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My MIL came for a visit a few weeks ago. She arrives around lunchtime and then I didn’t see Little Man for the rest of the afternoon! He so loves having his Nana here!

He went back to school the next day, which was a little wobbly after 3 whole weeks off. Nana came with and we each got about 20 ‘last kisses’ before we could finally go! He’s been much more settled since then though. I love spending a little time with him each morning as he settles down. He blows me away sometimes with all that he’s learnt and is learning. The other day we spent some time putting together simple 3-letter sight words. (The letters and a picture of the thing are in a little box, he has to then copy the printed out correct word using the cut-out letters. Can be tricky with ‘n’ and ‘u’!). And he loves feeding the guppies in their tank.

Trish and I have spent the afternoons playing monster games; policeman games and we’ve had a few lovely outings. We walked down to the Rotonda from our place and had lunch. Blake rode his bike the whole way and Riddly tagged along, fully recovered! We spent the weekend pottering around the house and baking. I made some delicious orange muffins which use a whole orange, skin and all, blitzed and added to the batter. They are SO good. We’re well through our 2nd batch! (The original recipe is here: Orange & Poppyseed Muffins – I used toasted sunflower seeds and about 1/3c coconut because I can’t leave a recipe alone and I think I need to make a few more batches with chocolate chips FOR SCIENCE).

Little Man found a  Cape gooseberry bush in the garden. He tried one and really likes them! So he ate a whole lot. Fed The Noodle a whole lot, tried to feed me and the MIL some (nope…yuk) and then requested jam. So we made a teenytiny jar of jam! So cute and so funny. But he loves having “his” jam on toast in the morning! Going to have to find some more berries as the jam’s almost finished!

The Noodle’s birthday was a lovely day. Very low key, just us and Nanna. We baked cupcakes in the afternoon and Little man decorated them in what seems to be becoming a tradition! When John got home we had supper (spaghetti & mince, seems to a firm favourite of The Noodle’s!) and then we had cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday. Little Man was really good about letting his brother try to open presents and giving him a chance to play with his gifts first! Nanna and Grandpa gave him some gorgeous books and we gave him a wooden train. Little Man asked if he could give his brother a gift too (so sweet!) and so he wrapped up one of his toy cars and added that to the pile too.

Over the weekend we headed ‘down the hill’. John had a very quick meeting at the museum and then we went off to the Mall to get some clothes. Never again on a Saturday. Urgh. But we did manage to come away with some new jeans (whoop!) so now I can look semi respectable and not like I’m wearing my paint splattered clothes every. day.

I plopped on the couch for a while when we got home then we went off for a longish walk down to the bigger dam near us. Beautiful winter afternoon. Blake and John had huge fun throwing ever-larger logs into the dam for Riddly to fetch while Alex happily toddled around and played with the leaves and the dust.

Sunday started out cold. So we lit a fire and while Alex had his morning nap I got to sit in the sunshine and cast on the front of the jersey I’m knitting him. It’s going so well! I’m a little afraid of the ‘neck shaping’ instructions, but I’m sure it’s nothing I can’t Google!! When the sun came out and thawed us a bit we set up the tent outside, more to give the kids something to do but it did end with us Googling and booking a camping trip for our anniversary in September. 5 years is “wood”. I promised to build John a campfire! We’re going to Goxhill in the Underberg region.

I asked on the local Facebook group if anyone had a few lemons to spare…and ended up with 5 grocery bags worth! Careful what one wishes for!! So I’ve made a little bit of lemon-apple curd (it’s delicious!! I far prefer it to straight lemon curd. Here‘s a similar recipe.) from an old WI recipe book. Loved finding the little notes shoved in between the pages in my Great-Aunt Ruth’s scrawl. I’m especially enjoying it stirred into a bowl of double thick yoghurt as a mid-morning snack. I’m going to make a couple of jars and sell them at school this coming Friday. They have a ‘Fresh Produce Friday’ event every other Friday where the kids are encouraged to have a little stall and learn about buying and selling. Many of the parents bring lovely goodies from cupcakes to freshly picked proteas.
I picked some jasmine on one of our walks last week. It’s already flowering all over town! Nondescript green shaggy hedges bursting forth with delicate fragrant blooms. My favourite of all time. I put a few sprigs in a vase in my bedroom and catch a whiff of it throughout the day. It makes me happy.
Funny story, seeing The Noodle reaching for the skink above, a few evenings ago we went for an amble. John caught a skink and showed the boys. The Noodle reached for it and it promptly latched onto the fleshy part of his thumb! And wouldn’t let go! It wasn’t painful but it was really funny! “Naturalist Dad feeds child to skink!”

