Tag: hive-106316

Pretty Prickly

Grief and mourning
~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

I have been very prickly, lately. They say things get easier with time. Six and a bit months later, things have certainly not got easier. They are different. And it’s hard to explain exactly what that means. What is different is having to accept that you never know – really – what will trigger an emotional response.

grief, mourning

At the beginning of December, I was at the opening of the McGregor Art Walk. It’s an event that had been in the planning since February or March, and when that began, it was with The Husband’s full support. He was supposed to have been at that, and other, events over that weekend. Needless to say, I was flying solo that evening. That’s not new, but it’s most certainly different now. People’s conversations with me are different.

Conversation one

Pleasantries dispensed with, “I so admire widows and widowers….” she gushed.

Something in my brain clicked. I have absolutely no recollection of the rest of conversation other than that I somehow had to extricate myself from it, and move on. Once the formalities of the evening were done, I bade the host farewell and confessed, “I have to flee…” Mercifully, she understood.

I retreated to my usual Friday haunt and shared the gist of that conversation with a friend who lost her life partner a few years ago. She was aghast. As I had been. I spent the best part of the next couple of days, vacillating between bridling with incredulity, and reflecting on whether my reaction to the word “admire” was appropriate.

I did what I always do, and consulted the dictionary:

This is what Collins told me about admire:

Word forms: 3rd person singular present tense admires, present participle admiring, past tense, past participle admired
1. VERB B2
If you admire someone or something, you like and respect them very much.
I admired her when I first met her and I still think she’s marvellous. [VERB noun]
He admired the way she had coped with life. [VERB noun]
All those who knew him will admire him for his work. [VERB noun + for]
Synonyms: respect, value, prize, honour More Synonyms of admire
2. VERB B1+
If you admire someone or something, you look at them with pleasure.
We took time to stop and admire the view. [VERB noun]
Synonyms: marvel at, look at, appreciate, delight in.

When I read the first definition, I began to second guess my reaction . Then I read the second and which is the context – and which connotation – I usually associate with the word. I cannot – and could not – reconcile either pleasure or delight with the unwanted condition of widowhood. In my understanding, when one admires someone – like a firefighter, nurse, or teacher – it’s aspirational. Unless one aspires to being a mariticide. And the woman said it with her husband of at least 40 years at her side.

On reflection – I’m doing a lot of that – I realise that she was probably less admiring of the condition than of how the widow appears to getting on with things. It’s taken me nearly a month – and a second conversation – to get to this realisation.

Conversation two

I had a catch-up conversation with a client last week and it included a brief look back at the year, which from a work perspective has been a relatively good one. He thanked me for my contribution – especially given what had happened this year – for not dropping the ball. He concluded that it – how I coped – was an inspiration.

Why, I asked myself, had I not balked at that remark?

Again, I went to the dictionary, and before I did, I realise that the comment had context: he (and the team) – as far as anyone can – had shared my journey. We had much more than the perfunctory conversation that happens when you happen to bump into someone. There was empathy, compassion and concern which, when my house was burgled, translated into practical and material help. And, with all that, they gave me space to work at my own pace which enabled me to continue meeting deadlines – and earning. I needed the work for other reasons, too it was more than a necessary distraction. It helps to give my days, weeks, months, shape. A real reason to get out of bed.

More reflections

So, when I reflect on the context of both conversations, I’m struck, again, at the power of language – to break down – and build up. It also reminds me of the sports’ rule: play the ball, not the player. Yes, I am now a widow, and perhaps that’s why I had such a knee-jerk reaction to that comment. One doesn’t sign up for widowhood and if one has the misfortune to lose a life partner, even though you think you are, you’re never prepared. Nor is one prepared for the journey that is mourning. It’s different from any other, and until one embarks on that new

sunrise mourning grief

path, one cannot even dream of beginning to understand.

Now, I must look to the sunrise each day, and start all over again. On my own.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised application’s.

    • From WordPress, I use the Exxp plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here to sign up.

    • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.
Original artwork: @artywink

This day, 23 years later, will never be the same

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

For the first time in 23 years, I celebrate The Husband’s birthday without him. He didn’tFiona blog “do” birthdays. I did. That photograph, I took of him in 2016 and used it for the invitation to celebrate his 70th birthday. Seven years ago.

Exactly a month ago, on 5 June, I said goodbye to him forever. I left him knowing that while I was gone he was likely to breathe his last breath. He hadn’t been breathing without help for 37 days. He had been living – if you could call it that – his worst nightmare.

I had been home an hour when they called to say his time was close. A quarter of an hour later he left.

Six days later, the village – I mean the village – said goodbye.  It was an old fashioned wake at the local – where he had intended having his first beer when he came out of hospital.  It was not to be.

I did not have the strength to say what was in my heart and a friend read it for me.  I share it here.

Tom

My first conversation with Tom was over a pot of potatoes.  No, I wasn’t cooking.  He was.  He had his rear end in the air and I heard a frustrated expletive from behind a cupboard.  Cigarette hanging out of his mouth, he was managing very dodgy electrics to cook the perfect roast potatoes. I was just passing through the kitchen. He hadn’t seen me when I asked in even more colourful language, whether the potatoes were ruined.  He was more than startled. 

He never let me – or anyone – forget that conversation, especially the bits that followed:  a highly intellectual discussion about the meaning – and use – of the swear words for sodomy and fornication.  I subsequently discovered that he was a little nonplussed when he worked out that I was also that very annoying woman who kept on wailing, “I’ve lost my drink…”

It was a party – Tom never forgot the date:  Saturday 30 October, 1999. A housewarming of friends and who had been former neighbours of both of ours, at different times in our respective lives.  It was also that evening, that we danced together for the first time.  Not really together, although that’s what he’d have liked. Because I fled.  He was too interested.

As I think back on that evening, and it feels like yesterday, not the nearly quarter of a century that it is. Our meeting and what unfolded was – is – the Tom we know and love:

– Happy to help where he was needed

– Quick with a quiet riposte

– Always ready to hit the dance floor

He worked hard over the next few months. 

Just as he always remembered the date we met, he never forgot the date when, the following February, our “together” journey really began.  I didn’t make it easy for him.  Another long term relationship, let alone a marriage, was not in my life plan. Then.  He accepted that, and me, with all my foibles, and set about courting me.  Yes, that’s an old fashioned word, but it best describes how he gently held me as I grieved my mother, and set about earning my trust just by listening and doing.  Thinking and caring.  Just being himself.

Tom was not my other half.  He was a whole vibrant, strong, healthy person. The hardest part of the last 37 days of his life was that for most of it, he was robbed of his independence, agency, and autonomy. 

People laughed when I referred to the co-management, but that was how we did things – we discussed and reached an agreement.  Or tried because we didn’t always agree.  There were times – a lot – when we didn’t agree – mostly on work issues.  When the other knocked heads, we just picked up each other’s pieces and carried on.

Most people know Tom as a man of few words.  He was – unless he knew you well.  Then, he was hard to shut up.  He told stories and one of our Sunday Supper guests one evening exclaimed that she hadn’t known that he was such a raconteur – her word.  I’ve never forgotten.  I know there are so many of you here today who will miss Tom’s stories.  I, and others, asked him to write them down.  He never did.

There’s one story he never told at a dinner party, but which we discussed.  Often.  It epitomises the man who loved people and had the capacity to talk to anyone – and build bridges.  The specific details are not important, but here are the broad brush strokes:

Either shortly before or after independence in Zimbabwe and although back on the farm, he was still part of the police and some cattle had been stolen.  Everybody knew where they were, and with whom.  Things were still tense but protocols had been set in place for this kind of engagement. Tom volunteered to lead the group and negotiate for the cattle.  One of the conditions for the expedition was that nobody was to be armed.  It bothered everyone else.  Not Tom.  He was simply going to meet with people to have a conversation.

