Some September Stuff

18 September 202218 September 2022 ~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

There are some days that one never forgets. What happened, where you were, what you were doing and what followed. I was standing in my kitchen starting to get supper ready when I heard the news that Queen Elizabeth II had died. It got me thinking about how, in my life, I’ve lived history. It’s not something one thinks about as a six-year old, sitting on the floor, listening to a crackly radio broadcast as the first human walked on the moon.

Similarly, when the 1976 “riots” broke out in South Africa and a year later, Bantu Stephen Biko was murdered on 12 September. I was at boarding school and television didn’t exist in South Africa then. Because of that, and because at school, unless you were a senior (I was not in 1976/7), the only source of news was the local newspaper. Every week day, a copy of the Daily Despatch arrived on a table in the common room. After school, almost ritualistically, I’d read it. Although I didn’t know it at the time, it was one of the few South African newspapers to document – in detail – the inquest into Biko’s death.

That, with hindsight, was my first significant September date. There are others.

Not actually a royalist, but…

I’m not a royalist and my views of monarchies are conflicted. We have monarchies in South Africa. Nelson Mandela was a member of the amaXhosa royal family. Here, too, the notion is contested and, frankly, a bit confusing. Unlike in Britain, they are quite parochial and play no role, formally, in international relations. Interestingly though, just today, the recently installed King of the Zulus extended an olive branch to their former colonisers.

I did, however, grow up with an English mother who, after her own mother’s death, found a book that documented the family’s tree back to landed gentry and royalty. She claimed. I don’t know what happened to the book. I wonder, now, whether that story is apocryphal. It does, however, explain why I remember November the 14th 1973. I was 10, it was a hot, early afternoon in the kitchen at home. Making ~~a million~~ sandwiches. There was some or other school event later that day. My memory isn’t sure, but says that it was a prize giving. What my memory is very sure of, is why the radio was on, and there was no conversation: Princess Anne was getting married. My mother was hanging on every word.

Some eight years later, and Charles married Diana, I was at university. A bunch of us piled into a friend’s car and headed to our house. When my parents came home for lunch our lounge was bursting at the seams with young people, glued to the television, watching the royal wedding. We were all – to a boy and girl – roughly the same age as the girl-woman who became the People’s Princess.

September, 16 years later

As vividly as I remember that July day, I remember the morning of Sunday, September 1st, 1997. I had gone through to the kitchen to make the ritual cup of tea and turned on the radio for the news. It was heart stopping. Princess Diana was dead. She was only two years older than I, and over the intervening years, my empathy for a woman who on that 1981 day, had no idea of the poison chalice she’d been served, had grown. My own marriage at the time, was on the rocks. That she seemed to be getting a second chance made it all the more tragic. To me, anyway.

Then, five days later, Mother Theresa died. Yes, she was old, but I felt it in a way I hadn’t for Princess Diana. That news was buried in the public outcry, controversy and pomp an ceremony that surrounded the Princess’s funeral. My memory sent me back to that day in 1988 when I’d had the privilege of meeting a saint.

Living history

Little did I realise, following the Biko story as a 14 year old, that the newspaper I was reading was part of history, documenting history. I think it’s really something that dawns on one with hindsight. As do the ironies of life. Like, for example, from whom I heard about Nelson Mandela’s imminent release in 1990. I wrote about that here.

There are other dates that remain indelibly in my memory, and one of these is 9/11. The Husband and I weren’t yet married. We were at work – on a joint project. Not long after lunch, a colleague said her mother had phoned to tell her that an aeroplane had flown into a building in New York. My initial reaction was one of utter disbelief. It was in the early days of the internet and I had a dial up connection in the office. I simply could not connect to any of the international news sites to verify what sounded like a bad story line.

By the time we went home – earlier than usual – we new “it” had happened. We unlocked the front door, and for the first time in our shared life, dropped everything and turned on the TV. How long we sat watching that horror unfold and repeat, I can’t remember. I do remember a sense of incredulity that something unimaginable was happening and that the world would never be the same again. Nor is it.

An internationally insignificant, significant September day

There is a third September day that I shall never forget, and for very different reasons. It didn’t hit the international headlines, but twenty years later, my memories of that day are as vivid as they were then. It feels like yesterday and in others, it’s a lifetime ago. Only because we’ve made a life. It’s been an eventful one and, I’d like to think, a happy one. May we have as many more happy and healthy years together.