 

Back to school

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We survived all three weeks of the winter holidays!  The trick seems to have been to find a routine. Leave the house at least once a day and turn a blind eye/deaf ear to the amount of TV watched!! It also helps that we’ve had gorgeous weather here…blissful days of 25C and no wind so we’ve played outside quite a lot. Planted peas in a second little veggie bed. The originals are slowing winding their way up the pilfered beanpoles (wattle plantations do have their uses!). Little Man is good about remembering to water them. The lettuce and rocket are almost big enough for a teeny tiny salad-with warm chicken pieces and a garlicky dressing. Mmmm.
We had a weekend at home. The first one in forever! John got me some shipping pallets, showed me how to use the sander and left me to figure it out. We now have a “chic and rustic’ headboard for our bed. I’m going to get some twinkly lights to weave around the slats. Should be really pretty! Pinterest inspiration!
The Noodle has had a week of bumps and tumbles. Poor kid has his 2nd black eye thanks to a wicked bruise acquired from failing to navigate the steps to the verandah. He could do it perfectly with a  little bum scoot last week, this week. nope, insists on crawling down face first with the expected consequences. He’ll learn soon enough I hope! I can’t believe he’s almost one! This year has FLOWN past! He’s also developed into such a little person in the last 2 weeks…pointing where he wants to be taken, squealing in delight whenever he spots the cats or Riddly.
John brewed some beer. He’s so missed his hobby and spent the morning whatsapping his brewing buddy back in Grahamstown and comparing notes! I feel bad that I’m not much of a beer drinker and can’t really participate in his hobby with him! Oh well, more G&T for me!

I’ve been baking. Made a passable chocolate cake (on a quest for the perfect recipe…it’s no hardship) and a superb sourdough loaf! I was so impressed with myself! I’ve started a jar of sourdough sponge and hope to get into regularly baking our own bread.

I also started knitting The Noodle his blanket. Yes, knitting. Not crochet. The blanket I want to make just looks better knitted! Little Man got a big blanket sort-of for his 2nd birthday so that’s my goal. That or the Royal Show next year!

The evenings are getting ever so slightly longer so we’ve been walking more after work. Or we were until Riddly managed to get a ridiculously deep puncture wound in her rear paw and R2200 later we won’t we walking her till it’s healed. Ouch. Money we *REALLY* couldn’t afford to spend right now.

