landcruiser with everyone firmly in one of the camps, for life. There is absolutely no room for fence sitters in this debate, ever, and there's definitely no option to select Nissan, Mercedes or even Porsche (snigger!)

Toyota have the lead on bumper stickers, memes and spare wheel covers, cheekily nose thumbing Landrover's reputation for breakdowns and yes, we've certainly chortled at our Rover friends many mechanical failure experiences. Although truth be told (shush, don't tell Him Outdoors I've let this out of the bag!) our Cruiser was once pulled out of deep Mozambique sand by a Range Rover...   

East Africa, in finest Colonial tradition, is Landrover country.  Or was.  A veritable Pearl Harbour assault on the motor industry is making inroads for the Japanese Johnny-come-latelies. But the iconic square nose and body of Landrover still covers the plains in droves.

If you follow this blog, you'll know that very few of our travels are breakdown-free and the latest Maasai Mara adventure didn't let us down, although we weren't in our own vehicle or even driving!

Barrelling along in the Landrover towards Sekanani Gate after a long, twelve hour day filled with exciting sights and experiences, our minds were saturated with colour, dust, noise and the overwhelming sensation of watching Mother Nature in high resolution. Conversation ebbed and eyelids struggled to stay at full mast until a weird 'cluck cluck cluck' rattled us out of inertia.

Rumbling to a halt, the XY Chromosomes exited and assumed serious expressions of concern as they clustered around the front end.  Apparently some split pin thingy had broken and fallen off, meaning a crucial nut followed and now the right front wheel was gaily following it's own track, completely oblivious to the demands of either it's partner wheel or the steering apparatus.  Whoopsie!


Safari vehicles rushing past to make the gate deadline were flagged down and asked for parts while some of our lot hiked down the road looking for the nut (yes, I know, it was a long shot!) One helpful passerby produced a hooked bungy cord and, in true African style, within minutes a repair plan was made and we were off.

Africa - this is why we live here. 

Nutters searching for a nut!

It was quite disappointing, really, as an enormous herd was making its way towards us and, with plenty of picnic left and warmly lined ponchos we could have made a night of it in the Mara.  But another rule of Africa is that the adventurous prospect of an unplanned camp-out is only going to happen accompanied by a beer.  And our coolerbox was empty of Tusker!  Soon rectified when we got through the gate, however, with a pitstop at Rex's Bar for everyone to celebrate the latest escapade with a brew.  And to reminisce about the last time we were in that same Landrover, which failed to start just minutes away from a lion sighting.  

Would have been a perfect campsite, those herds were moving...

Times change and this particular Landie is about to be replaced by a Landcruiser, and Japanese efficiency will deplete us of some wonderful tales to tell.  

Neighbourliness

What makes a good neighbour?  Someone who treats your kitchen as hers? Whose kids spend more time in your house than their own?  What about the other extreme - you have no idea what your neighbours look like.  You may have seen them once, pulling out of their driveway and studiously turning their heads to avoid your tentative wave, but that's it.

I have a very good neighbour and our neighbourly relationship is perfect, although some may find it odd.  Both single women living alone, similar ages, we work in the same complex, belong to the same bookclub and usually see each other once a month.  At book club.  

"How is that possible?" you ask.  Surely we are an ideal match to have a kind of revolving door situation, doing many things together almost joined at the  hip?

Well, no.  We get on very well, have children similar ages, love the same books, have the same interests but we are both, individually, busy people.  It's proven quite difficult to fix dates to get together so now we grab the odd moments (loadshedding candle light drinks on my patio and a very relaxed Friday night swinging in her uber comfy 'egg' chairs after a delightful supper.)  Occasional messages checking that one or the other isn't the only person without water or power and a friendly chat when we pass in the street is pretty much it.

But here is why she's the very best of neighbours and we have such an excellent neighbourly marriage.  I'm out of the country for a while and got a message from her to ask about a strange car which has taken up residence in my driveway. Heart pounding, I ask her to give security a call to check it out, which she did immediately and kept me up to date with events as they unfolded. Nothing to worry about, just a cheeky neighbour taking advantage of additional parking but still, my fab neighbour noticed an oddity and went to the trouble to let me know, alerted security and followed through.