When the two groups ultimately met, they all recognised each other from having been on opposite sides.  Individuals in their respective forces who had been counterparts and enemies.  What ensued was a long and engaging conversation about hostile contacts.  There was one, in particular, and during which, the two men discovered that by some slight of hand or crack of stick, the one had not assassinated the other.  They discussed “who” (and what) the other had been during hostilities  and that they had known “of”, and encountered each other for years.  With no hard feelings, and much mutual respect they shook hands, and Tom returned to the farm with the cattle.

His gift with people explains why, during the hostilities leading up to Zimbabwe’s independence, their homestead was never attacked despite their cook, who lived in the compound, being a senior political leader.

Tom had a wicked sense of humour and given half a chance, full of mischief.  He was an adventurous and mischievous child.  One of my favourite stories is of the mice he wasn’t supposed to have had.  His mother discovered them because when he’d taken them to school – on his bicycle, inside his shirt and in his blazer – they ate bits out of his school uniform.  He graphically described how on a winter’s morning, he took them to school to sell. I know it’s impossible, but in my mind’s eye, created an abiding image of a little boy, peddling to school with a mission of mice clinging to the handlebars of his bike.

Then there was the time he and three of his mates built boats and raced them in the nearby stream. They waterproofed them with bitumen they encouraged to ooze from the edge of the tar road… They did it often because, between regattas, they stored boats by sinking them in the stream…

Then, there’s his telling – with all the actions and appropriate animal sounds – of when he tried to encourage an errant herd of cattle back into their camp. In the dead of a night with no moon. Such were his storytelling skills that listeners hung on every word, and when he eventually explained that the glowing eyes and warm snuffly snorts were coming from a herd of wild buffalo, everybody would be crying with laughter.

He loved a party, and to dance. Often, at his insistence, we’d be the first up and dancing. And the last.

Please dance for Tom. With Tom in your heart. At least one more time.

Until next time
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script

If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised applications.

  • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

Original artwork: @artywink
  • lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

 

 

Musings on Mothers, Motherhood and Choices

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

It’s Mothers’ Day today.  Growing up, Mothers’ Day was not a thing.  I do, though, remember sermons about Mothering Sunday.  Until I went to boarding school where peer group pressure made me pay attention and “do the right thing”.  My mother’s response was less than enthusiastic which, with hindsight, I still don’t understand.  Was I hurt?  I don’t remember.  I do remember that my peers looked at me funny when I said that in our home we didn’t “do” Mothers’ Day – or Father’s Day – for that matter.  I was used to the funny looks.  They have quite a lot with why, for a patch, the adolescent and young adult Fiona worked hard at two things:  conforming and being invisible.

Mum was not my friend

It’s no secret that my relationship with my mother was difficult.  I don’t miss her or think about her very often, the way I do my father. I’m no longer envious of women who are friends with their mothers.  At one time I was and longed for that sort of relationship.  It took years to recognise that during my young adulthood, I had been blessed with friendships with women who cared for and comforted me in a way my own mother never did or could.  It was they with whom had some of those very uncomfortable conversations that I think daughters should be having with their mothers.  Similarly, it was with them I shared some of my most happy life events and experiences.

Motherhood and universal kinship

As I approach the end of my third score, I remain constantly perplexed at what women expect of each other.  It also astounds me how some assume that within minutes of what will most definitely be a passing acquaintance, they may ask, “Do you have children?”  Some women welcome that question and will happily wax lyrical about their children and/or grandchildren.

Others dread it.

I am one of those.

Because no, I don’t have children.  And the person – usually a woman – asking, generally does.

A negative answer doesn’t end the conversation.  If she’s smart, she’ll change the subject.  Regrettably, that’s not often my experience.  After her face registers confusion and sympathy, she believes that she now has license to quizz, “Why?”

Because women have an inherent kinship, right?

Wrong.

I sometimes wonder whether, if the boot were on the other foot, and she were asked why she has children, her answer would be an honest or comfortable one.  I suspect, in some cases, not.  I know some women who, if they are brutally honest, will say that having a/that child was not their preferred choice.

That confession is not something shared with a comparative stranger.  Nor is it expected.  Why, then, should a childless woman be expected to explain that she might not have had children because:

  • she’s infertile
  • her partner’s infertile
  •  she just does / did not want children

Each of those (of a myriad other) answers opens new cans of worms, some of which bore their way to the very core of women’s intimate spaces.

Choices  and judgement

Women most easily “forgive” first two possible answers.  It’s the last one that is confusing and often not forgivable. It confuses me because what is so unforgivable about making a conscious choice?  Judgements range from (and these are not exclusive to me) from –

“How can you be so selfish?”

to

“You would have made such a good mother!”

and the piéce de resistance —

“You don’t know what you’re missing!”

Really?

Society hasn’t really changed

Biology aside (which we know has not changed over the eons), “we” like to think that in the 21st century, society is more “advanced” than it was a century ago.  In some ways it is, but it really depends on where women find themselves – even in the same village.  I remain astounded at how so much social and other media reflect a world in which a woman can only be happy if she finds a man, marries (preferably) and has children.

The burgeoning wedding industry and the rise in popularity of uber romantic destination weddings does nothing to dispel this, either.

Sutherland Farm Wedding Expressions Photography 142
Source: Expressions Photography

Granted, there are well-documented correlations between socio-economic level and these expectations, which are also often connected with both religious beliefs and level of education.  That said, women who eschew some of these conventions – and I’m one of them – find themselves constantly judged for, and defending, their choices.

Freedom to decide and choose

It’s partly Mother’s Day, and partly the leaking of the possibility that the seminal Roe v. Wade judgment could be overturned, that has me pondering.  I know four women who had pregnancies terminated in South Africa in the 1980s.

Each one of those women agonised over that dreadful decision.  I’d go so far as to suggest that it was the single most difficult decision any of those women have ever made in their now nearly 60 years of life.

Only one of the terminations was legal and that by virtue of her economic circumstances and access to medical professionals who knew how to work the system.  The other three all had backstreet abortions.  Relatively speaking, they were safe – also by virtue of their economic status.  They had the connections to be able to find a “practitioner” and managed to afford to have the procedure – at night – in what was probably a private day clinic. There were no follow-up visits.  No checks to see that all was ok.  All three knew that if there were complications, there were other potential consequences, other than not having an unwanted pregnancy.

Two of these women went on to have children.  One has three boys – now grown up.  Another, that I am aware of, subsequently went on to marry and have a child.  Divorce and then have another.  She’d resolved never to have another termination.  As did one of the others and who is not unhappily childless.  I lost touch with the fourth.

Where were the sperm donors?

In the case of the legal termination, and one of the women, I have no idea whether the sperm donors played any role in the decision. In the third, he simply ended the relationship.  The fourth abdicated any involvement in the decision:

Whatever you decide is fine with me.    I will support you.

It’s unfathomable that an opinionated, educated man had no opinion on something potentially lifechanging – for two, potentially three, lives.  He did, once she had made a hard, solitary decision, contribute half the cost of the then illegal procedure.

The death statistics

In 1997, the year that abortion was legalised in South Africa, a study showed that 95% of women hospitalised were admitted because of incomplete abortions.  Of that number, another 95% of those in public hospitals died of complications associated with abortion.  The study concludes that “methods used in this study underestimate the true incidence” – because the procedure was then illegal.  Statistics that have significantly dropped since that legislation was implemented.