We reassembled the jungle gym from Grahamstown. Both boys are loving it!  Added another pallet and a few recycled milk jugs for them to play with and pour water through. Universal language; dribbling water!
We had a super weekend this past weekend, apart from last minute rearranging of plans due to Riddly’s foot! We were supposed to go to Umhlanga to meet up with friends on Saturday; but the vet was useless (seriously…more on that in a moment) so we ended up only going through to the beach on Sunday. So R hurts her foot Friday during out walk, won’t put weight on it and won’t let us look to see if it’s a thorn or what. So we left her overnight to see how she would do. Saturday, still super sore so we decided that we need a vet to see it. So John goes off to the one vet and they only open at 9 am. We were supposed to leave to go to the beach at 8:30. Then he remembers that there’s a 2nd vet so off he goes. R won’t let them look at her either so the vet suggests they sedate her to have a proper look. John leaves her at the vet so they can sedate and check. Vet says “we’ll be done by 9ish”. At 9:15 John calls, they haven’t even looked at her yet!! FINALLY, they get around to looking at her but phone asking for permission to x-ray her knee and hip cos they don’t know what’s wrong. John’s like “I told you, she was walking, then started limping and had blood on her paw and foot. She’s cut herself. No, you can’t x-ray” (10minutes later) Vet calls back.”Yes, she’s cut her paw” (YOU THINK?!?). Anyway, we could only fetch her then at 11:30 so we’d written off the beach. Won’t be going back to that vet.
On Saturday we ended up going to see other friends for a braai. It was SO nice to hang out with other people with kids!! We haven’t done it in ages! Took the kites along thanks to the strong cold front wind and Little Man let go. The handle of the kite, fortunately, got caught in the very tippy-top of the closest tree. 5 or 10cm higher and it would be gone! The kite itself flew proudly HIGH in the sky. John ended up having to climb the tree and cut down branches to get the thing down again! Little Man was most distraught that the kite had nearly flown away.
So Sunday we toddled off down the beach at Umhlanga. NOT my idea of a beach; we have been so spoilt by the E.Cape beaches. But the water was warm and there was sand and the kids spotted a little ray in the rock pools. We played on the sand for a bit then took a stroll along the promenade. Little Man rode his bike, The Noodle caught a ride on my back. The lighthouse was pretty cool, and apparently quite famous. Then we went and had a very average lunch at the closest restaurant with a playroom. Seriously it’s almost as if having a playroom means they can’t make decent food. Urgh. Then we drove home again. Snoozing boys in the back seat. Temperature dropping and dropping the closer we got!
Woke up the past few mornings to crunchy frosty lawn! No snow near us though it feels like there should be!!
My MIL is here for 10 days, and today was the first day of the third term…the house is so quiet and calm!

Evidence of cat

3 Months

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We’ve been here 3 months now. More or less. It’s been a whirlwind! Some I’ve written about already, other stuff I haven’t got to but here we go…catching up!

In May we went to Lake Kariba for a long-planned family holiday. My parents, my in-laws, my sister, her husband nad their 2 kids and my Aunt & Uncle. We stayed at the incomparable Musango Safari Camp (it’s run by family friends). The whole lot of us piled into a minibus and off we went! The holiday was awesome and no one fell off a boat of got eaten by a crocodile (bonus!). I had a nap almost every day and actually read two whole adult books! (Five Quarters of the Orange & The Language of Flowers – both very good…). The older cousins played so nicely and they asked for each other whenever they were apart. It was adorable. My niece is a spitfire! Stubborn and daring and fiercely independent! Good traits…though good luck to her folks! We went fishing. We drank *a lot* of G&Ts. We saw some enormous crocodiles. Elephants. Little Man went swimming swam (crazy child) and The Noodle started walking. I KNOW WHAT?!? 

 

Hilton is very pretty and very cold at the moment. A huge cold front blew through and left snow on the Drakensberg. Before the winter fires began I would admire the brilliant white as I took LittleMan to & from school every morning! We’ve met a few people and are slowly making friends. We’ve joined the library and been a couple of times. I’ve got back into the habit of reading before bed and it feels like slipping on your favourite comfy slippers. I’ve read a few brilliant books (The Butterfly Mosque and Where We Belong spring immediately to mind) and I’m on GoodReads if you want to follow along.

We’ve had some SUPER busy weekends. Immediately after we got back from Kariba, we went off to the Royal Agricultural Show. Which is like the Bathurst Show in the same way that a corner shop is like The Mall of America. Bloody hell it was huge! There was everything from giant (Guinness world record setting) tractors, to MotoX motorbike races on a unfeasibly tiny course with crazy obstacles, cows, cute bunnies, camel rides, a honey shed where we tasted like 12 different varietals of honey. They had an amazing pink-peppercorn one, but mostly they all tasted…like honey. But we smiled and nodded at the very enthusiastic lady who was showing people around. We walked and walked and walked some more. Little Man climbed on every tractor, some of them multiple times, and played in the digger and bobcats (the stall guy was awesome!). We checked out the crafts hall (I’m totally going to enter next year!) and ate a rather good steak roll before heading home. Totally exhausting but definitely will do it again next year!
We’ve also been to the most awesome little model railway place. The Pietermaritzburg Model Engineering Society has an open day on the first Sunday of the month. They run a bunch of different mini steam and diesel engines around about 1km of track. Over and under a bridge, through a tunnel. We took a picnic both times and enjoyed the crazy warm weather (27C!) that is “winter” in KZN!
I also got around to switching my car license from the lovely Eastern Cape ones with the pretty aloe and elephant to the dead boring KZN ones. Guess it means we’re locals now though right?

