And here we are

The dream of living on our little piece (peace??) of land eventually realised. From offer to purchase to registered owners took, almost to the day, a full year. But we somehow managed to convince the powers that be that two self employed entrepreneurs will be responsible land owners.

I could never have guessed that throwing two adults in the midst of a neglected property in the heart of mink and manure country could result in such a kaleidoscope of emotional experiences. It has opened rusted emotional doors, send us way back to childhood dreams and horrors, through psychedelic adult memories right back to the reality of flooded fences and washed away roads. We have learned about ourselves and each other through anger and tears but we have also studied our local African bullfrogs in wonder, delighted in the fascination of our children with the crabs down at the dam and stared in unbelieve as the waters from our local little stream rose to a power full river racing through the bottom of our property.

Despite the dream of becoming more sustainable and building a veggie patch and chicken coop to proof the commitment, we have not had much success in any of these endeavours. I am starting to dread full colour pictures of fat round organic veggies and promises of a greener future – my tomatoes started with enthusiasm and then turned white and rotted on the stem. The only joy I had from my beautiful pumpkin flowers was the flower dolmades that was lovingly made by Nana when she came to visit from Crete (a whole new story), then the leaves all turned brown and died. Okra has provided some confidence, we have had two good Cretan meals from that hardy little plant and the brinjals have also kept hunger from the door. Month-end the business will be moving from our little country flat to a very corporate office park and the two chickens that currently entertain us there will be relocated home – their little spot has been ready and waiting for about six weeks.

We have truly settled in here now, our candles are on standby to help us cope with all the electrical outages, we have come to enjoy the shocking experience accompanying the opening of taps when you are in the shower and the call of the peacocks don’t wake us at night anymore. John has turned into a DYI guru that can fix electrical fences, build outbuildings and even understand the mysteries of washing dishes.

We are slowly building a fun loving and emotionally safe future.

Family celebrations

My brother turned forty the other day and I deemed it a suitable occassion to traverse near to 500km for the day to go and wish him well. Especially since I have never gone to visit him at his new abode in the North West Province, where this combat trained ex special forces guy is searching for solitude and restitution of his soul between cattle and endless rolling grasslands.

It was a wonderful day and we were hardly there when he offered to go and show me his domain on horseback.
So I spend the next three hours riding a boerperd bareback in a slow canter. It was one of those experiences that are very hard to describe - the close contact of contracting muscles, the mesmerizing rhythm, the give and take of our bodies as we effortlessly consumed the miles.

 Back home the kids had lots of fun and Elrich could not wait to have a turn on the horse.

It was only ok to share the ride with mom for the first five seconds before he 'really needed to ride this horse by myself please mom!'

Ouma and Oupa could not believe that they could actually have all their children and grand children under one roof for a day. I must admit that even though me and my bro did not always sit around the same fire, the day was well worth it and it was wonderfull to share this special day together as a family.

The cousins could not agree more!

We Are Familyyyy

An interesting dynamic is created when two (previously) single children are thrown together for a weekend. Both are intelligent and well mannered, but they are just kids, competing for the same person's attention.

In this case John; and even though Nikyle and John have a good relationship, the emotional attachment between Elrich and John is far more evident. I think this is just a natural result of the histories shared. John came into E’s life when he was three years old and we have spent a lot of time together as a little family. Whereas Nikyle only spends a couple of hours on a Sunday at John’s place, playing a computer game and going for a sandwich. I normally do not join them, unless E is with me and we go somewhere together as a family.

The result is that John is a bit distanced in his role as a father in Nikyle's life, I don’t really have a relationship with Nikyle at all and we have not even begun to blend as a family of four. I never really thought about this or realized it, until the Christmas weekend we spend at my parents. Even though the weekend was relaxing and fun it became clearly evident that, if we want to ‘play house’ we will have to do something about the configuration of our family.

Active active active

I love sport and movement and the feel of sweat and sore muscles. I am determined that E will be active too, he does not ever have to compete or win anything but move..... he will. And even though the bakkie and outdoor travel experience has been put on hold for a year or two, outdoor fun is still to be had

First it was the children’s cycle race and this year there was just no stopping E. After all the excitement of getting his race number pinned and awaiting our turn (with 500 other would be enthusiasts) E bolted away and went down that 800m track with great gusto.

He was very proud of his medal and the buzz took a long time to pass, I am sure that bottle of energade he got at the finish line helped us a bit as well ;-p
A family photo with Oupads, Ouma, mom and a very proud little boy


Then mom eventually made it to her first little show with Shiloh. It was so much fun and I was really pleasantly surprised by the guts and enthusiasm my normally rather docile little horse showed all those cross country fences. John was my back up groom and the city slicker walked my horse, carried teff-nets and water buckets without complaint. He even commented at the end that it was so much fun that he would not mind a horse of his own. Now that really impressed this horse girl no end!!