Back to the Queen

Over the last week or so, I’ve been wondering about my fascination with happenings in the United Kingdom. I am. Anyone who has lost a parent or someone close to them, can only but empathise with the family’s grief. Could I grieve publicly, stoically and as gracefully as that? No. I didn’t. When my mother died, I took one of her friends to church. I’d been holding it together for my father. Condolences from my mother’s friends and comparative strangers to me, and from the pulpit, sent me into a paroxysm of weeping that I could not control. Nothing very stoic or graceful in that.

The ancient ritual, pomp and ceremony fascinate me. That some of them, like the coronation, hark back to prehistory in a modern world keep me glued. The people, the scenes and the buildings fascinate me and while there’s a part of me that feels a bit like voyeur, this is history unfolding in real time, and scenes I doubt, I shall ever see again.

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

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.

lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

The dying memories of the 1980s: looking back to look at the now

19 July 202231 July 2022 ~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

For the last couple of days, I have been musing on the heady, awful and wonderful days of the mid-1980s. At the moment, there’s a kind of pall hanging over South Africa which is a function of the nearly fifteen years of electrickery drama, ongoing corruption and impunity, only the surface of which Zondo has scratched. This is compounded with a growing sense of unease. The crime rate is burgeoning country wide. Closer to home, in the village, it seems rife. That is contradicted by the actual statistics that the local police presented at a recent village meeting. However, in a small community, each crime seems personal: the perpetrators are often habitual criminals who grew up here, and we know by sight, and have fallen by the wayside. The victims – rich and poor – are often people we know.

It began on Sunday

My reflections began on Sunday with the news that Jessie Duarte had died. Not quite ten years my senior, she was a significant character the South African political landscape – that the general (white) public knew about – just before and since 1994. My connections with her are vicarious: I had reason to deal with both of her brothers in the 80s. One, because of his drive behind establishing a coalition of non-governmental organisations. The other, well, it’s not important now. What is important is that at the time, we all had a single goal: a South Africa where people of different races had the same rights and suffrage. Somehow, through it all, we were young people who had fun and lived life to the full. Regardless.

Monday

Monday, that’s yesterday, was Mandela Day. For the first time since its inception in 2009, I did nothing remotely connected with its spirit. I can’t remember what I did in 2020 – blame it on Covid. In 2021, and when we were in yet another lockdown, I played a minor role in a client’s campaign for the day. At least. This year, I sort of reflected more on how Nelson Mandela would have been profoundly sad at how his legacy has been destroyed.

A death on Mandela Day

Yesterday afternoon as I thumped away at my keyboard to meet an already missed deadline, I heard the announcement that gangster-turned-poet, Don Mattera, had died. I only had one encounter with him. I was all of 22 and it was in 1986 and on a day that was significant in the “struggle” calendar. As I carry on reflecting, and his particular brand of politics, I think it must have been Sharpeville Day in March. He addressed us – staff of a “struggle” organisation. I don’t remember what he said or the poem he read, but I remember things about that day like it was yesterday. Of the man, I remember his presence. Not because he was a hulking man but rather because of his loud, clear message of peace at a time when South Africa was on fire. Already a devout Muslim, he had a gentle strength about him that gave a lie to his past life as a gangster. The room was filled to bursting – probably nearly a hundred of us, hanging on his every word.

Why is this significant, today?

Much of what we did at work in that organisation, every day (and at home), in 1986, was illegal in South Africa. It was illegal for people of different races to work together. It was not the done thing to create equal education for folk of other races. What that meant: an education that encouraged questioning, free speech and genuine intellectual development. It was illegal, that day, for many of the folk in that room to gather in numbers greater than 10, let alone sing Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. And we did. Both. With sombre delight and gusto.

Work and play hard

This photo is of me, sitting at a black colleague’s desk, that same year. We were young folk

from across the spectrum of South Africa’s race groups who worked together and had fun together. We’d have “seminars” at Jameson’s on Commissioner Street each Friday afternoon. When we were done, and the band was not to our taste, we’d adjourn, often to Soweto and continue the ~~discourse and debates~~ party until the wee hours of the morning. White folk were not supposed to venture into the townships, period. Let alone young white women – as one policeman at a road block one evening delighted to advise. He also tried to terrify my friend and I with stories of what would happen to us if “black men got their hands on you.” We figuratively closed our ears, let him finish his tirade, wound up the window and drove back to Yeoville in silence.