Now that's a wonderful human being and a special neighbour.  Close enough to notice and care, reserved enough to respect our mutual privacy.

Viva Sherreen at No 4!

The Orange Cake

Gotta love how easy it is to be connected across the globe today.  I’m old enough to remember airmail letters, those flimsy blue gummed sheets we used to fill with childish letters written to longed for grannies a world away.  The yucky tasting edges were licked and the missives sent on their way and in a few weeks, we’d have a reply.  This is how we kept in touch.  Phones were large,heavy, Bakelite instruments firmly placed on a special telephone table and never used – call rates were pricey and international calls absolutely out of the question!

A shrinking world has resulted in many moves, either ours or friends, to distant places and caused tears a’plenty.  However, digital cameras, wifi, social media, email, Skype, What’s App - all accessible when we are on the move or stuck at our desks keep us in strong contact and it’s a wonderful thing.  We share special moments, bad moments, tears, giggles, drama and the ordinary and when we finally meet up in person it feels as though we just have a week or so to catch up on, not a few years.  It also allows us to ‘introduce’ current friends with faraway ones so everyone is familiar when we’re all together again.

And so to this morning’s tale.  A dear friend moved to the opposite side of the country 5 months ago.  She’s a tad homesick and I miss her dreadfully, so we What’s App every so often to share an electronic hug, as it were.  It was fab to see her message arrive earlier and good to get caught up on the news, even though the distance at the moment is further than usual – she’s in Cape Town where she should be but I’m in Nairobi though of course, you wouldn’t know it from the amazing electronic miracle that we communicate by these days.

Listening with a heavy heart to her struggles in adapting from a very small town to big city, an image came to mind.  Her popular, has-the-neighbourhood-fighting-for-the-last-piece Orange cake.  Its famous in our ‘hood and much missed now she’s no longer here to take orders for it.  A rich, fresh crumbly cake, sunshine hued with strands of orange peeping through, melt in the mouth, leaving the zesty hint of orange and richness of cream to embrace the pleasure centres and dusted with icing sugar, it’s as gorgeous on the eye as it is in the tummy.

But it doesn’t start out that way.

In the beginning, her famous Orange cake is broken eggs, a sticky mess in a bowl which is thoroughly beaten before being poured into the baking pans.  Blasted by fierce heat it firms up and rises to it’s dazzling maturity.  Reaching out to be the best it can be, a shimmer of white sugar completes the perfect picture and perhaps an orange blossom or two is scattered playfully on top (well, we do live in the Lowveld, citrus country!)

Presented on a beautiful plate, it elicits oohs and ahs and is appreciated and savoured slowly and with absolute pleasure. 

Are we not like this striking work of art?  Sometimes we’re bashed and broken and at our lowest, the beating continues.  Then gets worse until we see no end in sight, the intensity of our troubles (emotional or physical) burning deep. 

But lo, something is happening.  Be it an unexpected, tiny something, a flicker of hope and light emerges and slowly, slowly, we emerge from our ‘oven’.  And in time, this ordeal has passed.  Whatever we feel about our troubles, there is no doubt that having survived them we are wiser as to our strength, our friends, our ability to cope. 

And that extra line etched into our foreheads, the lovely fold of flesh that has appeared at our waist, is a beautiful reminder that we are maturing into the best we can be.

Left out of the picture

So here's what keep my brain fizzing in the wee hours of the morning.  Left handed cameras.  

Seriously. Although the chilli-laden late night pizza could possibly have played a role in the nocturnal meanderings.

12% of people are left handed, and as a righty forced to delegate teaching her left handed toddler to use (left handed) scissors to a lefty friend, and who remembers well how excited said friend was when she bought a fridge with a left handed door, I've some awareness of how awkward the most basic of daily functions are for left handers.