I celebrated my birthday with excellent steak sandwiches and a cake decorated with all the things by Little man. I hope it’ll become a tradition!

We went to a lovely fundraiser fleamarket things at the school. It was lovely to hang out in the sunshine listening to music and chatting to the other parents and teachers. There was a tiny market and lots of activities for the kids. Pony rides. T-shirt painting. Cupcake decorating. R10/glass wine for the adults so there was a spot of day-drinking! All in all quite a fun weekend. We got two lovely pieces of art that Little Man made both hanging up in the house now.

It’s currently the winter holidays.  They snuck up on me totally and I only realised they
were starting the day before the last day of school! Whoops! We’ve done quite well actually. Managing to keep ourselves occupied; the trick is to leave the house at least once a day, even if it’s just to go play on the little field near the squash courts! We also finally had a whole heap of sand delivered for Blake’s sandpit. Fun for little boys! Saturday we visited an awesome farmers market (Karkloof)  and enjoyed some good coffee while thawing in the sunshine. The boys played and ran around! I played with my new camera!!!! It’s soooo sexy! We had lunch at a little place on the Meander (Granny Doris) which turned out to be surprisingly good.  We tagged along on a fishing trip with one of John’s hockey teammates…a beautiful spot (I accidentally deleted all the PROPER photos of the place…dammit!)  So we spent the afternoon hanging out having a braai and John and Little Man did a bit of fishing and balance-bike riding. We came back waaaay after bedtime and tucked two muddy little boys into bed. I remember imagining moments like that before kids. Tidy dirty children. Worn out for a full day of play and sunshine snuggling into cool sheets. Happy memory making.
We went to visit some friends of Tony & John’s. They learnt to brew beer with them and then moved up here to start a nano-brewery, Balgowan Brewery! So we spent 2+ hours with them tasting beers (meh) and wandering around the farm. Not a terrible way to spend Saturday. Finished with excellent samoosas from a hole in the wall takeaway on the way home.
The big hit of recent weeks was the little balance bike we bought Little Man! We’d planned it as a big 4th birthday gift but he was so so ready for one. He’s taken to it like something that takes to a bike super well! Helmet on and off he goes. Sometimes far too bravely for his mother’s liking!! We’ve had a couple of crashes but (knock on wood frantically) none too serious.
I’ve used up my allotted nap-writing time…done really well I think!

Pietermaritzburg Botannical Gardens

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Late April & Early May in South Africa are known for the multiple public holidays on top of Easter. So seeing a holiday on Thursday and the following Monday, we made a long weekend out of it by taking a day off on Friday! 5 whole days to explore this corner of our new province.

We started out by visiting the KZN Botanical Gardens in Pietermaritzburg. These gardens were established in 1874. The gardens are beautiful. Lush and green, even heading into winter.

There is a stunning avenue of (not indigenous) plane trees. This photo is only about half of them. The other half of the avenue was being prepared for ‘Art in the Park’.

We walked and walked. Searching for geocaches, enjoying the views. Enjoying picnics.

That’s totally *not* our dog chasing the Egyptian Geese around the pond. Nope.

After exploring the higher reaches of these gardens but failing to find the geocaches we had been looking for, we gave up and started heading back to the car. Fortunately, our route took us right past this little pond with a geocache hidden nearby. Tara & sleeping baby searched while John & Little Man burst through the bushes in hot pursuit of Ridley who had spotted open water and Egyptian geese. Her favourite quarry! I quietly searched in the bushes, pretending that the shenanigans were nothing to do with me, while the rest of the family ran in circles around the dam trying to convince the dog to get out and stop chasing/being chased by the Egyptian Geese.