Why Roe v. Wade reverberates for women all over the world

Most women who are pro choice are only too familiar with the symbolism of that 1973 judgement.  Its rescinding will be as symbolic.  It’s less about defining when a foetus can survive – and thrive – in the big wide world than it is about women’s autonomy.  It’s about our being able to make choices that affect our lives – and bodies – every moment of our lives.

As astounding as I find the questions about progeny, I find the pontifications of women who are happy mothers, and who chose to procreate. I am equally flummoxed by their damning judgement of women who chose differently.

How fortunate are they who have not been confronted with having to make a different choice.

Making it illegal for women to choose is not going to stop us choosing.

Deciding to terminate a pregnancy is a choice as old as history.  A change to the US law will have a knock on effect around the world and particularly in the global south where the US supports public health initiatives as happened under the Trump administration.  It’s a change that will result in death for many women.

My parents didn’t want children

I grew up being blamed for my parents not going to Australia.  Somehow, I was conceived and that plan was scuppered so they sailed back to England.  After my mother’s death in 1999, my father told me that he’d never wanted to marry, let alone have children.  The marriage, he happily blamed on my mother.  The first child remained a mystery.  They had taken every precaution.

How did that make me feel?

I admit to having been a little startled.  An irrational emotion because had I either not been born, or he’d kept that secret, I’d be none the wiser.

It’s moot.

I was loved – by them both.  Even if my mother was not my friend.

Whether she had a choice, or made a choice, I do not know.  I never will.  Either way, it’s a choice that was entirely hers to make.

So…

On this Mother’s Day, spare a thought for those women for whom it’s a day that evokes all sorts of thoughts and emotions.  Sadness for mothers no longer around, unknown, not understood.  Or for those women who are again forced to confront – again – their decisions about motherhood.  Whether or not they have had the freedom to choose.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script

If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised applications.

  • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

  • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.
Original artwork: @artywink
  • lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

 

 

The soundtrack to my life – a kind of musical “back story”

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

An opening word – or three

I wrote this post as an experiment in November 2018 in response to a challenge:  pick one favourite song.  For me, that is a virtually impossible task.  I have favourites depending on my mood, what I’m hearing, the context, where I am… I delighted in rising to that challenge to which I rose.  A couple of years later, I responded to another challenge:  to write about my favourite lead singers, because when my erstwhile webhost disappeared – also in 2018 – this post went along with it.  When I “reconstituted” it in 2020, we were in the throes of a Covid lockdown.  It was a black period and I did little more than copy and paste it from the blockchain and repost it.

This time

The expriment worked – I’ll explain in a bit, but first, I’m revisiting it now for two reasons:  my blogpal, Traci, also plays in the crypto social space.  Twice a year for the last four years, she hosts Hive Blog Posting Month.   I have been a regular contributor for a while and have not just had fun, but have made new blogpals along the way.  She also offers a set of useful prompts.  I write what I like, generally, only occasionally checking in on the prompt.  One was about music that resonated.  As usual, I’m late to the party because not only did Traci’s own life soundtrack resonate with me, but it reminded me of mine and thought I should revisit it which was reinforced after reading this post from a self-proclaimed Mad Scot whose music seems to track (ha!) mine.

About this iteration

I mentioned that first reprise of this post was a copy and paste excercise.  With hindsight, I realise that I wasn’t really in a space to properly revisit it.  As I mentioned the other day, lockdown was a difficult time.  I – like the rest of the world – seemed to have been just marking time and going through the motions.  This time, I’m looking at my sound track with new eyes and listening with a clearer ear.

I am as interested as you (I hope) are, to see how things have changed or unravelled….

Foreword

I wrote this in the third person:  it’s the first piece I ever wrote about myself using that technique.  I tried, and I think, succeeded in weaving my life story out of song and album titles.  I do use a little artistic license.  It was fun and, I’m told, makes a good read.  I hope it stands the test of time.

Arrival

With her parents, she arrived On a Jet Plane (John Denver) in Johannesburg, South Africa – a little Puppet on a String (Sandie Shaw).  With a Locomotive Breath (Jethro Tull), the family took a train to Port Elizabeth (and got locked in a lavatory.  There, she made friends with Jennifer Eccles (The Hollies) and another Jennifer, Juniper (Donovan), but didn’t find Atlantis (Donovan).

The house my parents built in East London 1968. Originally, it consisted of the gable, and the chimney and the two windows to the left. This photo was taken in 2010.

After a while, the family moved to East London where she started school and met Pretty Belinda (Chris Andrews) whom, full of Sorrow (David Bowie) she left behind, when the family moved.  Again.  At the new school, she was Only the Lonely (Roy Orbison), and just had to Get Down (Gilbert O’Sullivan), and face her Waterloo (Abba), until she headed to boarding school.

So you think your schooling is phony….

Hostel dance – 1976 – only just a teenager

Boarding school was all about putting Another Brick in the Wall (Pink Floyd) and avoiding the Bad Moon Rising (Credence Clearwater Revival).  ZX Dan (The Radio Rats) kept her company while she yearned for an African Sky Blue (Juluka).

In those teenage years, she was a bit like Sandra Dee (Olivia Newton John) looking for Someone to Love (Queen).

Then, like Greased Lightening (John Travolta), her Rhinestone Cowboy (Glen Campbell) rode in, but he had a Heart of Glass (Blondie), leaving her with The Sounds of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel) in the Purple Rain (Prince).

Asking, I want to know what love is? (Foreigner), she finished school and the Wild Thing (The Trogs), Like a Virgin (Madonna) headed to university.

There she found herself in the Eye of the Tiger (Survivor), saying, Papa don’t Preach (Madonna).

On the beach…

What a Feeling (Irene Cara), those years of Ebony and Ivory (Stevie Wonder) when, with a lot of De Do Do Do De Da Da Da (Police), Time after Time, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun (Cyndi Lauper), it was a Never Ending Story (Limahl).

Days of “study” and fun at university

Following her heart, Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, in someone else’s (Silver Dream Machine), she nearly ended up as a Crash Test Dummy(s).  That episode did end up with her Making Love out of Nothing at all (Air Supply), and singing the Redemption Song (Bob Marley).

(Wo)Men at Work

Working 8 – 5 (Sheena Easton/Dolly Parton – take your pick)

The Long and Winding Road (The Beetles) led to Johannesburg – Starting Over (John Lennon) which ended with Love on the Rocks (Neil Diamond), making her Brown Eyes Blue (Linda Ronstadt).

It was also time to start working Eight Days’ a Week (Beetles), joining the Men at Work (Down Under).  So, Here comes Tomorrow (The Dealians).  In Sugarman‘s (Rodriguez) company, her Last Dance (Diana Ross) took her to Meadowlands (Strike Vilakazi) where she did the Pata Pata (Miriam Makeba) and pleaded, Give me Hope, Joanna (Eddie Grant).

The odd Weekend Special (Brenda Fassie) didn’t go amiss, either.

After a while, it was time to Beat It (Michael Jackson), take the Paradise Road (Joy) and Go West (Pet Shop Boys).  Not the best decision because Another one Bit(es) the Dust (Queen) because of a Careless Whisper (George Michael) – Tainted Love (Soft Cell).  Again (Doris Day). This time, Weeping (Bright Blue), she headed to Mannenberg (Abdullah Ebrahim/Dollar Brand) and found That Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen) that was Simply the Best (Tina Turner).

Love over Gold

It felt like Another Country (Mango Groove) in a Mad World (Tears for Fears) where Love is a Stranger (Eurythmics).

She Put(tin’ )on the Ritz (Taco), and began another Walk of Life (Dire Straits).  It was totally Perfect (Fairground Attraction), for which there could be no Substitute (Clout) and best of all, in a Funky Town (Pseudo Echo) that would keep her Forever Young (Rod Steward and Alphaville).

That Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler) didn’t last.  He was a Karma Chameleon (Boy George).  It was time to go Out there on My Own (Irene Cara), and with London Calling (The Clash), she headed for Barcelona (Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé).  From then on, Believe(ing – Cher), it was going to be all Livin’ la Vida Loca (Ricky Martin).

It was More than a Feeling (Boston).

It was definitely The End of the Road (Boyz II Men).  She told him Don’t Bring me Down (ELO) and Jump (Van Halen).  She took The Long Way Home (Supertramp) after what felt like The Crime of the Century (Supertramp).  No such thing as Love over Gold (Dire Straits).

Against All Odds

The Husband and I, exchanging vows – 2002

Then, My Oh My (Van Halen), completely unexpectedly, at the end of a long Telegraph Road (Dire Straits) she found A Groovy Kind of Love (Phil Collins) that was full of Honesty (Billy Joel) that had her Dancing on the Ceiling (Lionel Ritchie).  Jabulani (PJ Powers) – happiness was the word.  She had found her Charlie (Rabbit) and he wasn’t a Man on the Moon (Ballyhoo).  He did want to Kiss her all Over (Exile) on a Bed of Roses (Bon Jovi).

Afterword

Firstly, did you pick up the group, album, song title or lines from songs in the section headings?  If you didn’t this is each of them – in order:  Arrival – Abba; So you think your schooling is phony….is a line from Supertramp’s Crime of the Century (song and album); Men at Work – the band from Australia and, finally, Dire Straits’ Love Over Gold song and album. And finally, that iconic Phil Collins song, Against All Odds…

Secondly, I did stop the story where another story began 20 years ago.  I guess I might have to consider doing another post about the last two decades…

Finally, as I said, I was hard pressed (notice the joke, those of you who remember vinyl) to choose just one.  I have favourites that apply at different times and others that I hated and now love.  I thought that in my revision, I might change things.  I haven’t.  I have added more, and not just in the headings which I did with version two….

There are songs missing from this list and which I’d love to have included, like Johnny Clegg’s Asimbonanga (We have not seen him [Mandela]), but I really couldn’t work it in, but couldn’t leave it out, either.  It is up there with another evocative song from my youth, Bright Blue’s Weeping.  Both are iconic songs of the struggle against Apartheid.

However, I have saved my absolute favourite to the end.  It comes from one of the world’s greatest guitarists and whose music underpins virtually every stage of my life – from my teens, and until now.  Why this song?  I have no idea, but it resonated for me the first time I heard it in the summer of 1980.  At the time, I did not know that it was Santana, or the name of the tune – it’s instrumental.  It haunted me for years, and one of the first records I ever bought, was the Santana album that included this song.  I now have it on CD – the same album – along with a number of other Santana albums that are all precious and special for different reasons.  One of the memories and experiences I shall treasure forever, was seeing Santana live in South Africa – I had waited nearly 40 years.  It was worth the wait and every penny.  Especially when he played this.

If Santana visits South Africa again, I’ll move heaven and earth – again – to go.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script

I am participating in @traciyork‘s twice-yearly Hive Blog Posting Month.

If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised applications.

  • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

  • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.
Original artwork: @artywink
  • lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

Sandwich Memories

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

It seems I’ve written quite a bit about sandwiches over the years.  They were the subject of one of my earliest (and surviving) blog posts.

Fionas Favourite open sandwiches
Open sandwiches – 2014

Given that a sandwich is food – a filling – wrapped up – or between two slices of some sort of bread – I really have. Quite something given that about five years ago, I stopped eating bread:  commercial bread, anyway.  That’s a story for another time.

First memorable sandwich

My first real sandwich memory goes back to 1969 and my first day at school.  I think it’s memorable because, actually, the sandwich was not. Memorable.  I think.  That January morning, at mid-morning break, I opened my square, yellow lunch box and found a Fray Bentos sandwich.  I remember sitting by myself on the “playground” which was a tarmacadam tennis court.  I didn’t really know what was expected of me.

I heard a cacophony, not wanting to join in and retreated into my lunch box.

In it:  a single slice of white bread, cut in half and then cut again, into two squares.  Fray Bentos – with butter or margarine – on white bread – was my most frequent tea time snack for the next eight years.  The only variation was after we moved to Grahamstown.  In late summer, the garden produced a glut of tomatoes.  Soggy white bread and warm slices of tomato were not an improvement on Fray Bentos.

Boarding School

Going to boarding school introduced me to sandwiches of an entirely different sort.

Last year, at the behest of a school mate, I wrote about a tuck shop favourite. I alluded to the sandwiches that we boarders would get each day.  I specifically mentioned the egg sandwiches which were my favourite:  grated, with salt and pepper and on fresh brown bread.  My mouth is watering now, as I think about them.  They were a definite improvement on the Fray Bentos sandwiches.  In her defense, my mother probably slapped them together either the night before, after cooking dinner or after we moved to Grahamstown, as she cooked the family breakfast.

Of the variety of sandwiches we got at boarding school – different every day – my least favourite was peanut butter.  Just. No.  I’m not a peanut butter girl.  I’m not a fan of peanuts, period.  When they “happened” and, I admit, it wasn’t often, I just gave them a miss and/or happily passed them on to someone who lurved them.

More white bread

Still at boarding school, with seniority came certain privileges.  One of these was leave to leave the school property and walk either to the local bakery or to the hospital kiosk.  The latter was closer, but the bread wasn’t quite the same as from the Prem(ier Bakery).  We knew exactly what time it came out of the oven and if we timed it right, we could make it back to the hostel while the bread was still warm.  Back in the boarding house, armed with butter or margarine (I don’t remember which) and bags of salt and vinegar chips (crisps), we’d sit on our beds and make sandwiches.  They were out-of-this-world-delicious.  And crummy.  We did not care.

Truthfully, I have, in my adulthood been known to buy a sandwich with a packet of crisps and then proceed to open the sandwich and add the crisps.  Always salt and vinegar.  Only salt and vinegar.  For the crunch, you understand.

Back seat

After leaving school and at university, sandwiches didn’t feature. At. All.  Nor in my early working years until I worked for a company that had no canteen.  For a while, the tea lady, as a side line, made toasted sandwiches for the staff.  I remember their being delicious.  I remember, too, that that was the first time that I began to make soup.  Not like my mother’s.  Another story for another time.  Perhaps.

Twenty years of Lunch (mostly) sandwiches

When I started working from home – now more years than most people would like to contemplate – a sandwich was the logical, quick, on the run food.  Oh, but before that, and when I lived alone, bread and open sandwiches were essential for survival.  Toast and avocado remain one of my favourites.  For a while, I was lucky to work with someone who had an avocado farm.  For that year, I lived on avocado on toast.  It was never boring.  It would have been even more exciting had I discovered Mexican flavours and chilli.  However, in 1989, cuisines of the world were less known – an popular – than they are now. That said, I still love plain avocado, with a fresh slice of bread and butter, salt and freshly ground blace pepper  and Worcestershire sauce.  Also, incidentally, one of my Dad’s favourites.

Favourite unconventional sandwiches

Sandwiches cover a multitude of sins.

Fat cake

curry fat cake
Curried Vetkoek

Another favourite and not often indulged in – although we may… is the vetkoek.  It’s a traditional leavened dough that’s deep-fried and stuffed.  Often with curried meat.  It’s another tuck shop favourite from school.  It’s an iconic local streetfood.  It’s delicious.  The last time I ate one, was the day I got the jab was just last night.