Part of my “play” included volunteer work with Johannesburg’s street children. The detail’s not important and again, we were an eclectic bunch of people living the future South Africa.

Friends and colleagues enjoying a day in the country with the street kids in our care – 1986/7

Looking back to look forward

I’m grateful for the reflection that the news of both Duarte’s and Mattera’s death foisted upon me. Yes, things are difficult – very difficult – in this country. But there are things that today’s young people – mercifully – will never experience:

Two particular memories live with me. One, as a child, I never understood why, when my father took our helper home on a Saturday at lunch time, she – a grown woman – had to sit on the back seat and I, all of about 7, sat in the front next to my father. Just in case, I learned as an adult, they had “relations” across the “colour bar”.

The second is more like a series of bad dreams and they’re all associated with buses like the one in the photo. We used public transport. Sometimes, colleagues from “another” part of town headed to “our” side of town for a visit after work. Some bus drivers simply looked the other way. Others – one in particular, and whom we referred to as the nazi – took great delight in making sure they couldn’t get on the bus. Except when in the company of white colleagues. One afternoon, a friend (the tall one with the white hat among the street kids) and I hopped off on the way because he said –

Why don’t we stop for a beer?

So we got off in Hillbrow which, at that time, was already quite cosmopolitan even though it was designated as a “Whites Only” residential area.

Except.

The ~~first~~ only place we chose didn’t turn us away, and although I knew it was an all hours joint (for e-ver-y-thing), the server said we could only have lemonade. We left. Got back on the bus and went to my house. And ate, drank (beer and wine) and made merry.

Now

That is the type of experience to which South Africa’s youth can never be exposed – or shouldn’t, anyway. That kind of discrimination is now illegal. They never have to spend their lives looking over their shoulders for fear of just living their youth.

This is Mandela’s legacy and which we should celebrate. Every Day.

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

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.

lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

Musings on Mothers, Motherhood and Choices

8 May 20228 May 2022 ~ 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?”

“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

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.

lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

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

17 April 202220 April 2023 ~ 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).

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).

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

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.

lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

Sandwich Memories

12 April 202219 November 2023 ~ 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

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.

Since 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

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.

lastly, graphics are created using partly my own photographs and Canva.

Sunday Suppers: A season past?

20 September 202120 September 2021 ~ 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.

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

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.

- 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

10 September 202117 November 2023 ~ 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.

What’s in a name?

12 July 202112 July 2021 ~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

What’s in a name? You may well ask.

My parents rarely, if ever actually called me “Fiona”, even though it was the name they chose for me. My father only ever used my given name if he was getting serious about something.

For years I loathed it.

Why?

Thank you for asking. But first:

They chose the name because it was not common – or so they thought. At the time, nearly sixty years ago, in England, it wasn’t. Common. Little did they know that some twelve to fifteen years later, in South Africa, I would be one of five Fionas. In the same class at school. Although they wanted to be different, they also tried to give me a family name: Mary. After both my grandmothers. They were thwarted. The registrar of births, some how, just left it off my birth certificate.

When I was baptised, and the minister was doing the, “I Christen thee…”, thing, he also forgot. For years, I lamented not having a middle name. It presented quite a challenge when I had to fill in ~~a million~~ forms when I applied for a visa for a trip to the United States. Not only that, online forms generally don’t like double-barreled last names (a comparatively more recent acquisition), so the solution was to use half of my last name as my middle name. That said, do not ever call me Mrs Brown. But that’s another story.

Plain

I remain plain old “Fiona” with a double-barreled last name, who, until I was five and a bit, only ever answered to “Fi”. It was a bit of a shock, going to “big” school and having to learn to answer to “Fiona”. I did and I have embraced it. Although didn’t realise how much until I discovered (only in the last year or so) that I resent it when someone I’ve just met, whether professionally or socially, instantly presumes to call me “Fi”. The dissuasion, depending on whom and how, ranges between gently diplomatic to acid and a direct, “You can call me Fiona.”

Which brings me to its real meaning.

For years, and I was under the impression that Fiona was the Scottish Gaelic equivalent of Flora which does actually mean flower. I’ll come back to this.

The photo below, of the plaque on our fridge, was a gift from my sister-in-law when she returned from a visit to Scotland.

Needless to say, my illusion of being a flower was shattered. “Fair”, though, I’ll take. As I approach the last part of my sixth decade, I hope I live up to it. I could do worse.