It was a super day and because we got there early, we were ready to leave by the time the park started filling up with public holiday revellers!

 

Little Man did so well but he reached his limit and I ended up carrying them both for a little while!

 

 

Hilton, KZN: The First Few Weeks

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Well we kicked off our arrival with Easter, 6 days after we moved in! Grandpa Rob and his sister Ann drove through to join us and Nanna. I count it as a win that everyone had a bed to sleep in and their own plate & mug! Nanna looked after Little Man for those first few days while I unpacked as many boxes as I could in between trying to get the internet set up and running and answering work emails and such! Never mind looking after The Noodle as well! It was a bit frantic but there were beautiful moments too.
The house we are renting is across the road from the local agricultural college’s lands, so we feel as though we are living in the countryside and not 2 km from a major national highway! We’ve had some lovely walks down the little dam and back up again (UP being the operative word here!)

The garden is big and come summer I’m sure will be bursting with beautiful flowers. But even now on the cusp of winter, there’s are still enough blooms to make a bouquet for my kitchen table.

Easter weekend was a great success! We explored our area in spite of some cold weather. The cats and dog loved the fire though! As do I! There’s something so very homey about a cracking fire. Our egg hunt was also a success and Little Man thoroughly enjoyed his “boiled egg” for breakfast! The Noodle looked on in bemusement…next year he can join in!

We had a pork belly roast a la James Martin with all the trimmings. Roast potatoes, pumpkin,  broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus carrots and onions. And it was warm enough to eat out on the verandah, what a treat! Then we Skyped the Dutch family and everyone got to chat!

We took a trip out to PigglyWiggly and rode on the model trains there, already a firm favourite! They’re operated by Lions River Railways and we have plans to visit the Model Engine Society down the hill in Pietermaritzburg soon!

Once all the family left and it was just us, we had time to decompress and settle down. We’ve managed to make the house feel like home (though there are still boxes we haven’t unpacked, and I suspect probably never will!). We’ve taken naps in the sunshine and enjoyed al fresco dinners. We’ve explored our suburb and the small wetland and grown-for-paper forests round about. Johns’ found a semi-serious hockey side to play for. Little Man’s school is really lovely and he has settled in so so well. We haven’t had a single teary drop-off and we’ve had a steady stream of photos and artworks coming home again. We’re fallen into somewhat of a routine and have started making a few friends. Going to multiple birthday parties helps!

Autumn has been a lovely time of year to arrive. Beautiful colours on the trees everywhere. Late morning sunrises (well, late for us anyway….!) followed by warm days and cool nights.

 

One Month In…

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There’ll be very little in the way of editing for this as I am writing as much as I can as fast as I can while the Baby sleeps!

We’ve been here a month as of…er…two days ago. The process of moving house is definitely NOT for the faint of heart. However, I can recommend it for the purging of belongings it prompts! Nothing like asking the question “Wold I pay to ship this across the country” causes the donate | Scrap | Sell pile to grow! And yet we still could have got rid of more! Lessons learnt!

Anyway, to go chronologically because I’d like to remember all this…John left with the cats on and drove to a very empty house. (See here).The Boys and I held the fort and I packed and tidied and pottered on as much as possible. Little Man finished up the term at his amazing pre-school and we had to say goodbye to Cath, Tam & Cindy. A very bittersweet moment! I had a great send off at work (not goodbye, just see you later!) which included champagne so what could go wrong? The Boys and I then decamped to my in-laws’ house in Port Alfred (Thursday). I didn’t want Little Man to be exposed to the chaos of packing as I felt it would have upset him/he’d be in the way a lot! John met us in Port Alfred for a whirlwind weekend of readying the house for packing as well as sorting our a few final final things in Grahamstown.

John then left with Riddly to drive to KZN again (Sunday). He bore the brunt of the driving and I’m so grateful to him for it! It’s at least a 12h trip!! But they both coped fine and he was back at work on Monday! We rounded out the weekend with a visit to the Bathurst Show. Mostly for the boys to see the BIG tractors and play on the little ones!