At a farewell for Swiss swallows who’ll return for the summer later this year.

Flatbreads, buns and wraps

When I really applied my mind, I realised that we eat a lot of sandwiches – if I stretch the definition.

asian slaw, hummus, flatbread, naan
Flat bread with hummus and Asian slaw

Flat, or naan bread is a frequent menu item.

Then there are my tortilla trials.

Last but not least, the buns.

broad bean burger, sourdough, vegetarianSince I began my sourdough journey and I bake buns for the market, it’s an excuse to eat the iconic sandwich:  the burger.   I also make the patties: plant and meat-based.  The latter’s recipe a work in progress.  When I post it, I’ll edit this add the link here.

Musings about memories

I had not thought much about my school lunches until sandwich memories came up as a topic.  I also had not realised how indelible a memory that first-day-at-school sandwich was.  That memory was the first thing that jumped into my head. It’s a memory that makes me neither happy nor sad; I just remember it.  Perhaps it’s more about feeling overwhelmed in that playground.  In the crowd but not part of it.  It’s a feeling that’s persisted for most of my life.  Again, neither happy, nor sad but rather just the way it is.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script

I am participating in @traciyork‘s twice-yearly Hive Blog Posting Month.

If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised applications.

  • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

  • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.
Original artwork: @artywink
  • lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

 

 

 

Of licenses, liars and scrambled eggs

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

She came into the kitchen, clearly distressed, and asked, “Do you vear licenses?” pointing at her eyes.

“Umm….ye-e-s…”

“So could I pliz have some of zat liqvid to clean mine?”

Then the penny dropped.  Lenses.  Contact lenses.  I had taken a flyer and thought that our Ukranian house guest was talking about prescription spectacles.  This was after her first breakfast in The Sandbag House.  Each day, it consisted of fresh fruit salad, homemade meusli, yogurt and honey.  Snuggled in the wax wrap is a muffin – for later.

Languages and learning languages

I’ll come back to the breakfast, but that exchange about the contact lenses got me thinking about languages.  I am a pretty proficient English speaker and writer.  At school I was compelled to learn a second language – Afrikaans – then South Africa’s only other official language.  It was not a language to which I had any exposure:  neither parent spoke another language fluently having been born and brought up in the UK.  My mother had a smattering of French and my father, having worked in the Parks’ Department in Kampala, was at one time, relatively proficient in Kiswahili. That I managed, somehow, to scrape through Afrikaans with a passing grade at school and, subsequently, a one year course at university, is nothing short of a miracle.  I have dabbled with learning French – an opportunity offered by the Alliance Française, a million years ago.  I picked up less than a smattering of isiXhosa when I lived in the Eastern Cape doing community development work. I learned a smidge of Spanish from having spent three weeks in the Old City in Palma de Mallorca.

The view across the way from the room where I stayed when I was in Palma de Mallorca.

The examination

Returning to Afrikaans:  a prerequisite of my teacher’s qualification was oral proficiency in that language.  I was automatically credited with written proficiency (ha!) by way of having completed that one-year, watered-down university course.  Four years later, I had to do an oral exam in a language that, to be frank, I had rarely heard spoken, let alone understood.  Preparation had been a weekly group discussion in which, I suspect, I was largely silent.  Unless required to speak.  Because I couldn’t.  The appointed day arrived and I presented myself.  The panel consisted of the local school inspector and our tutor.  She also happened to be a family friend which makes what transpired all the more mortifying, and which is why the entire episode is etched in my memory.”Goeie môre Mejuffrou Cameron.”

Burble, mumble…um… Good morning!

Pleasantaries done, the serious stuff of working out whether I could “praat die taal” ensued.

“Sê my, hoe bak jy ‘n sjokelade koek?”

Let’s not get stuck on the stereotypical question by a man of a young female student, because my response:

I’ve never baked a cake, let alone a chocolate cake.  Besides, I don’t like chocolate cake.

“O!

“Sê my, wat van motorbestuur?”

Oh, good, I could answer this!

“Ek bestuur nie motor nie, maar ek is van plan om in die volgende tyd, my leuenaars licensie te kry…”

So you don’t drive?  You need to get your learner’s license?

“Ja, seker in die volgende paar weke, sal ek my leuenaars toets gaan doen…”

And I warbled on happily about my leuenaars liensie until I took my leave.

It was only a looong time after I left that room that it dawned on me that I was was not planning to get my leerlings lisensie but rather, my liar’s licence…

Needless to say, I scored the lowest possible grade in Afrikaans proficiency – an “a” as opposed to an “A”.  It allowed me to qualify and to teach only at an English medium school.

Lessons

That is a lesson that lives with me.  Learning, let alone becoming proficient in, a language not one’s mother tongue when you are not immersed in it, is inordinately difficult.  My Afrikaans is much improved – because of where I live – it’s the mother tongue of most folk in the community and people who work with and for us.  Improved proficiency, however, hasn’t given me the confidence to hold an entire conversation in the language, let alone read and write it with any comfort.

English, is a complex language with many equally confusing words. Having not only trained as an English teacher, but having been an online writing tutor where many of my students were second language English writers, I have great empathy with the struggles of speakers and writers of second languages.

Ukranian diplomat poet

Returning to our Ukranian guest:  she was in McGregor for the seventh edition of the annual weekend of Poetry in McGregor.  Through our conversation I learned that she’s been in South Africa for only a year.  Her work as a poet and academic, had put her in touch with some South Africans and her proposal to the Ukranian government, earned her a diplomatic role.

She fell in love with McGregor – and my scrambled eggs – which brings me back to breakfast.  Her three-night stay was punctuated by Saturday and the only morning I make it clear to guests that there will be no cooked breakfast.  A continental breakfast will be set on a tray and/or put in their little fridge.  The first morning:

“How would you like your eggs?”

“Oh, any vay.  Vot iss easier for you? Boiled, scrambled…”

I’ll scramble eggs any day.  As it so happens, eggs, scrambled is one of my favourite ways of eating them.  I confess that I’m fussy.  I like them the way my father ate them.  I loved sitting on his knee and insisting on eating them off his plate:  creamy on buttery toast and with a good grinding of black pepper.

Our guest enjoyed her scrambled eggs so much, she contemplated no other choice for her last breakfast. And –

“How do you make them?”

Fiona’s Mum’s creamy scrambled eggs

First, I don’t do scrambled eggs in the microwave.  Nor do I do them in a frying pan.  I do them in a small saucepan.

Second:  making scrambled eggs is not a quick exercise.

Thirdly, it’s a study in concentration:  take your eye off them and they spoil.

Ingredients

2 eggs per person
2 generous knobs of butter – even if you’re using a non-stick pan
a dash of milk – proportional to the number of eggs, of course
salt and pepper

  1. Beat the eggs.
  2. Add the milk if using (I always do).
  3. Season to taste.
  4. Heat a saucepan with a good quantity of butter – it must coat the base.
  5. When the butter is sizzling, pour in the egg and stir.
  6. Continue stirring frequently until the egg mixture begins to cook – it sticks to the sides and bottom of the pot.
  7. Now it is essential to stir continuously, making sure you move the cooked egg into the middle of the pot, agitating the mixture all the time, so that it doesn’t stick.
  8. Do not overcook them otherwise they go watery,
    and remember
    scrambled eggs continue cooking in the hot pan after you take them off the heat.
  9. Once they are creamy and lumpy the way you like them, take them off the heat and add a knob of butter.
  10. Serve either on their own, or use some of the ideas below.
Oksana’s delight at her Scrambled Egg Breakfast

Breakfast stacks

I cobbled this breakfast together a few years ago, the morning after we had returned from a short trip and we hadn’t had time to shop.  I ferreted in the fridge and wandered round the garden and discovered eggs, bacon, spinach and tomatoes, as well as fresh chives and parsley. After a week of hotel breakfasts, I wanted something different.  I made a thick, rich tomato sauce starting with onion sautéed in the fat from the crisply fried bacon which had been set aside to drain.  Once the bacon and sauce had been sorted, I wilted a small bunch of young spinach leaves and made a batch of creamy scrambled eggs.