But that’s not all:

Back to Flora

Flora was the Roman goddess of flowers and in Scotland, the Anglicised version of the Gaelic “Fionn”. So, there is a tangential connection, but not quite as my childhood memories led me to believe. Perhaps it’s because the Flora we grew up with was a wonderful, madcap, legend of a woman. She drove an ancient Ford Anglia until well into her seventies, smoked like a chimney, was always in court shoes and lipstick. She constantly regaled with stories of how, with her double-jointed wrists, she delighted in upsetting first, her teachers and all through her life, people who irritated her. She’d fold her hands back so that it looked like she had no hands…

Flora was this twelve-year old’s heroine.

Favourites

Regular readers will know that I have a penchant for alliteration. That, only tangentially, has to do with the name I chose for this blog and the handle I use on various social media platforms. Its genesis dates back some nearly 30 years and to a time when I had no work, when I needed to find a way to both keep myself busy and earn. At least something. About the only confectionary I could then bake with any confidence was biscuits. So I made ~~a million~~ biscuits (cookies) for a little café in a village in the Eastern Cape. They were my favourites. Which is why I had developed the skill for baking them.

Fiona’s Favourites was born.

It was logical then, that when I started blogging – about food and recipes – also favourites – well, I just joined the dots.

It’s stuck and I’m in the process of adapting the label for my preserves by dropping the “s” so that it now reads “Fiona’s Favourite…” and it adorns all the preserves I sell, and my stall at the market.

Silver Flower

Recently, I’ve joined and play an active role in a crypto blogging community for folk who’re considered, like good cheese, best mature. None of us embraces the “old” or “elderly” appellations. I suspect none of us feels a day over 25. Blogpal, @lizelle, who started the group, and who incidentally also runs a BnB, coined the name “Silver Bloggers”. I rather like that: silver has a multitude of connotations.

One of the features of the platform on which the community lives, is that its members can choose another handle. Mine, you guessed it, is Silver Flower. It harks back to both what I originally believed Fiona to mean, my love of flowers and my Scottish roots.

The Husband and I, nearly 19 years ago, and when got a ~~middle~~ double-barreled last name

Both our Scottish roots and my love of flowers are evident here. The Husband and I on our wedding day: he in the kilt and the flowers in this buttonhole, the South African equivalent of Scottish heather, and which are also in my bouquet of indigenous blushing bride. I have loved blushing brides since I first saw a picture of them when I was about nine. When I met them in the flesh, so to speak, I wasn’t disappointed. That bouquet weighed about a ~~hundred~~ tons. I now realise that every bloom was probably grown at the top of the mountain above the village where we now live. High in the Sondereinde Mountains behind McGregor is one of the few places they’re cultivated and home to one of the biggest exporters of these flowers. At the time, it was also a conscious decision to marry (ha!) our heritage with our South African roots.

A last word

I do like it that in some cultures children are named for their parents, hopes and dreams for them. Or for the auspicious days on which they’re born. I know that each time I’ve named a~~n animal~~ feline child – after all, I am the Cats’ Mother – I’ve had my reasons for choosing their names. Those, possibly, are stories for another time – along with a few others.

There is so much in a name: love, loss, hopes, dreams and a life of being.

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

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.

- 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.

Dad’s Famous Tattie Scones

28 June 202128 June 2021 ~ Fiona ~ Leave a comment

Other than beer, there were three things that my Dad cooked. One was stovies, another soda scones and the third, tattie scones. My mother claimed she couldn’t bake anything, let alone scones. Realistically though, neither of these scones were never baked – baking happens in the oven, right? Rather, they are cooked on a girdle (or as the other than Scottish call it, a griddle) and on the stove top.

I wish I knew what had happened to our girdle. I remember its arrival – some time in the early 1970s. Somewhere between my leaving Grahamstown at the beginning of 1986, and my parents’ departure from this world, the girdle disappeared. I never remember my mother using it. Only my father did, and it was always and only scones.

My Dad at 42. Photo: Grocott’s Mail, 1970

He didn’t make them often and it was generally on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Dad only ever used a recipe for the soda scones, but never for the potato scones, so until I consulted Google, I’d never seen one and I always make them by memory and from watching my Dad. He always made them when there was left over mashed potato. I am not a fan of mashed potatoes and even less of bubble and squeak but if they’re going to end up in scones, I’m in. That said, there are some dishes that work best with mash.

