Stuck In A Moment...

The past few days have been a bit surreal. Across the UK, temperatures are soaring under fierce sunshine, with thunderstorms in the late afternoons...and there are Michael Jackson songs playing almost constantly on the radio. It's almost as if I've somehow been transported back to my childhood in southern Africa in the 1970s/80s.

Music has always evoked very strong memories and emotions... some songs will immediately remind me of a time, place or event in my life. One of my earliest recollections is provoked by The Carpenters "We've Only Just Begun". I was about 4 years old and was in a car with my parents driving from the then Salisbury to Bulawayo to visit my dad's brother. This song was playing on the car tape deck when we came upon the scene of a horrific accident involving a train and a car at a level crossing. My mom told me to close my eyes tightly and not look out the window...but curiosity got the better of me and I sneaked a naughty peak as we drove past. Really wish I had obeyed my mom as that horrific scene burned into my memory forever that day...

On a less morbid note, the upbeat sounds of "I Like To Move It", famously revamped in "Madagscar" will always take me back to our Caribbean holiday in the summer of 2005. The film was about the only decent thing showing on our in-flight entertainment system outbound and inbound....think I watched it 5 times in total...but still loved it enough to buy the DVD later.

Speaking of holidays....some plans are afoot.
Will let you know more soon....

"Grumpy Legs"

I have two nieces - J aged 9 and M who's 4. My brother and his family live down in East Sussex, so as we were going down that way for the Christening last weekend we'd arranged to have lunch with them en route. I hadn't seen J and M for months, and was quite suprised to find how much they'd changed.

J has become quite the young lady ("madam" some may say!)... when we arrived she was busy "doing her hair", which seemed to entail introducing lots of tiny plaits and ribbons into her poker straight, curtain of hair. She was quite shy at first, but after a few minutes asked B (who she relates to well) if he would teach her some more chess moves...the last time they'd been over at our house we'd brought out the board games to try and keep them occupied on a dismally wet day, and she'd shown a suprising interest in learning chess.

M latched onto me, insisting on showing me her bedroom, her books, her cut-out cardboard pirate ship covered in stickers of all sorts of things, including mermaids and cacti (desert island anyone?)...and 'her' Barbies. Turned out they are her sister's and she was not supposed to be playing with them...but "Grumpy Legs" took them from J's room and put them in hers. So, not her fault then...

I soon realised that "Grumpy Legs" (also known as "Grumpylex") is M's imaginary friend....he'd just turned up one day and has been making mischief ever since...

Did you eat the last biscuit, M? No...that was Grumpy Legs.

M, did you spill your water over the floor? Nope, Grumpy Legs was playing with the taps.

Who made a bad smell? Grumpy Legs farted! [Said with the great glee that all children dedicate to toilet humour... and followed up with the "belly-button does a fart trick" her not-always-so-ladylike older sister taught her]

Made me think I could sometimes do with a "Grumpy Legs" of my own, a kind of alter ego that could say the things I really want to say or do, but I know I have to bite my tongue and clench my fists close to my side....because I'm supposed to be a mature and responsible adult.

Take for example a little scenario that arose later that evening. B and I had decided to treat ourselves to a hotel for the night before the Christening. We'd ended up booking a beachfront hotel in Hastings...not our first choice but there was not a room left in Eastbourne as the pre-Wimbledon tennis tournament was underway.


After a good walk along the seafront and through the Old Town, we decided we'd go back to the hotel for a relaxing drink and dinner in their restaurant/bar. The other patrons seemed predominantly French...indeed we'd encountered quite a few in the town already and wondered why the place was so popular with our cross-Channel comrades. We'd speculated they must like Hastings, as it was the setting for former conquests (1066, The Normans and all that). Turned out most of the staff on duty were also partial to les escargots.

Not long after we'd settled down with a glass of red wine, we heard a slight altercation at the table close to ours. It transpired that Le Garcon had served his compatriots' wine....not in a wine glass....quelle horreur!...but in a tumbler! Turns out the staff had had a bit of an early run on wine orders and the dishwasher was on overtime. Not one to let such a gastronomic crime go unrebuked, the outraged Frenchman stormed up to the bar to protest...loudly..."I am French...and to serve me wine like that is an offense!"

Of course it would have been fine to serve it to a 'rosbif'(Brit)....hell, we're happy with a straw in a bottle... or even a trough on the floor!

All right mate, keep your hair on...

Quite a bit later we realised that we'd been waiting an awfully long time for our food...and that there was a plate of something that looked suspiciously like one of our meals rapidly cooling on the side of the bar. Even later, after finally managing to lock eyes with Le Garcon (who was scurrying about no doubt looking for more wine glasses) said plate was brought to our table...but without cutlery and without my food order. The darn dude made a rapid retreat before we could even query the absence of either. I was itching to go up to the bar and say loudly (purely for the benefit of Les Francais)....."Excuse me old bean, hate to bother you and all that...but I have a slight problem....you see, I am English and I eat with cutlery...and typically, I enjoy my meal at the same time as my husband!"