While all that was going on, plates were happily warming and waiting to have the breakfast bits piled on them.  First the wilted spinach and then a dollop of the tomato mix, followed by the scrambled egg and, finally, the crispy bacon.  Before garnishing with a sprig of parsley and a fresh chive flower, I chopped some and sprinkled chives over everything.

2013-11-17 09.58.34
Back to our guest:  when she departed, she left not only a beautiful beaded bracelet with a traditional pattern from her beloved Ukrania, but a note in our guest book that stole our hearts.

And when I expressed my appreciation for both on Facebook, her riposte:


Last word

I wrote this in August 2019, before the pandemic was imagined and before Russia invaded Ukraine.  Needless to say, she, her family and the people of her country have been much on our minds the last two days.  The original went the way of so many of my 2019 posts and I thought that given the events of the last few days, appropriate to share it again.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised applications.

  • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

  • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.
Original artwork: @artywink
  • lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

 

Halloween: memories from the past, and not-too-distant past

~ Fiona ~ 1 Comment

When I grew up, Halloween wasn’t a thing. And it was.

In the 1970s, Halloween didn’t feature on the South African calendar. Somehow, though, it was always mentioned in our house. By my father. It had been a thing in his childhood and he’d talk of the night the spirits fly. He believed in things fey and in the second sight.  I was never poo-pooed for believing that fairies lived under the mushrooms that sprang up in the garden.  Nor was I disabused from believing that fairies had danced the night away in the garden when I found a circular ring in the lawn (after it had been mowed).  I have said before, that we have fairies in our garden.

My first, and only childhood memory of actually “doing” the Halloween thing, was an evening at church. Having gone to boarding school at 12, I have no memories of Halloween from my teen years.

Halloween 1973 or 4

I think it was 1973 or 4. I do know that it was preceded by a flurry of repainting and refurbishing the church hall.  In the photograph below, the hall is the building to the right of the church.

Trinity Presbyterian Church, Grahamstown (now Makhanda), as I remember it. Source

As I recall, my mother had been instrumental in sewing the new curtains and we’d all been involved in the painting.  More painted upon in the case of the children, than anything else.  I remember the only other members of my Sunday school class – two boys – chasing me around the paint tins and precinct;  both also went on to Rhodes, but that’s another story.

Dad’s bagpipes

When I was searching for a photo of Trinity Presbyterian – I have none of that evening – and very few of that time of my life – I came across this photograph (in the now electronic archives in the Cory Library at my almer mater).  My heart turned over:  the man playing the bag pipes, fondly known as Uncle Bob, was the minister that evening – and for my entire child- and young adulthood. A real blast from the past.

Rev Bob Donaldson playing the bag pipes at a Scottish evening. Source

Those bagpipes Uncle Bob’s playing, were my father’s. After my father’s abortive attempt at learning and teaching himself to play, they were sort of on permanent loan to Uncle Bob.  Himself also a Scot, having emigrated from Scotland, he played.  As he must have that evening, and as he did at every Burns Night at my parents’ home.  January jamborees that, after nearly 20 years, were Grahamstown legend.

As an aside:

The Cory Library which, then, was ensconced in the larger university library, was the site of my first ever paying job:  in 1979.

Back to that Halloween:

I’m not sure whether my memory’s playing tricks on me, or it’s what I want to remember, but I think that Scottish evening – Halloween – was a celebration of a job well done.

As I recall, there was Scottish country dancing, bobbing for apples and trying to catch scones covered in syrup and suspended by rope.  I also remember and looking for something – I cannot remember what, face first, in big (or so they seemed to me) zinc baths of flour.  Other details of the evening, I don’t remember.  I do, though, remember that it was one of the happiest of my childhood.  It was such fun!

Fast forward to the early 80s

Halloween 1982, I shall probably never forget.  Not because I did the “Halloween thing”, but rather because that week provided opportunities for trysts of a different kind.  I had not long met and fallen for a troepie.  As I’ve mentioned before, the 80s were a fraught time in South Africa; all young white men were conscripted.  Grahamstown (now Makhanda) is home to the Sixth South African Infantry Battalion which was also one of the camps at which conscripts “did” basic training.  And it is home to a university.  Quite a set of ingredients.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terror_Train

That year, one of the more “senior” conscripts was an old Rhodian.  His fiancé, until she graduated the previous year, had been in our residence; her sister was my contemporary.  Not only did said fiancé visit, but he brought some of his army mates along.

One of them had a mop of wiry blonde hair, bright blue eyes and the most glorious smile.  He was beautiful.  I fell.  So, it seems, did he.  In those days, getting out of camp was an issue.  Gentleman visitors in our residences (dorms), well, were not permitted beyond the common room. When eventually they were, it was certain evenings of the week, and from 7 to 10pm.  He and I spent a lot of time at the bioscope. Sort of watching two films in particular:  Terror Train and My Bloody Valentine.

I must have really been smitten.  Even snogging in the back row of the  movies, I saw enough of both, to neither forget them, nor ever want to see them – or any other horror film – again!

I remember it as a fun, happy time, though.  It fizzled because – well this is my story – my parents would not allow me to go home with him (by train to Cape Town), and meet his parents. Of him, and the merry band from that short patch, I do have photographs.  However, in the interests of protecting the “innocent” involved, they remain stashed in a shoebox….

Grown up Halloween: in the second decade of the second millenium my silver years

Halloween 2019

It really is true that one’s never too old to have fun or to recapture some of one’s youth.  That Halloween wasn’t a “thing” in my childhood or youth hasn’t stopped me from getting into the spirit (ha!) of things in my more recent past.  Two years ago, and before Covid-19 was a thing, friends who had returned to the village and opened an establishment, “did” a Halloween evening.  The Husband and I got into the spirit of things:  he as a wizard, I as a witch. We were the best dressed couple (!).

I have to explain:  I shall always be a witch.  I was first accorded that title by the son from another mother.  Apparently, it was a no brainer because I drank lots of tea and had a familiar.  A ginger cat.  The Husband, when he arrived on the scene and tried to label me, was disappointed to discover that he was too late.

Now, I claim it.  Along with my own, designated transport, and which is generally parked next to the kitchen door.

This year, The Husband was my Pirate Wizard.  Always, and in deference to his and our roots, in traditional garb.

This time, I decided to lighten things with what I like to think of as my “fairy” witch’s hat.  Courtesy of our bloomin’ garden.

It’s never too late, especially with what we’ve all had to face in the last two years, to have a little fun and make new memories, as we did on All Hallows Eve, 2021.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.

    • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

    • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.
Original artwork: @artywink
    • I am participating in the twice-yearly initiative to post a blog a day for a month on the Hive blockchain.
    • I also share my occasional Instagram posts to the crypto blockchain, Hive, using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

Marvelous Malva

~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

I can’t remember the first time I ate this dessert.  It’s one of our favourites – when I “do” dessert.  I don’t often.  I don’t have a sweet tooth.  I am was not much of a baker.  My chef friend and market pal reckons mine are among the best she’s tasted.  I brimmed with pride when she said that.  

Confused

I do remember thinking that its name confused me.  I knew that malva(lekker) is a marshmallow (sweet) in Afrikaans.  In my head (and mouth), the dessert bore bears no resemblance to marshmallows.  