Then it was Tuesday. Moving time. Sort of. I spent a good portion of the first official packing day…waiting. The packing crew were stuck in roadworks and eventually only arrived at lunchtime. But once they were there they really did get stuck in!

(I should also mention that I was running around trying to sort our my UIF {still not done!} and get/drop off forms and various paperwork. And I was sick as a dog. It’s taken me almost6 weeks to properly get over the cold/chest infection I had while all this was going on!)

Little Noodle and I hung out at the house while stuff was packed up around us while Little Man Was with his Nanna having a BALL! I’m so deeply grateful to her and my FIL for stepping in and helping out. We could not have done it without them and Little Man so loved all the one on one time with them!

By the end of the first day they’d made significant progress and I was confident that our worldly belonging would be on a truck and wend their merry way by the end of the following day, Wednesday. (HAHAHAHAHAHA – I can laugh about it now. Manically.)

The next day there was more running around for me but we largely chilled at the house and hung out while the packers packed. Jackie, (my darling friend!) brought me lunch and stayed to provide company and moral support both days, otherwise, I read my books and took photos of the process. The first inkling that things were not going to plan was when the head packer asked me to call the office to find out where the BIG truck was. See, we’d arranged to pack on a Tues|Wed so that the long distance truck could be packed outside our place and leave from there instead of being packed; driven to the depot; unpacked & repacked onto a long distance truck and then driven to the new house. That Big Truck was supposed to arrive at ~12pm. At 2pm, I was asked to call the office. So call I did and I was told that the truck had been delayed that morning at another delivery, but it was on it’s way and would be with us by latest 5pm.

Final #StrelitziaSunset was amazing!

It was not.

I will spare the details but after many calls between me, the head of the branch in PE and the truck driver, it transpired that the driver basically lied about where he was and only finally turned up at our place at 8pm. At 7pm the head packer said that he wasn’t comfortable packing the big truck that night because they didn’t have lights and he didn’t want to damage our load or risk his guys getting hurt. Rightly so. So that meant that the earliest they’d stat packing would be at 6am the following morning.  I was on my own with Little Noodle (with NO bath or bedtime supplies for him…thank god for boobs because at least I could feed him!) and the weather had turned. A lot of our stuff was sitting out on the verge ready to be packed onto the phantom truck. I had a little sob and then called Louella. In life we a given a few true true friends and she is one of them. Once the big truck arrived and was informed that he was to STAY RIGHT HERE so we can pack in the morning, I went off to her place where she gave me wine, supper, pjs and nappies for Little Noodle, PJs for me and a hot shower. I crawled into her lovely bed and lay staring at the ceiling for another 2 hours before I finally wound down enough to sleep. This was only the 3rd night I’ve ever spent away from Little Man. (the other two being when his brother was born and a work trip!)

The next morning (Thursday), back to the house, I arrived to see the very sweet sight of our stuff actually being load onto the truck. However, it was now drizzling; less than ideal packing conditions!

The big truck finally left at about 10am and I met the cleaning crew, then dropped the keys off with our estate agent who’s going to manage the tenants, grabbed a coffee and a cinnamon roll (I hadn’t had breakfast!) and drove to Port Alfred! My MIL and I had chatted back and forth about whether we should leave that day or not, finally, we decided to go for it which meant that as soon as I arrived back at their place I packed all our stuff again and loaded up the car and set off for Mthatha where we’d stay for 2 nights with my FIL.

I don’t have any photos of the drive (other than the one above) because it RAINED and RAINED and RAINED and the road is treacherous on a good day!  I’d love to say I collapsed into bed and slept like the dead but no. Little Man had a good sleep in the car so he was up till 10pm and Little Noodle had caught whatever bug I had so was miserable and not able to sleep unless he was lying on my lap:

Anyway, we spent our 2 nights there, regrouping before travelling the rest of the way to KZN. Oh and in among all this our moving company called and said they might not be able to deliver on the day we requested. Because it was the same day as a national mass action protest had been planned for certain things the President had done. SUPER! So there was a chance we’d arrive with 2 kids and no furniture. So you can understand why, after all this, this photo was sublime:

That’s the big truck parked outside out new house. ready to be unloaded. Relief! John then took on some of the unpacking and getting the furniture into the right rooms. My MIL and I drove the final leg the following day (Saturday) and finally, we were all together in one place again.  I’ll write another post shortly about Easter and what we’ve got up to in the first few weeks here!

