The Sun has Set on 2022

What. A. Year! Looking back, 2022 wasn’t a bad year – when compared with its two Covid-lockdown predecessors – but it wasn’t one that I will remember with insatiable amounts of fondness because it was a hard and often unforgiving, relentless with its onslaught of car troubles, illness, and teary goodbyes.

I should have known that things didn’t bode well when I had to get The Toppie to the doctor in January because he was too weak to even stand. He was diagnosed with an intestinal bleed, which later required hospitalization. His iron levels were very low and combined with hyperglycemia, his symptoms mimicked those of a stroke.  It was a scary time for our little family, with me driving home from the hospital in the wee hours of the morning, crying into a voice note to a friend in Cape Town who was still awake to offer words of wisdom and comfort. Visiting The Toppie was tough because Covid infections were still high. The security guards at the provincial hospital see themselves as gods, which only exacerbated our already-high stress levels. The Toppie had scopes and what-not to find the source of the bleed but to no avail. With meds, the symptoms cleared up, but for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. More about that later…

The Bean and I went to a coffee shop in April called Axara. They serve pink lattes! Needless to say, I had to have one.

It was also the month I took myself out to dinner – something which I seldom do because it seems pitiful to dine alone. I went all out, three courses, and a tall G&T.

I also got to don a pretty dress because I was asked by my boss to attend the launch of the Garden Route Fashion Council.

June brought with it the end of mandatory mask-wearing. Three cheers for no more fogged-up glasses and maskne on my chin and cheeks. Finally, life was starting to feel pre-coronavirus normal. During the last week, our factory had its annual winter maintenance shutdown, so I had some time off. My friend, Shireen treated me to Elvis. Shireen is a real aficionado on the King of Rock ‘n Roll, so watching it with her made it even better!

Elizabeth and I also took a drive up to the St. Blaize lighthouse one morning for coffee and breakfast, mine being delicious carrot cake.

I had a few petsitting gigs too – I looked after a colleague’s two cats and three dogs in mid-August. Few things beat kitty snuggles and wagging tails.

For the first time in two years, I celebrated my birthday in September. Pre-2020, I would always have some kind of get-together, but this year, I didn’t have any kind of zeal to organize anything. The night before my birthday I went to watch little Nic’s school concert, a rendition of one of my best-loved stories, Alice in Wonderland. It was delightful.

On my actual birthday, my folks and I went to my favourite coffee roastery for a flat white, and the unveiling of a surprise for my folks – I had booked a cruise for them and me for April 2023.

Afterwards we had fish and chips at The Point and the weekend after, Eliza, Nathan, the kids and I ate ice cream sandwiches and then went for a meal. While it wasn’t a ‘regular’ birthday for me, it was one of the most memorable I have had in a long time.

The week after, I took ill. I contracted bronchitis, but thanks to Covid nine months earlier, it was the worst bout I have ever had; I eventually relented and went to the doctor when I started coughing blood. The GP prescribed meds and a chest cavity x-ray, but I could only afford the former. I petsat for Corine and another friend of hers – two brilliantly lovable Bassets Hounds.

Had life worked out differently, and had I also had a stronger stomach to deal with the dark side of what humans are capable of, I would have loved to have studied journalism. One of my biggest aspirations was to have my work published in a newspaper. The dream eventually came true, when my good friend, Corine, put in a good word for me with the local community rag, securing me a regular column. The brief was that it has to incorporate something about the town, without being advertorial. I would have loved to have called it Reflections of a Misfit as I do here, but ‘misfit’ has a negative connotation to some, so I went with Roots ‘n Reflections instead, because my roots run deep in this Sleepy Hollow (well, it’s not so sleepy anymore!) and because of the mandate, I like the idea of the posts being somewhat reflective. My first column was published in October. I was beaming with pride.

The Bean makes The Toppie buy the paper whenever a column of mine is inside, because she cuts them out and keeps them in a scrapbook. My friend, Ray, In East London also asked me to send hard copies to him so he can keep them with his late Mom’s stuff. She wanted me to ghostwrite her life story, but pancreatic cancer took her before we ever had the chance to sit down and make notes.

Another highlight was a visit with Michelle, Len, their two lovely kids, Michelle’s friend, Val, and Michelle’s folks at De Vette Mossel. Sand, sun, superb company and unlimited seafood – what more could a girl ask for? As always, visits with special friends are just never long enough though.

In November, on the eighteenth, Elizabeth turned 50 – she didn’t want a big shindig, so her family and some of her friends had a light bite to eat with her at her parents’ home. To many, fifty is a dreadful milestone to reach, but Elizabeth says she’s worked hard to be so old. Mind you, she doesn’t look it – not a single wrinkle, just like her mom who’s already in her late 70’s. Three cheers for good genes! Sadly, the day before, The Toppie got bad news – the meds he was on for the bleed, along with his other chronic prescriptions for diabetes and high BP damaged his kidneys. He now has stage 3B chronic disease, the likelihood of which means that his kidneys will eventually fail. I took the decision to move back to The Toppie and The Bean to be there for both of them. It wasn’t a decision I took lightly, but it is one I have peace about. The Bean is not going to cope on her own when things really take a turn for the worse with The Toppie. Some of my friends think I’m making a grave mistake; others understand that my parents are my priority because they are my immediate family. I often say there is a reason God didn’t give me a husband or kids – He had already laid this path out for me.