That’s just the beginning.  Because, of course, I am fascinated by words and need to know how things get their names.  

When I developed an interest in herbs – edible and medicinal – I discovered that Malva is a plant genus into which the mallow falls.  This includes the indigenous South African geranium – scented and otherwise.

The red geraniums one sees in Mediterranean window boxes, as I did in my trip to Mallorca in 1999, all originate not far from where I grew up.  I remember them from the regular trips between boarding school in East London and Grahamstown.  They grow wild through the cracks in the road cuttings on either side of the Great Fish River.  Some of the scented ones grow in our garden.  I use them for iced teas and garnish in summer, but that’s another story. 

All of that’s a long way of saying that nobody, least of all me, has any idea as to why this pudding is called “malva”.

Many roads lead to The Sandbag House

Of course, I’ve digressed.  I had wanted to tell the “proper” story behind this recipe last week – ahead of South Africa’s Heritage weekend and having already “done” some heritage food.  I was derailed by having to revisit this post to give the context I needed:  Sunday Suppers @ The Sandbag House and the smorgasbord of guests who sat around our tables. 

The note in the banner for this post is from guests from Germany.  They insisted on a photograph with me, and which they subsequently sent via WhatsApp:

Malva pudding was also on that evening’s menu, and as I recall, they also went home with a jar of my spicy plum jam. 

January 2020

Unexpectedly, last February, and before lockdown, I received a WhatsApp message.  It went along the lines of…

Hello, we so enjoyed our dinner.  The Malva pudding was the best we had in South Africa.  We are planning a dinner with a South African theme.  Would you be able to send me the recipe?

Well, I had to scrabble around a bit.  My recipe is not in any of my books.  I wasn’t sure if I’d ever typed it up.  It’s in my very tatty, dog-eared file.  Too tatty for a photo.  Typing it up had been on my ever-growing “to-dos” forever.  Now, I had to do it.  I did. 

It went, through cyberspace to Sweden.  

The thanks:

Thank you so much! I’m very grateful. I will make Boboti and Malvapudding for my guests. I will share photographs.

Then the pandemic was declared.  I don’t know whether they had their South African dinner.

Another back story

Our Sunday Suppers were a thing.  That delightful Swedish couple joined us for the penultimate supper at which we had guests:  January 26th, 2020.  There were two other diners.  A couple who live in America. She is South African and they are were annual visitors to South Africa to see her mother and family.  During the evening’s conversation, we learned that they’d tried to join us before Christmas, but we’d been full.  This time, they were determined and drove from another town. 

The menu and our Swedish guests’ note in our book, that evening.

The proof of the pudding

Malva pudding is, as I’ve already said, a baked dessert.  I have no idea why I offered this menu in mid-summer because all of those are winter dishes.  We must have been having an unseasonal cold snap.  

I don’t know where my recipe comes from, or who gave it to me.  For years, this was a dessert I didn’t do because a chef friend of ours in Cape Town is the Malva King.  It was often his contribution to one of our gatherings. 

Traditionally, it’s baked in a large square dish and served in squares with custard, cream or ice cream.  Personally, I prefer custard.

Perfect Practice

They say two things:  practise makes perfect and with practise comes the confidence to experiment.  This was case with much of Sunday Suppers, especially the desserts – and my graduating to individual desserts.  As I did with the Malva Pudding.

Mini Malva puddings: just out of the oven (left) and then ladled with the sweet, creamy syrup (right)

Fortunately this recipe serves ten, and I use the ten little enamel cups I bought a few years ago.  Much to The Husband’s confusion.  I used these often during the time of Sunday Suppers.  They, along with a few other bits and bobs have gathered much dust on shelves in this time of disuse. 

Enamel “crockery”

One finds enamel mugs and flatware in virtually every South African kitchen.  In my childhood, in middle class and white households they were reserved for the servants.  Perish the thought.

Before that, though, and now, they are the sensible utensils for camping and the fireside (braai).  I remember them in piles in the trading stores of my childhood and youth in the Eastern Cape. 

Using them to serve Malva pudding, a traditional Afrikaans dish, which probably harks back to the great trek, just makes sense to me.  Sometimes they sparked conversations.  Sometimes not.

Regardless, this traditional South African favourite is a hit every time.  Download the recipe here and if you do, please buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.

    • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

    • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.
Original artwork: @artywink
    • I also share my occasional Instagram posts to the crypto blockchain, Hive, using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

Sunday Suppers: A season past?

~ Fiona ~ 2 Comments

Around May 2017, around the time, my regular blogs became increasingly sparse, as one chapter in my life ended, and others began.  One of these was Sunday Suppers @ The Sandbag House.

Two years later we were still doing it. Menus went out weekly to a WhatsApp group and via various social media and e-news channels in the village.  The menu for the second anniversary supper, was the same, except for the soup.  The third anniversary, courtesy of the pandemic, didn’t happen.  We haven’t done a Sunday Supper, or planned a menu in over a year.

At around the time that we marked the first anniversary of Sunday Suppers, we implemented a suggestion from regular diners, and started a book in which they could leave notes.  It’s also an interesting and easy way to keep track – mostly of the countries from which our village visitors came.  In the those years, we hosted folk from England, Ireland and Scotland;  Sweden, Denmark and Germany;  Spain, Italy and India.  We welcomed old friends – from far and near – and made new.  I was surprised by university friends, neither of whom I’d seen since those days, who came to McGregor – especially for Sunday Supper.  That was a trifle nerve racking, I confess.  Then they recommended to friends, Sunday Supper @ The Sandbag House.  And the friends came.

The lovely notes that folk leave are a delight and add to my general enjoyment of cooking and feeding people

Not long into the journey, friend and photographer, Selma decided that she wanted to document (her word), a Sunday Supper @ The Sandbag House.  Her photographs are infinitely better than I could have wished.  We did have great fun and, I have forgiven her:

I don’t want to be in front of the camera, I whined.

You won’t be, she assured me, batting her blue eyes at me, smiling broadly.

Well.

She lied


All photos in this collage and the header image: Selma

I learned

I a great deal from Suppers @ The Sandbag House.  Not least that we could do it, and I learned that I could/can do things I never thought I could.  Don’t get me wrong, I have most definitely not morphed from being a home cook into a chef, but there is truth in the old adage, practise makes perfect.

At the beginning, not only do I like doing pretty tables, but I figured that if the tables were pretty enough, people would forgive the food.

Bottom left and top right photos: Selma

Like wine and cheese do, I improved over time

Perfection has not been realised, but there was most certainly a significant improvement in things like desserts – never my forté – and how they are presented.  I discovered that I can bake and make mousse.

The other thing I learned, was how to better manage portions and plating.  I went from slopping things about (or over diners – which nearly happened when we had a group of 10!), and serving vegetables ( that don’t get eaten) in side dishes (and wasted), to plating entire courses.

And now

As I said, thanks to the pandemic, Sunday Suppers came to an abrupt halt.  Now, and ironically last Sunday morning, I had a WhatsApp message:

I know it’s late, but can I book supper for three….

Politely, I recommended another establishment.  Which brings me to the next point:  we started Sunday Suppers because there was no spot in the village where folk could get supper on Sunday evenings.  Now there is.  At least one spot.  And we cannot do walk-ins.  And with Covid, and even vaccinated, would we be putting ourselves and our guests at risk?

Finally

I originally wrote this two years into Sunday Suppers and the original post went the way of many others.  I was going to simply re-post as is was.  Then that Sunday morning message and a subsequent conversation made me think and wonder.  Whether we’ll do Sunday Suppers is a question we’re now also asking.  I guess, well have to answer the question.  Properly.  Right now, the answer is:

I don’t know.