Catching Up

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So John left with the two (very indignant and increasingly pissed off) cats, in the little VW Golf I bought 3rd hand nearly 10 years ago. That little car has made some epic journeys and now it’s made one more. He arrived safe and sound and is camping out in our rental house until we join him in about 3 weeks!

We crammed a lot into the last few weeks and days that he was here.  We made cupcakes for ‘Bakerman’ at school. Little Man helped mix the batter and scoop it into the baking trays. I made a peanut butter flavoured ermine icing to go on top and then left the rest of the decorating to him. He did brilliantly! He also helped make John a birthday cake before John left. He clearly subscribes to the ‘more is more’ school of cake decoration!

We took several lovely walks, some wet and windy. Lovely autumnal flowers popping up all over the place. Beautiful sunsets too. And on still evenings, a chance to “come and look a the beautiful view Mum!” There’s a definite chill in the air in the evenings and early mornings now. Fuzzy dressing gowns and slippers have reappeared next to the bed. I’m looking forward to a fireplace in our lounge in the new house!

I also managed to do my 50th ParkRun! I started when they started the event in Grahamstown and I’ve done all but one here. It’s taken me 2.5 years. I’ve carried a baby/toddler in probably 80% of them too. Here’s to the next 50 and that elusive Black Shirt!
John played his final Friday Night social hockey match. Lovely to have a LOT of the old boys come up for this special friendly match. There were many groans and grunts and more beers afterwards. Hopefully, he can find a social league up there too…


I’ve been cooking quite a lot too; just failing to take any blog-worthy photos because but the time the food is ready I have two small people who insist that they be fed RIGHTNOWLIKE5MINUTESAGO! The cheesy mince skillet thing was amazing. Should have written down what I did so I can repeat it! Then the chicken wings…oh yes yes yes. A mango-ginger-cayenne jelly made quickly one night from a bottle of store-bought mango juice (did you know you don’t have to juice the fruit yourself?! It totally feels like cheating!) The jelly has a bright fruity taste which you just get to enjoy and then the cayenne sneaks in, hits you over the head and steals your shoes. I whisked the jelly dregs (that didn’t fit in the jars) with some soy, sauce and garlic and made sticky chicken. Making more for supper tonight….!

I have been keeping up with Marisa’s Food In Jars Mastery Challenge. I made a ‘shrub’ this month with blueberries, ginger, apple and red-wine vinegar. It smelt amazing, but I wasn’t sold on the taste of it as a drink. It did make a really really good salad dressing though with a splash of olive oil and a teaspoon of double cream yoghurt.

What’s going on with all of you?

Bath Salts

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Marisa’s challenge for this month is working with dry salt preserves. I must admit I was going to skip it. I’ve made salt preserved lemons before and we made 10kgs of braai* salt to give as thank yous to our wedding guests. And then there was the “Salt. Pig. Time.” thing….so salt preservation isn’t really that much of a new technique for me.

Things like saurkraut and kimchi don’t really appeal to either of us and with the move coming up I didn’t want to make anything that we weren’t going to use or eat up fast enough.

But then I had an idea. I’m sad to be leaving a lot of my garden behind. And there’s this amazing rose at work that has the most gorgeous perfume. I wanted some way to preserve those things and remember them. This may not strictly be in the spirit of a food preservation technique, but I hope it still counts as a fun idea!

So I made some bath salts with my eldest. He loves adding salts to his bath, especially Mommy’s special ones! I have a huge bush of rose-scented geranium growing by our front gate. I love the scent as I brush against it when I come home. We picked a bowl of leaves and the last of the pretty pink flowers.