Boys will be boys

Having fun on the small holding

E said to me this weekend
I wish, I wish upon a star
that all the baddies goes away
and we have our bakkie back
and everything is back to normal

we are all taking a bit of strain with this car thing at the moment

Has it been a month already?

I cannot believe it is more than a month since I last did a blog entry. Sheesh, all of August gone in the blink of an eye. So what have we been up to down South?

Working and traveling, mothering and building relationships.

It is fun living in South Africa let me tell you, this truly is the land of opportunity. Providing you manage to keep your sense of humour and your eyes on your surroundings.

On working:
So we got the opportunity to demo at another really big mining operation, this time totally out of our experience as the client is very influential in the building industry as well and the commodity is low cost high volume as oppose to the high cost low volume of the platinum industry. To prepare properly I had to work right through the night at Phil's house (this is a post all by itself) and by 9:00 the next morning, just a couple of hours before the demo, our laptop packs up without warning. I phone the client to try and postpone the meeting but alas, she secured the attendance of a couple of their executive and to postpone on such short notice is just not possible. So we packed up the server and two other support laptops and turned their boardroom into an IT showroom.

All was well until one of the managers questioned the integrity of a company working in transformation that has no ownership representation from the black African community. How to explain to this woman in her highly paid position that our company is newly formed and we cannot even pay ourselves a salary, let alone support additional people? I did not even try to defend us, it just left a bad taste in my mouth and definitely made me decide that building relationships with the smaller operations is time better spend.

On traveling:
My parents, Elrich and myself went back home for the first week in September. Now in the South African context,' home' is not necessarily where your furniture is. Home is your roots, it is manifested in the acceleration of your heartbeat when you smell and hear your childhood sounds. The humid green of North Zululand forests, the sting of sea-sand on your ankles, little round faced children waving and mothers whispering 'Sawubona' as you inspect their handicraft. Night jars and bush-babies competing with each other all night long, the elegant dance of a wild Nyala bull and the heart stopping cry of a fish eagle as it flies over the Hluhluwe river. This is my country, this is my soul.

It was a nostalgic experience for me, taking E to a place where my memories are filled with scenes from my childhood, and as a teenager laughing and sharing a carefree existence with Phil as we played in the waves and listened to the night sounds together. Sometimes I got a bit caught in a time warp but never did I want the ‘now’ to change. I am very happy with my life and I can truly say that I have moved on emotionally - that I am living a new reality.

On Mothering;
Oh the challenges of mothering a 5 year old. This is an interesting time for us, E has left his small childhood years behind and he is a young boy now with all the challenges and fun this entails. He is a very funny kid and we are all learning how to best express the range of emotions that inhabits this life stage. His barely controlled desire to explore and learn new things closely coupled with the fear of 'getting it wrong' and 'not looking so cool'. I do not remember ever being as image conscious as my kid is now and can only assume it is an attitude picked up at school. Some of the fun things my kid said this holiday was

'mom, you know what, I don’t want to be human anymore. Humans are not cool' yip I share that sentiment, but what to do about it?

Another funny was as a result of my dad, who suffers from flatulence, letting a stinker of in the car on the way home. E exclaimed loudly, opened his window and said ‘Eish…these noxious gasses will kill us all!!' Resulting in hysterical laughter by everybody in the car

E starting every second sentence with ‘Eish’, which is a very African South African expression, is the most honest reflection of my child’s multi cultural friends.

On building relationships
Believe it or not, but I have started to really communicate to John and guess what? He has responded, not by ignoring me, but by communicating back and even though we have by no means changed much in the relationship, as all the challenges remain to be challenging. But at long last, I have come to a place where I am prepared to be emotionally vulnerable around him. Now that is a very big thing for me. Recognizing and feeling those emotions I have for the longest of long times just ignored, has really affected my life on many different levels.

For one, I can actually relax, just relax. My tummy is not in an anxious knot 100% of the time. I am not as driven to be perfect anymore, a perfect mom, a perfect consultant, a perfect driver, a perfect partner. I am ok to be just me. And guess what? My kid does not have to perfect either – we are all just incomplete imperfect humans. Living closely together, enjoying each other. I don’t have to be anything different to be loved, or attractive or anything. And lastly, let me whisper this …..for the first time in a long time I can actually enjoy sex. Yip…… see, I am ok. I don’t have to perform to please, because I am pleasing just as I am. Now that was a revelation if ever there was one.

Our Mothersday

Was such a fun family day

It started slowly with me sleeping in a little bit, E playing in his room. We then cuddled on the couch and watched a Garfield movie hugging our morning coffee (me) and tea for E.