December finally arrived, which meant time hadn’t stopped as I had hoped it would. I had to bid farewell to Eliza, Nathan, and their boys on the 12^th, because they were embarking on the next chapter of their lives in Australia. Generally, I’m quite stoic when it comes to saying goodbye, but as I got up to get my keys, uttering the words, “there’s no point in delaying the inevitable”, my voice broke, and my vision blurred. We stood in the thick fog, all trying not to cry, failing hopelessly!

A week later Facebook reminded me that a year to the day, I had tested positive for Covid. It did a number on my lungs, which came to light when I got bronchitis earlier this year. I’m prone to chest infections, which I’ve often been able to shake off with OTC meds. Not this time… I eventually admitted defeat in the doctor’s surgery after I started coughing blood. He ordered a chest cavity X-ray and a list of meds including antibiotics. I couldn’t afford both, so to this day, as I write this, we still don’t know the extent of the damage to my lungs.

I shed more tears a few days before Christmas as I spoke to my landlord and his wife about having to move. They were the first ‘landpeople’ I’ve ever had, and I can honestly say I couldn’t have asked for better people to let me a part of their home. Nine years I’ve lived in The Cave, and to think, in less than thirty days it will be as it was when I first set foot in it back in 2014. I can only hope that the person/people that rent it in the future have as wonderful a time living there as I did and realize how lucky they are to have Uncle H and Aunty J as their lessors. They really are good people.

And here I am, winding down the first day of 2023 – unsure about what the year holds, but earnestly praying that it brings fewer trials, because 2022, despite all the happy moments here, left me physically and emotionally exhausted. I chose not to make any New Year’s Resolutions this year – instead, I am just going to take each day as it comes and try to find something good in it. I may as well start here – the good thing about today was that I finished a book a friend lent me titled Mr Wrong Number by Lynn Painter. It was relatable and ridiculously funny. Not a bad way to kick off the year…

Happy New Year to you all!

PS. The months of which I’ve made no mention in this post, don’t mean that nothing happened, it’s just that I don’t have any ‘happy snaps’ (as Elizabeth calls them) to share with the written content.

Women’s Day 2022

Good heavens, it’s been almost five months since I have penned anything here. I’ve been busy with all sorts of things, which have put personal blogging on the back burner.

Yesterday South Africa celebrated Women’s Day. Historically, in 1956, on August 9th, approximately 20000 women marched to the Union Buildings in Pretoria to contest the changes to the Group Areas Act and the requirement to carry a Pass Book to be able to move in certain areas. For many though, it has become a day to celebrate women and our accomplishments.

My First Meat-Free-Monday: Mixed Pepper Pasta

I meant to post this on Monday, 3 May, but while I was cooking, the insane need to pee immediately gripped me and as I was undoing my pants, my phone fell out of my back pocket into the toilet bowl My need to pee evaporated instantly, and all I could think of was crap, crap, CRAP!!! (no pun intended!) and then silently thanked the cleaning gods that drive me to bleach the loo every second day. At least I didn’t have to fish it out of the bowl with my hands. Needless to say, I tossed the tongs away. Next my brain said get the phone into rice straight away to give it a fighting chance at surviving the water that was slowly infiltrating its innards. Thank the Pope a colleague gifted me a bag last month. Somehow I don’t think she or I thought that an expensive bag of brown basmati rice was going to end up in a plastic Tupperware trying to dry out a phone. Why don’t the cellphone manufacturers make water resistant handsets? Because, from what I’ve heard, cellphones and toilet bowls seem to have an affinity for one another. Next I went to Elizabeth’s house, panic stricken, and tried to dry the phone with the hairdryer on a low heat, and then it went to Chante, whose sister repairs phones. My phone’s board is okay, but the screen needs to be replaced. I don’t have the money for it now, but fortunately Elizabeth has lent me a phone in the meantime. Anyhow, the intended post follows…

Of Wine and Truffles

Yesterday was not a good day. I found out that a bottle of expensive wine that I bought almost a year ago disappeared out of the back of my grocery cupboard. The only thing I can think is that it was taken by the once-off cleaning lady and her companion that came to help me spruce up The Cave during level three of the lockdown. I left them alone for maybe a half hour to go and buy them some groceries as part of their agreed remuneration. It’s not so much the wine, but the memory attached to the bottle. I bought it for the girls’ night Eliza, Carmen and I had when we knew that Carmen was leaving to join Ewan in the Land of the Kiwis. We never got around to drinking it, but we made a pact to drink it together – Eliza and I at her house, with Carmen on a video call. To add insult to injury I felt a migraine setting in late afternoon and I felt all round blegh. Anyway, what’s done is done; there’s nothing I can do about it.