Like this leftover chicken dish – a winter favourite – that works best with mash. A couple of blog pals have suggested that I share how I plan meals – especially that I also plan for leftovers. Technically, that means, in my head, that they’re not leftovers at all! So, the idea’s on the ever-growing list and promises to keep.

Tattie Scones

Potato scones are really easy. Really.

Ingredients

Left over mashed potato

I leave the skins on the potatoes, so my mash is always a little rustic. Of course, mash is best with milk (or even yoghurt), butter and salt and a good grinding of black pepper.

The other ingredients are cake flour – about 150 – 250 ml and then extra for dusting the working surface and for the dry fry. Some recipes include baking powder. My Dad never did. I don’t. Perhaps I should.

What to do

Turn the mashed potato on to a generously floured surface and break it up and sprinkle more flour over it. Work the potato and flour to bring it all together to form a firm dough – add flour as you need (you see what I did… ) – until it comes together to form a light dough.

Then, roll it out to about a 1 cm thick on a floured surface.

Use a knife to cut the dough into triangles.

Heat a heavy pan and sprinkle with flour and dry fry the scones until they’re golden brown. Keep warm on paper towel while preparing the rest of the scones.

Serve warm with butter and toppings of choice. I prefer just butter and freshly ground black pepper. I generally do them for lunch and depending on the quantity, sometimes there’s soup or something else to fill the gap.

As easy as pie, and as delicious. A printable recipe is available here.

A last word or three

During last year’s hard lockdown, a friend started a Facebook group – What’s for dinner? I may have written about it in previous posts. The point is, I made these during that time and, as one did (because what else did we do?) I shared pics. More than one person asked for a recipe. I know I sent it to her. I thought I’d blogged about it. Clearly not. So perhaps I dreamt it all – along with a whole lot of other things during that very weird time.

I started this post last Sunday – Fathers’ Day. Kind of apt, I thought. As I finish it, and prepare it to post, there’s a strong possibility that we’ll be returning to some sort of harsher lockdown. I do hope that sanity prevails on the part of government and people. We cannot afford a shut down. We cannot afford for people not to be sensible and take the appropriate steps to stop the spread of this awful virus and its variants.

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

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.

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- 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.

The big (beer) bang

15 November 202016 November 2020 ~ Fiona ~ 3 Comments

I must have been seven or eight. We had been away for the weekend. I don’t recall the reason. I suspect it was the annual trip to the agricultural show at Gonubie outside East London (South Africa). For a number of years after we moved to Grahamstown, this was a regular thing. Dad judged the horticultural ranges: flower arrangements and produce. I loved it. From the beautiful flowers, the exquisitely decorated cakes to the gymkhana which was preceded by a convoy of cars. Each bonnet draped by a beautiful woman. I thought, anyway. One outfit I remember: granny boots and a purple hat…

I loved the stay on the farm: gooseberry jam; butter making. Milk from the cow’s udder, into my mouth; into the whining separator and the cream and milk out of two very long spouts into milk churns which went, variously to the house and to customers.

The dairy parlour was not mechanised: the milkmen sat on their three-legged stools, cheeks against the cows’ flanks, milking. I still remember the sound of the milk squirting against the side of the empty metal bucket and how the sound changed from a sharp, metallic zing to a soft pfft as the bucket filled with foamy milk. I remember the sounds and smells as though it was yesterday. Not nearly fifty years ago.

We always came home with at least one hen’s egg. Well, only one that mattered to me: the “prize egg”. At the end of the show, the produce was sold to the highest bidder, and as all good dad’s do, mine made sure mine was highest. Mum would fry it for my breakfast: it was generally a double yolker and something I was always impatient to discover.

I still get a thrill when a clutch of eggs includes double yolks…It’s no secret that I have a thing about eggs.

I’ve digressed. As usual.

The big bang

Our live-in housekeeper looked after the house and dog in the family’s absence. When we got home, late on Sunday afternoon, on the large, round coffee table, and on the large, round ashtray, lay a note:

Dear Madam and Master

There were big bangs in the brewery.

Patience

There was consternation.

Oh hell.

Or words to that effect.

The bangs, actually explosions, probably in the dead of night, must have been many. The Dad’s first ever batch of home brew had been bottled, capped and left to – brew. The timing of the weekend away (or the brewing schedule) also managed temptation to check on the young beer ahead of time. Not that checking would have helped. Fermentation is an exciting and tricky thing. Making beer, like “proper” sparkling wine, is a two-step process and similar to the methode champenoise, the final fermentation is in the bottle. Get that miniscule quantity of sugar, essential to get that second fermentation going, wrong, and things get loud and messy. To say the least.