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post script
If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:

  • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I am adding them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
  • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.

I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised applications.

    • From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin. If this rocks your socks, click here or on on the image below to sign up.

    • Join Hive using this link and then join us in the Silver Bloggers’ community by clicking on the logo.

Original artwork: @artywink

    • I also share my occasional Instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click here or on the icon, and give it a go.

Not killing mother

~ Fiona ~ 5 Comments

In December 1999, I spent my last Christmas with my father.  Three days earlier, we’d bade my mother a final farewell.  As I’ve probably said before, her death was a shock.  Six weeks prior, she’d had surgery.  By all accounts, it was successful although the procedure meant a protracted stay in hospital.  Cleared of nasties, she was doing well and then suddenly took a turn for the worse.  Back in ICU;  back into theatre, twice; organ failure and dialysis; in and out of a coma.

Skipping the long version

If you aren’t inclined to reading, scroll down to the short version.

Things in common but not friends

Let me be clear.  I loved my mother, but she and I were not friends.  It was, to say the least, an uneasy relationship.  We had little to say to each other and although we would have had things in common, now, I doubt they would have been enough to have transformed our relationship.  Some of my profound enjoyment of traditional crafts – knitting and crochet – I get from her. And cooking.  She was a good cook.  My parents’ dinner parties were legend.  The celebration for my 21st birthday was a garden party which, except for the cake, she catered.

Mum and me at different times in our respective lives.

This collage, is of photos of Mum and I.  At different times in our lives. The first time I came across the one of her in the centre, it was like looking at myself.  I’ve never forgotten that weird feeling.  The bottom right photo is one of me, at about the same age.

Opposites in magnets (and in life), attract, but the like poles repel.  Perhaps that was my mother and I:  too alike. It took fifty-odd years to acknowledge that – even after she had died and I found that photograph.  More than twenty years ago.

No conversation – then

Having little in common, there wasn’t much to talk about. I don’t remember any profound or really adult conversation with her.  Only once, that I can remember, did I ask for advice about cooking.  When I cooked my first Christmas turkey nearly thirty years ago.  Next time I wanted to ask her advice about something – also cooking related – some eight years later, I couldn’t.  Although it made me momentarily sad, it did make me remember her kitchen ritual for the sauce I had wanted to make.  Also for a Christmas meal:  traditional British bread sauce which is traditionally served with roast chicken or turkey.

Not a baker

After she died, my sister wasn’t interested in our mother’s personal recipe book – to which I refer, pretty frequently.  My now famous chicken liver paté, and which I sell at the market is hers, and in that book. She also had two different editions of the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book.  I got one, my sister, the other.  I still use it and it taught me how to make marmalade and it’s my go-to for certain basics.

While my mother was an excellent cook, she always said she couldn’t bake.  One vivid memory of such an effort was a birthday cake.  My sister had commanded pink.  Pink. Very. Pink,  it was.  And hacked sculpted to turn it into a cake shaped cake.  For years and for some reason, I believed that I, too, could not bake.  That I have become a relatively accomplished baker of certain desserts, shortbread, biscuits and now, sourdough bread is, to say the least, ironic.

A selection of baked desserts that I used to serve at our regular Sunday Suppers

The absence of conversation, however has changed.  Over the last year or so, I’ve had more conversations with “mother” than I had with my real Mum in the thirty six years I knew her.

Blame it on Lockdown

Last year (2020 in case you’ve forgotten), and when we were in hard lockdown a chef friend in the village started a Facebook group – what’s for supper? It started, among other things, my now ritual photographing of our supper, stretching the imagination (and the budget) as far as it (would) will go.  The other starter was, literally a starter:  a mother or natural yeast for making bread.

Having been scared of yeast, I resisted baking bread.  Also, it’s not something one can do on impulse.  Until then I had tried baking bread a couple of times and had long wanted to literally do it from scratch.  That included my own “mother”.  With no other distractions, let alone plans, and with encouragement from Pixie who, at that stage, had her own, well established jar of glop, I started my journey.

Uncle Ritchie and Auntie Doris

The first “rule” of making one’s own mother, I’m led to believe, is giving her a name.  Of course, being who I am, I was not going to give her a conventional name.  Not female.  I chose “Uncle Ritchie” because he was the only baker to trade I’ve ever known.  I remember the bakery next door to his and Auntie Doris’s (she of my birthday cake) house. And the big ovens…  Nearly forty years ago, it was demolished to make way for a block of flats (apartments).  I digress.

So, in late March, my sourdough journey began.  I mixed equal parts of flour and water in a jar, religiously closing the top, feeding Uncle Ritchie every day.  On day two, I think, there were a couple of bubbles.  Then, a few days later.  Nothing. Dead.  Like baker Uncle Ritchie has been for the last thirty something years.

I killed suffocated him. I’d closed the lid too tight. He couldn’t breathe.

Rinse and repeat

I don’t do well being challenged thwarted.  I was determined to try again;  if Uncle Ritchie wouldn’t oblige, I was sure Auntie Doris would.  She’d come through for me before.  So again, I mixed equal parts of flour and water in a jar, religiously closing the top – not too tightly, but tightly enough to keep the fruit flies out.  I  fed Auntie Doris every day.  On day two, there were a couple of bubbles.  Then more. But I noticed a layer of water forming at the bottom of the jar. A few days or so later the water had risen to the top.

I had drowned Auntie Doris!

Third time lucky

I was not going to accept defeat.  Not from a fungus.

The universe was sending me a message.  I’d resisted, right from the beginning, the obvious choice – my own mother’s name.  Her given name was Ursula, but she was always known as Ula (pronounced Yoo-la).  “Ursula” has significance for another reason:  it’s the name of a former teacher who became a mentor and good friend.  I tried again.

By the end of April, Ursula was a bubbling jar of glop with a veracious appetite and which needed to be used.

It had taken just over a month, bit with hindsight, seemed longer.  As everything did when we were in that hard lockdown.

The short version

For detailed instructions on making your own natural yeast, download them here.

The first sourdough bake off

Having consulted GoG*, I found that although Ursula was growing out of her jar, I didn’t really have enough for anything worth while, and I found recipes for “discard”. As it’s called, and for when mother grows out of her dress jar.  My first effort was scones (or as my American friends call them, biscuits).  I chose those because I wasn’t confident of my kneading skills and, and, and….

For a patch, I made those quite frequently.  I took a batch along or our first skelm social engagement when lockdown restrictions eased a little.  They were a hit.  The recipe’s here.

If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?

Graduation

Then I graduated to rolls and bread.

Early efforts at sourdough bread loaves and rolls

I’ll save stories of those journeys (and how they ended up on my market stall) for another episode time.

*Good old Google

Until next time, be well
Fiona
The Sandbag House
McGregor, South Africa

Photo: Selma

Post Script

  • In search of English writing, research and editing services, look no further:  I will help you with –  emails and reports, academic and white papers, formal grammar, spelling and punctuation
    more information here
  • If this post might seem familiar, it’s because I’m doing two things:
    • re-vamping old recipes. As I do this, I plan to add them in a file format that you can download and print. If you download recipes, buy me a coffee. Or better yet, a glass of wine….?
    • and “re-capturing” nearly two years’ worth of posts.
  • I blog to the Hive blockchain using a number of decentralised appplications.  From WordPress, I use the Exxp WordPress plugin.  If this rocks your socks, click on the image below to sign up –

Image: @traciyork

  • I also share my occasional instagram posts to the crypto blockchain using the new, and really nifty phone app, Dapplr. On your phone, click the icon below, and give it a go.