Extrapolating the stats, it's possible that 6 of the 52 members of our photographic club are lefties. Are there cameras for left handers?  Do left dominant photographers have to learn deftness on the right to operate their Nikon? A proponent of the viewfinder eyepiece rather than the LCD screen I can't imagine how much getting used to it takes to glue one's eye to the rubber while blindly pushing buttons with the wrong hand.   It's not just the shutter-release button, either, all the button controls, knobs and dials at the back and on top of the camera are on the right hand side as well.

And there's that awfully handy chunky grip on the right end, so useful for grabbing the camera and carrying it along ready to lift it up and grab a quick capture when needed.  A lefty would either have to carry it in her 'wrong' hand, or carry the camera upside down in her left.  Awkward.

"The world," my ambidextrous son's Occupational Therapist once announced, "is made for right handed people.  So we'll make him right handed."  How right she is, because as I sit here staring at my camera bag I note the zip runs left to right. The office printer buttons are on the right. And living in a country that drives on the left, the driver's seat controls are neatly tucked out of sight and almost out of reach on the right hand side.  

Yes, the skinny gene and straight dark hair fairy may have been off duty when I was put together but I'm awfully grateful that the right dominant angel was having a good day and claimed me as one of her own.  One less endless series of daily challenges to conquer.  

Nonetheless, in a world where some pretty unfathomable 'issues' are conceptualized and battled over, surely a protest picket should be set up outside Nikon and Canon et al?  Why should a customer be discriminated against because she is wired differently to the masses?  Paying the same money as a righty for a DSLR which she then has to adapt her brain and dexterity to use. Equal rights for the left, I say.  

And once the Left = Right movement gains momentum, car manufacturers had better watch out.  A left-handed option for driving controls and seat belts should be on their selection board alongside colour.

Fueling vehicles and generators with fish and chips

An abridged version of this article was published in Skyways September 2015.

“People just don’t care”, says Paolo Cavalieri, co-owner of Allwin Biodiesel in White River, his face washed with disillusion.  Nestled in one of South Africa’s largest conservation areas, Allwin Biodiesel is surrounded by game reserves and luxury eco lodges yet Paolo and partner Brian Tilly struggle to find a market for the biofuel they manufacture from used cooking oil.

Predictably, in the battle between fossil and renewable fuel, price raises its hand.  Allwin’s biofuel sells fractionally below the pump price of regular diesel at the filling stations.  But that’s considerably more expensive than the wholesale price and despite the global furore over climate change, fossil fuel and the development of renewable energy, local businesses are voting with their wallets. 

By contrast, Port Elizabeth based Greentech Biofuels has found widespread support from both local business and private individuals across the Eastern Cape for their B100 biodiesel (100% biodiesel) and B50 biodiesel (50% biodiesel/50% standard diesel) products which they began producing in January 2012.  CEO Hayden Hill estimates that, using an average of 10 kilometres per litre consumption, some 2.5 million kilometres have been travelled on his biofuel to date. 

Hill believes that market acceptability and propensity to use biodiesel instead of petrodiesel relies on other factors.  “It’s about finding the right mix between price and quality,” he says.  In his opinion, this is not a challenge faced by biodiesel manufacturers alone, it’s applicable to all businesses. 

He adds, though, that consumers living outside major city centres are positioned further along the innovation adoption curve and resist changing to a new product.  In outlying areas, price sensitivity increases and the value placed on environmental benefits drops.

While struggling to contain his disappointment, Cavalieri becomes more animated as he enthuses over the benefits of manufacturing biodiesel from used cooking oil.  He’s proud that 50 000 litres a month of toxic used cooking oil isn’t poured down the drain or used as additive to animal feed, which we ultimately consume, because his fleet of four biodiesel powered trucks collect it for conversion.  He has small children and it’s important to him that a sulphur free fuel with 75% less exhaust and 80% less CO2 emissions is available.  Cavalieri chuckles as he refers to his vehicles running on “100% Fish and Chips!”

Biodiesel has a much higher flashpoint (120°C) than fossil fuel (70°C) and no engine modifications are necessary to use it, although Cavalieri suggests that vehicles manufactured pre-1995 check that their rubber hoses are made of Viton E rubber before switching to biodiesel, as otherwise the hoses will perish.  He also recommends that motorists changing over to biodiesel in high doses keep a fuel filter close by, especially on long trips in the early stages.  Biodiesel has excellent cleaning properties and will clean out the fuel tank and engine while it runs, resulting in a clogged fuel filter. 