We also picked a sprig of lavender that I grew from a tiny slip that was a gift from a friend. She left her original bush behind when they moved house so I think of it as travelling lavender. The flowers are finished but we used the leaves.

Finally, I added a handful of rose petals from the most beautifully scented rose that grows where I work. My job has been fantastic to me and my family and I will be sad to leave my colleagues and not see them every day or play hangman with them on the kitchen whiteboard.

I roughly chopped all the greenery and then added the whole flowers and petals to a jar of coarse kosher salt. I’ve left it to draw all the moisture out into the salt crystal and over the weekend I ‘ll leave it, lid off on a sunny windowsill to dry out.

I have tried one other salt-preservation technique….which I’ll write up as soon as I see how it turns out!

*Braai = BBQ. Our version was coarse salt, orange zest, chilli flakes, rosemary and garlic. So delicious!

We had the most incredible lightening storm last night. The culmination of the miraculous thing that is the water cycle. Our town is nestled in a valley. All day I watched as thunderhead clouds puffed up and grew, poking their heads above the ridge all around us.

At 16:30 when I got home from work it was hot and perfectly still. Everyone had a slick of sweat and tempers were short. Then, gently at first, the breeze picked up and the temperature started to fall. We watched as the storm front moved closer and closer. The wind began to carry the scent of rain on hot earth and slowly the hills disappeared behind a veil of falling rain.

Later after the sun had slunk away the real show began. It was mesmerising to stand and watch it. In total silence, the storm still far enough away that the sound of thunder wasn’t reaching us. Flashes of light all around. Only a few struck the ground, most were fabulous streaks across the sky from cloud to cloud.

The photo above is a 30-second exposure in the pitch dark. The streaks of light are cars on the highway and another main road. The light in the sky is ALL lightening!

Natural Fireworks

/ Tara / 3 Comments

Big Adventures!

/ Tara / 4 Comments

So 2017 it not turning out AT ALL what I expected it would look like. I thought this would be a quieter year.  A year of consolidating and settling. One lovely family holiday planned for May.

Towards the end of last year, in between me returning to work and Christmas and family and all that jazz, John was invited to interview for a job he applied for at the KwaZulu-Natal Museum in Pietermaritzburg. On paper, he didn’t feel he was qualified for the job, so essentially we tossed his name in the hat to see what would happen. The interview went fine but he still didn’t think he was a realistic candidate and so we didn’t think much more about it.

Christmas came and went and we swung back into January and the new year with a vengeance. And then they called him to say “Would you like the job?”. <screeech/>  Say what now?

We sat down and discussed it, but initially, the package they offered just wasn’t enough, although the job title is a big step up in terms of his career. So we turned it down and got on with life. A few days later we called back with a revised their offer and that changed our discussion from a ‘not worth it’ to ‘Hmmm, well now we have to seriously talk and think about this’.

Which we did. Incessantly. For 10 days. We talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and then talked some more. Talk to each other, our parents, friends in the are. Former colleges of John’s. We asked Google and trawled schools and property listings and made innumerable (some illegible) pros and cons lists until it got to the point where if either of us said the word “Pietermaritzburg” I wanted to scream!

It’s no small thing to move house let alone move across the country to a new city where you don’t really know anyone. Far from family. Far from friends and the life you’ve built for 15 years (or 33 years!). Never mind the practicalities (finding schools, finding a house, figuring out when to/how/what to pack) the hardest things to come to grips with have been intangible things. The people we’ll leave behind. The identity of ‘being from Grahamstown’. We had a braai over the weekend and I suddenly realised we’d be starting over. That it would be a while before we had the same easy friendships as we have here. The kind where you turn your kids loose and pour yourself a glass of wine while your hosts finish tidying the last few things. Where the baby is passed around and someone else puts a movie on for the toddler who then later passes out on the dining room table.

Anyway, John officially starts on March 1st which is just around the corner. I will be here for a little while longer, wrapping up our life here and preparing to move. I hope to be joining John in April or May!

And to think…I wasn’t sure if I’d have much to blog about!