It’s Friday and nobody want to listen to gripes anyway, so I am going to share another kitchen adventure with you.

Day 159: Not What I Expected :(

I’m often disappointed. It is the price of having a soft heart – even in cooking.

Day 115: Boozy Comfort Food and an OTT Dream

It finally happened! I made the Boozy Jack Daniels Mac and Cheese that I’ve been hinting at in a previous post here, and here. Oh. My. Word. It was delicious!

Day 110 (I Think): K’Ching Cheddar

There I was, merrily typing away when poof, off went the computer and the deafening silence that only loadshedding brings, set in. We were supposed to be on stage one, but apparently a half hour before 14h00, they upped the ante. I had a number of consequential four-letter words that I silently screamed at Eskom. Aside from work that gets behind, I am worried about the fridge. It has taken to making a loud knocking sound every now and then. I hope it isn’t on it’s way out. Anyhow, I caught up some of the lost hours, with a delicious treat-coffee.

Given that I couldn’t work, I decided to go to the shop for the missing ingredients for the boozy mac and cheese that I keep seeing in my saved FB items.. Holy crap! Dinkum hard cheese is pricey. I’m talking R420 a kilo expensive. To add insult to injury, it is better travelled than I am! Made in Poland, matured in Italy. Pfffffffft!

As I stood with a mere 148 grams of it in my hand, uhm’ing and ah’ing about if I really wanted to try the recipe that much, the Cookery Goddess, Penelope (who has been on hiatus) emerged and said, “For crying in a pot of minestrone soup, you’re willing to toss half a cup of Old No.7 in this dish. Buy the effing cheese!” I knew best not to argue – people tend to look at me funny when I have a conversation with Pen in the middle of the dairy aisle.

I am going to make the mac and cheese tomorrow, assuming Eskom doesn’t put the power off in the early afternoon. Lord knows, this mac and cheese better live up to all the anticipation I have built up and the money I’ve spent on ingredients. Penelope had better come up with other recipes to use this cheese because I’ll be damned if I’m letting it turn into a penicillin-based science experiment in the (possibly retiring) fridge. On the flip-side I got paprika for almost R12 less than the local grocery shop here. The brown sugar was on special too. Penny best be clever there too. Last time she had me buy castor sugar for something and when I eventually wanted to use it, the ants had built slopes in the box and were donning skis.

It is less cold than yesterday, for which I am grateful. Even though there isn’t much warmth in the sun, the light is bright and the sky is blue. The alien tapeworm is also dormant – another thing for which I give thanks. I’ve only had a cup of coffee, my Herbalife shake, and two apples today. Tonight I shall most likely have some fish and roast vegetables.

I tried to wear my ankle boots that have a slight heel. I lasted all of ten minutes walking with them. My ankle did not appreciate being bent at an awkward angle. I very quickly put on the spare pair I had in the boot of my car. The Toppie is always on me about my car being like a travelling wardrobe, but today it was a blessing. My ankle is sore, but without a change of shoes the pain would be worse.

Before lockdown was implemented a hundred and whatever days ago, a few friends and I celebrated a friend’s birthday. There we joked about driving around ever weekend in search of the perfect carrot cake. We even joked about having a van, with WortelKoeke on the outside – the blokes being the wortels and the gals being the koeke. In this spirit, I want to do the same kind of thing, but for the perfect savoury pie, preferably pepper steak.

This may be #TMI, but after shitting through the eye of a needle for four days earlier this month thanks to a dodgy chicken mayo vetkoek sarmie, I’m averse to the idea of eating anything chickeny unless I’ve cooked it myself or seen it being prepared. I don’t wish diarrhoea for days on anyone.

Many South Africans are sad because Nestle is discontinuing Chocolate Log bars. They’ve been around since 1969, but in all my life if I’ve eaten one a year, it’s a lot.

I’m not big on marshmallowy chocolates, except Sweetie Pies; if it has peanut butter in it I will devour it, but failing that anything wafery is good, as is a Peppermint Crisp, Flake or anything by Cadbury. I swear I can taste the glass and a half of milk in every block. When I came back from my holiday to Singapore in 2004, I bought a Cadbury Black Forest slab at the airport. It was deliciously indulgent. I broke off a single block every so often and savoured it. That slab must have lasted at least three months which is a record for chocolate when I’m around.

While infections continue to rise, recoveries go unmentioned, and Eskom continues to freeze us out of the warmth and light many of us pay for, life is good – Rachel the Rocket continues to grow, work chugs along, and I’ve not yet acted on murderous impulses – but, it is only Wednesday…

Days 82 & 83: Turning Mishaps into Masterpieces

If for nothing else, this lockdown has taught me to utilise my kitchen. I am not going to lie – if The Cave didn’t come with a dishwasher included in the rent, I would be living in PB&J sammies, served on paper plates and drinking my coffee out of a paper cup.