Having been shut up for the best part of three days, the smell of stale beer was evident long before anyone saw the physical evidence: shards of brown glass (g)littered the backroom (aka the brewery) which was awash with beer. Embedded in the ceiling were umpteen crown corks. Over the years, some fell out. Others remained – I’m told – for the next twenty-odd years, and long after we moved from that house.

Taking a hit

In the 1960s and into the 1980s and when I was a young adult, it was not unusual to have a drink at lunch time. I remember business lunches with beer and wine flowing freely. My dad’s job in the 1970s entailed much outside work and he used to come home for lunch. Easy considering our back gate opened on to his “office.”

Dad’s office – or part of it. Also the pond that dented his dignity. He stepped into it once. No beer was involved.

He’d come home, as he’d say, spitting sawdust, gasping for a beer which would be downed in very short order. As would another three or four at the end of the day.

Cold beer didn’t just beat the heat, it hit the pocket. Abstinence wasn’t on the cards; plan B was to brew his own. So began a process of finding out more. I’m not sure how long the process took – it must have been a few months given that it was the early 1970s: we lived off the beaten track and the Internet was still in someone’s imagination. Somehow, they tracked down a supplier, equipment and ingredients. In Johannesburg. Replacement equipment as well as ingredients were ordered and delivered – by snail mail.

Not thwarted

My father was a stubborn, determined Scot. He often told me:

If you don’t succeed the first time, try, try and try again. Thus, began more than two decades – at least – of brewing.

So, explosions in the brewery notwithstanding, he drank his way through tested successive batches, so that he and my mother perfected their recipe.

The “perfected” recipe for Standard Beer in my mother’s recipe book*

Each batch, as I recall, made seventy two 340 ml dumpies. I know because it was often my job to count, set out and sterilise the bottles ahead of the final phase.

Dad collected these and friends did, too. Once they were discontinued, they were very, very precious. Source

It took about 20 days from start to tankard. Longer for a better result and less sediment in the bottle. I learned, at the tender age of about ten, how to pour a crystal clear beer.

The economics

I remember the sums – on the back of cigarette boxes. The upshot, when all was said and done, the early batches worked out at around 1½ cents a dumpy. Less than half the price of commercial beer. So…

The weekend job

Beer occupied at least two Saturday mornings a month. Step one happened roughly once a month – in the kitchen. This was Mum’s domain so she took responsibility for most of this step. It involved boiling malt (which arrived in buckets), hops, sugar and water. For far too long – the child Fiona hated it and often wished not to be at home. Once the “baby beer” left the stove and the kitchen, Dad took over, monitoring and managing each of the steps: barrel (if you can call plastic, a barrel) fermentation, adding the yeast and finings and, ultimately, the bottling. That took a full Saturday morning of sterilising, sugaring and hand siphoning until finally, each bottle was filled and capped. The machine looked like a one-armed bandit.

Bottle capper like Dad’s. His was green. Source

Then the little brown bottles were lined up on shelves until either the beer was ready or the last batch ran out. Which ever happened first.

Then the brewing stopped

My dad loved beer, but once a heart condition and elevated blood sugar was diagnosed, the family doctor declared that beer didn’t like him. If he had to, he should graduate to whisky. What good Scot wouldn’t? He did, however, continue to enjoy the odd beer until he literally could not. The Husband and one of Dad’s mates would sneak a beer (or two) into his room at the frail care centre. When he died, 20 years ago this month, we retrieved a goodly stash which was imbibed in his honour.

We do miss the old boy.

*Atholl Broase is a traditional Scottish drink that Mum made (as she did, haggis) for Burns’ Night each year. Another story for another time.

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

Photo: Selma

Post Script

I am doing my best to post every day for November as part of @traciyork’s twice yearly #HiveBloPoMo challenge. This is my third attempt. All my posts are to the the Hive blockchain, but not all from WordPress. Details about the challenge (on the blockchain) are here and on WordPress, here.

Looking for that gift for someone who has everything? Shop with Pearli in my evolving Redbubble shop –

And then there’s more:

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 because of this.
If you’re interested in a soft entry into the world of crypto currency and monetising WordPress blog, use the fantastic plugin to post directly to the Hive blockchain. 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.

In yet another aspect of my life –

English writing, research and online tutoring services

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more information here