But of course, I didn't....instead B went up to the bar and discreetly queried what had happened to my meal and whether cutlery was supplied. Apparently there had been a mix-up with the order (they'd assumed I wasn't eating....wonder if that's a subtle hint I need to go on a diet)... and I only got my food well after B had devoured his (I did tell him not to wait!).

Did we cause a fuss? Course not....we're English! Stiff upper lip and all that.....

Where's Grumpy Legs when you need him though?

On Godmothers (Fairy And Otherwise)

My dad has started his second cycle of chemo...so far so good again and he's feeling OK. Cross fingers, hold thumbs, knock on wood, hope, pray...and wish.... that it continues to be so and that the treatment makes a difference.

Do fairy godmothers still grant wishes?


As a small child, I used to confuse my real godmother with the benevolent fairy of some of my favourite, made-for-Disney stories. The two were not that different really...she lived very far away (Cape Town) and sent me lovely presents for my birthdays and Christmas. I didn't really get to know my godmother until I was an adult. She was a spinster, who'd dedicated much of her adult life to looking after her aging parents. I later found out she'd passed up the chance to marry the love of her life because he was divorced and her parents did not approve of the match. Shortly after that, she'd had her heart broken by a cad who stole loads of her money and did a runner.

When I moved to Cape Town to study, my godmother became more a part of my life and it was kind of cool having her around. At least once a month she would pick me up from my halls of residence and take me back to her comfy flat for lunch or supper...always a treat to eat non-mass-produced food. When B came on the scene, she warmed to him almost immediately and extended her lunch invitations to him. For some reason we always seemed to end up having Sunday lunch with her the day after a heavy night of drinking and clubbing. Green about the gills, we'd both politely refuse the customary glass of sherry on offer, hoping we didn't still reek of cheap booze. A bit straight-laced by nature, my godmother did not completely approve of my student lifestyle (and she got to hear the edited version). She was also not too impressed when B and I decided to "live in sin" but did offer us some much needed pots and pans for our sparsely furnished flat. Needless to say she was overjoyed when we finally decided to make honest persons of ourselves and get married.

Now that I'm living in the UK, I keep in touch with my godmother by the odd phone call - she phones me on my birthday, I phone her on hers, and she's become quite deft at sending text messages. It's now my turn to send her gifts... she's a suduko fanatic, but refuses to pay the greatly inflated prices of puzzle books in South Africa...so it's easy to pop a book in the post to her.

On Sunday I'm becoming a godmother myself for the second time round.....something I am quite excited about. Wonder if I'm qualified?

B and I have decided to remain childfree....simply because we do not want children of our own. I like children, and enjoy those of others...but have no desire to have them around 24-7. I knew in my early 20s that motherhood was not for me, but everyone said that I would change my mind, my biological clock would start ticking and I would start wanting a baby....well, either I'm deaf or my clock needs a new battery, as in my mid 30s I feel even less inclined. Luckily, I'm from a generation and culture where it is acceptable for a woman to remain childless, and more importantly, I'm married to a man of the same opinion....well, we wouldn't have gotten married if we differed over something so fundamental.

I am alway very happy when friends or family who really want children start a family, and it's great to see the joy they get from their children. It's flattering to be asked to be a godparent by your friends...I hope that I will be a good one and make some positive contribution to my goddaughters' lives.

Bloomin' Marvellous

Lillies and clematis in my garden....

Britain's Best Kept Secret

You didn't hear this from me, but Northumberland has it all...clean sandy beaches, dramatic castles, seaside towns, pretty stone villages and cosy tearooms. Best of all, almost no one seems to know about the charms of Britain's least densely populated county, making it blissfully uncrowded. B and I enjoyed it so much that we've already booked another week there in September, based in a cottage just a few hundred metres from this superb beach...

Dunstan beach (Embleton Bay), backdrop to the ruins of Dunstanburgh Castle

Dunstanburgh Castle

On our next trip (sans Les Outlaws), we hope to take advantage of the superb walking to be had along the 64 mile long Northumberland Coast Path. To be fair to Les Outlaws, they did their share of walking, as we dragged them around another castle or three, including Alnwick (famously used as Hogwarts in the first two 'Harry Potter' films), Warksworth and Bamburgh.

Alnwick Castle

Alnwick Castle

Warksworth Castle

Bamburgh Castle

Harbour at Seahouses

One of the highlights of the holiday was a boat trip from Seahouses out to the Farne Islands, which lie two to three miles off the Northumberland coast midway between the fishing village of Seahouses and the magnificent Castle of Bamburgh. As well as being the most famous Sea Bird Sanctuary in the British Isles they also have a large colony of Atlantic or Grey Seals. At this time of the year, nesting puffins, seagulls, shags, terns and cormorants can be seen in their thousands. We were taken to view basking seals and the nesting birds on the cliff faces....boy, what a wiff! Nothing quite like the pungent aroma of guana!