Around lunch time we fetched John, Nikyle and the bikes, grabbed some take away pizzas from John's restaurant and headed out to the Bicycle park. Nikyle took off with great gusto and E had a couple of meltdowns before he decided that if he just tries hard enough he could actually start the ride without any assistance from his mother. That was enough motivation for me to don the helmet and take my little guy around the beginner trail. He followed very scared but brave on his bike and I looked ridiculous with my jeans and T-shirt on Nikyles bike. Nevermind, it was fun and I am so proud of my little man for following me bravely down rather steep hills, over log bridges and around all kinds of corners. Some of which had a substantial drop if you somehow missed the track. The ride was very slow and we had a couple of spectacular falls but the elation and pride in my little man's face when he finished all of it will be cherished for many years to come.

Oh and not to be outdone by his kid, John strapped the helmet on and took the mountain bike over some rather serious ramps ;-) he did well for even trying to go for it and I think we should put some effort into getting bikes for all of us and enjoying this together as a family.

Celebrating family

Mom and Dad and Nikyle

The whole family
Boys behaving badly ;-)
Today I got to be part of John's extended family. His little kid, Nikyle, turned 10 and we all got to celebrate together. For the first time since his birth, his parents and grandparents were all gathered around a table at John's restaurant for lunch. I made it beautiful and bought the kid a cake. The conversations around the table were varied and easy. No evidence of all the rejection and court cases that lies in the past.

I think that maybe the love and acceptance that have been planted is growing seeds across more families than just mine. I wanted to cry from the beauty of it all. The hug I got from a little kid that tries to be a brave adult at such a tender age. The measured look I could meet from the grandfather that has had to soften with time. Even Nikyle's mom and I shared a tight hug and John could wink at her as they made arrangements for next weekend. And who knows, maybe the invitation to go dancing with them one night might even realise.

Family update then

Sad news is that my dad, who has been cancer free for ten years, must go for a colonoscopy next week as they have picked up some irregularities in his colon. It was always the area that we had to watch carefully. And his one heart valve is not working properly so we are just a bit worried about that enlarged chamber, the bloodpressure and now the additional tests. I can't even really think about it.

Meanwhile my kid has learned how to be sarcastic, chirping from the backseat on Sunday afternoon when we drove out of the airport. Gee thanks mom, thanks for driving out of here now, look it is dark outside and I asked you, I asked you, to not stay here until it is dark. I am hungry, we must stop at a restaurant to get something to eat. That got E and John into a big debate about restaurant food vs. food we have ready at home. And then we got caught in the roadworks and the little man fell asleep, still complaining about his tummy feeling hungry.

I cannot believe how much this kid has grown, all his clothes from the previous winter is too small for him. I will have to buy a whole new winter cupboard.

From here and there

Firstly, a disturbing sight was documented on my washing line the other day

What, might you ask, is so disturbing about t-shirts on a washing line? Well, let me tell you, two of those shirts are for me and two of them are for E...that is what. Can you tell?

Then, we celebrated a birthday this weekend. As I had no time to even think about what to buy for the loved one, I just carted the whole fandamaly (including mom visiting from Crete) to a private game farm an hour down the road. And believe it or not, I forgot my camera ;-p Yip, been working too much again. But I did manage to capture these two photos with my cellphone. From the deck of our private lodge - where we even had a heated splash pool for our enjoyment



It was a really enjoyable weekend, we saw lots of animals and there were a herd of tame Eland that basically walked between the people like housepets. Even the one giraffe came really close to investigate. Definately a place to return to and with bicycles next time as the whole reserve is marked with cycling trails.

And then the house is in the start of transforming to something less than a storage room - from this



To this - at least we have a mirror and TV Cabinent, the couch will be delivered in February ;-)

Once that is done I can start on the office side of things and pretty the place up a bit with some strategically placed decorative items. I am thinking a big burnt orange vase standing in the corner under the mirror with some interesting grasses and stuff in it.

Back from our little break

A whirlwind December left no time to gather my thoughts, feelings or christmas presents for that matter. Until the last moment, when I shopped, wrapped and packed the car all in a couple of hours. To go for our much anticipated week long holiday in the Drakensberg mountains. Where it was beautiful, lush green, quiet and best of all - no cellphone reception. So we rested and ate and drank and then did it all over again.

A couple of milestones for everyone;
E learned to ride his bike without the side wheels

John and Nikyle joined us from Christmas day until the weekend, the first time the two of them have spend christmas together, as well as, the first time they have gone away together.

And no less, the first time we have joined forces as a family with my parents, E, me,John and Nikyle

It worked out well and we all had a good time....even the two boys had fun together.