Allwin’s biofuel is manufactured to SABS standard SANS833.  Making it, says Cavalieri, is not rocket science but takes time and patience, adding that it’s “a costly and stinky business”.  Happily, Allwin’s frustrating struggle to gain traction in the market for its pure product could soon be over when the new regulations regarding the Mandatory Blending of Biofuels with Petrol and Diesel come into force on the 1^st October 2015.

Cavalieri sees the future of biodiesel lying in a mixture of 5% biodiesel /95% petrodiesel, and that’s what the government thinks too, hence the mandatory blending of 5% biofuels with all petrol and diesel (part of the Biofuels Industrial Strategy published in 2007) - the final blended diesel product has to comply with SA National Standard SANS 342 (automotive diesel fuel).

Roy de Gouveia, Managing Director of Biogreen in Cape Town, is bullish about the future of biofuel, particularly as a blend – his company sells thousands of litres of biodiesel every month and de Gouveia confidently forecasts that sales will continue to grow with the new regulations.  His aim now is to gather the assortment of biofuel manufacturers, especially the “bakkie brigade” under one umbrella and to work together, sharing the same channel and logistic mechanism, operating in a similar fashion as the fossil fuel industry.  “There’s a rising tide,” de Govuveia comments “and people need to get into the boat now before it’s too late.”

Referring to the Rose Foundation, which set up a few distributors nationwide to collect and recycle used lubrication oil, he says that isn’t possible with biodiesel and cooking oil – the amount of waste oil and the diesel price fluctuate too widely.

“The cost of manufacture and waste oil is too high,” says de Gouveia, “and part of the problem is that the international price is so high, waste oil goes offshore.”  It’s certainly true that the value of waste oil in biofuels is recognised in the United States and the competitive market there scarily cut-throat, resulting in the price of used cooking oil skyrocketing.  Operating for 24 years in the New York / New Jersey area, Grease Lightning is confronting the increasing problem of oil pirates.  Illegally coupling their hoses to the waste tanks in restaurants and hotels, the rustlers blithely make off with their bounty – greasy, smelly gold they turn into black market biodiesel in backyard stills.

South Africa may be a long way from that, however, but selling their used oil, instead of slopping it down the drain, could be a useful income earner for hospitals, schools, military bases, prisons, restaurants and hotels.  And a positive environmental stride forward for us all.

Mucky oil ready for the Cinderella treatment

Turning chip oil into diesel - the Allwin Biodiesel process

-      Used oil is collected and delivered to the plant where it is filtered twice to remove fragments of fried food

-      It is then heated and a sample undergoes a Titration test, to determine the quality of the oil, and the amount of chemical additive required to achieve a reaction.

-      Methanol (alcohol base) and Potassium Hydrochloride (catalyst) are added to the oil

-     - A chemical reaction takes place to realise the three fatty acid molecules of the oil molecule, forming biodiesel (which is light) and glycerol (which is heavy)

-     - Overnight settling allows separation of the two elements

-    -  Glycerol is drained off the next day, and the process repeated and the biodiesel tested

-     - The biodiesel is then washed to remove any soap.  Initially milky, the water clarifies and once clear is left to settle overnight

-     - Next the water is drained off and heated to evaporate any water residue

-     - After undergoing one final test, the biodiesel is pumped into a storage tank  through a 10 micron water-absorbent filter

-     - The waste water is pumped onto the factory grounds for dust suppression

-     - The glycerol is sold to a company producing green bar soap

   

    Why should you consider using biodiesel?

-   Users can switch between biodiesel and regular diesel

Biodiesel ready for pumping into Paolo's trucks

-   Biodiesel can be blended with petrodiesel

-   It has a higher Cetane rating (an indicator of the combustion speed of diesel fuel) than regular fuel, improving the efficiency of compression ignition

-   Extended engine life

-   Degrades about four times faster after spillage than regular fuel