Puffins and seagulls

We spent an hour on Inner Farne (one of only two islands that can be landed)...dodging dive bombing terns, hell bent on protecting their nests by incessantly pecking the top of our heads. We'd been warned to warn hats...I think a pith helmet or crash hemet would have been in order as cloth caps offer scant protection from their fierce beaks. The only place to take refuge from this bizarre, Hitchcockesque experience was a tiny church dating from 1370 and dedicated to St Cuthbert (d. 687).

Territorial Tern

St Cuthberts

We also passed Longstone Lighthouse, made famous by Grace Darling and her father, the lighthouse keeper, William Darling. On the night of the 7th September 1838 they rescued nine survivors from the Forfarshire, a paddle steam ship bound for Dundee, which ran aground on Big Harcar in stormy seas.

Longstone Lighthouse

Really looking forward to going back.....

Notes From A Small World

There's an old saying, "Never burn your bridges", that is particularly apt for the circle that I move in, professionally. Every time I go to one of these conference/networking type things I realise just how small that sphere really is....without fail I run into someone I know from working at a previous company or that was a former client. Already at the airport awaiting the flight to Slovenia, I met up with a lady now working for the She-Devil I had the misfortune to know as my former boss (you may have read about her before in my '9 till 5' post). Testing the waters, after the usual pleasantries, I casually asked her "So, you get on well with her, then?"....her reply was evasive, and I left it at that. I'm not one to discuss the fault of past bosses with strangers...in person that is...blogspot doesn't count!

The next evening we ended up on the same table at the conference banquet, along with one of her colleagues (they'd also worked together in another company).....weirdly, he is not just now working for my past company, but he joined it after leaving the one I'd left before that....always one step behind me in the job chain it seems. He showed great interest in my current company and the level of experience I'd gained there compared to his own....so I won't be suprised if his CV turns up in our mailbox shortly. Before long, one of their former colleagues joined us (I met her at a previous conference, and knew she'd turned down an offer from my previous, previous company...the one with the wayward boss). The new arrival sat down and promptly asked about their new boss "So, is she [She-Devil] really the biatch everyone says she is?". I didn't catch their response as I was distracted by my colleague seated on my other side (the one that also worked with me for the wayward boss and got me into our current company) pointing out that the bloke on the other side of the table was one of our clients from that old company. He'd had a bit of a run-in with said tactful boss, and had queried the quality of his work processes. Luckily he didn't seem to remember us but was interested in getting in touch with our new (and highly reputable) company with some potential work.

On the topic of fire and bridges, here's a snap of one of the dragons on the aptly named Dragon Bridge, a landmark of Ljubljana, as seen on the walking tour of the city arranged for the following evening....

No fire on this (Dragon) Bridge

Dinner that night at a local restaurant provided the chance to sample the local speciality...mushroom soup in a "mushroom" bun....

The last night of the conference was the highlight of the social agenda....winetasting and a five-course dinner in the company of Tomaz, a local connoisseur who has travelled the world reviewing food and wines. Slovenia is in fact renowned for its wines, particularly their whites. I'm more of a red wine fan, but was pleasantly suprised by how much I enjoyed the crisp whites that dominated the evening....thought of you Saffa, and your current deprivation! With each course we were served two glasses of wine....the idea being to eat a mouthful, taste number 1.... then eat a bit more and taste number 2... then decide which wine best complemented the dish and left the palate cleansed. A whole new way to experience a wide range of wines (12 in total with the dessert wines served to finish)...and I was amazingly sober by the end of the evening...

Menu

Appertif

Scurek -Rebula

Santomas - Refosk

Fish Carpaccio

Jeruzalem Ormoz - Terase

Jakoncic -Savvignasse

Courgette Soup

Verus - Renski Rizling

Klet Brda - Chardonnay Bagueri

Risotto With Asparagus

Joannes - Spargeljevo Vino

Kristancic - Sivi Pinot

Roast Lamb With Thyme And Vegetables

Simcic - Pinot Noir

Scuurek - Merlot

Apple Strudel

Batic - Valentino

Steyer - Gewurtzraminer

Micro Update

Good news....my dad's cancer has not spread to his lungs and his liver is still clear.

Thank God!

He started the chemo yesterday and so far things are going OK....touch wood! Isn't it funny how superstitious and spiritual we become when faced with aversity? I'm the first to admit I'm a "bad weather believer"....I'd like to think I'm not just a "fair weather friend".

Slovenia and Northumberland were both great...will let you know more soon.