clawpower

I promise this is not going to become one of those blogs people have about their ugly, stupid pets. Just wanted you to see how much Prince Caspioni has grown. But not that easy to take photos of a kitten when it's eyes are open, apparently.

So this is him with his two best friends, Footone and Footwo. Where they go, he goes. He likes to make holes in them. Making holes in everything with his mighty clawpower is Caspioni's new fave thang. Princeling, Footone and Footwo playfight and race each other round the house skidding on rugs and afterwards they sleep tangled together at the bottom of the bed under the downy feathers of ducks like the ones Caspioni dreams of one day making holes in. That sleeping-in-a-box thing when he was a baby? SO over.

hyena laughter

Came across the most hilarious blog.

Loved the couples therapy post and her Other Writing I Have Written stuff.

Can't tell you about it - you'll either scream with mad laughter or you'll think it's ditsy girlie kakalaka.

I love it. Laughed like a hyena til my stomach ached.

Go here : www.fakeinterviewswithrealcelebrities.blogspot.com

the it of itness

Massive frost in the night turned into the most glorious morning and became a day so beautiful - still, cloudless, blue, sunny ... the Free State winters I remember and dreamed about when I lived in NastyTown.

In blue pyjamas I sat on my front step, a block of sandstone. I looked at the mountain and she looked back. I put my nose into the steam of morning tea.

This is it, the very It of Itness.

the princeling

I've waited a long time to allow another cat into my life.

When Cleo was dying my thinking went, "Do anything, everything. Whatever it takes, she MUST live". I willed her, begged her, to get well; kissed her fur and murmured over her for months. And she tried, so very hard, to do it for me, my beautiful kit. The vet was young and anxious. He poured over fat volumes of veterinary theory. He gave me tracts and pages to read, explained the options in painful detail. But he was baffled. Books were useless. She died in my arms after months of medication, hospitalisation, a feeding tube plugged into her stomach, and as a last resort a massive blood transfusion. Cleopatra Mouse Catcher Queen of Dragon Slayers, never will there be another like you.

But it seems there are others and they're, well, like themselves. Take Caspian. He's clearly royalty. The moment people meet him they know this.

All of three weeks old and still nursing, he was found abandoned and alone. For the last two weeks he's been bottle fed by a rotating collective of human mothers. This week has been my turn. Small as he is, he's clever, funny and brave as a lion. He's going to be a huge male cat one day. He purrs like a diesel engine. He travels to the office with me during the day, along with a collection of toys and foods, blankies and cushions, hot water bottle... At night he sleeps in a box within reach of my hand, waking every three or four hours for a feed and a chat. Looks like we're in this for the long haul.

So, naturally incapable of letting anything simply be, I'm compelled to understand, analyse and interpret his arrival. Of all the cats I've had the opportunity to take on since Cleo, why this one, why now, and what does this portend? On the surface, it's obviously to do with releasing, risking and seeing again the possibility of a safe, happy future. And then there's the timing. Full moon, winter solstice. Unseen and impossible to believe, but from tomorrow the days will get longer and spring is closer daily. Before you know it, I'll be basking like an otter at the dam. And I've realised how in love I am with my life after so terribly long and that this alone - even without all the other wonders and miracles - makes my desert trek of the past year a thousand times worthwhile.

That's pretty momentous stuff wrapped up in one tiny feline.

Heartsease Cottage

This weekend marked almost exactly a year since I first started my move to the mountains and my cottage is finally habitable, furnished, stocked with delicious edibles and wine, curtained, polished, serene, ready to welcome guests.

On a perfect night with the swelling moon rising in a clear, glittering winter sky, the mountain a vast shape in the darkness above, gathered faces of old friends and new were lit with firelight. Indoors, golden light, warmth, music. Moroccan lamb cooked with almonds, honey, apricots; couscous; excellent red wine; warm, creamy deserts; music unearthed at last from a box under twelve other boxes, dusted off and played after so long I'd forgotten I had some of it; the table laid with familiar crockery and cutlery, lights and candelabra ... home.

Friends from Jhb and Cape traveled down for the weekend. The holiday rolled out in the sweetest, bluest, sunniest days of rambles along golden cliffs and dusty farm roads followed by brilliantly starry, freezing nights; lazy meals with family and friends, stretching out in front of the evening fire and hearts ease at each day's end.

What sanity and peace to be at last in my own beautiful place. Every morning that I step outside on grass thick with white frost, or say goodnight to the incredible arc of stars, I count myself the most fortunate of people and am so grateful for this place, for the intense tempering I've had in the last few years and above all for the deep privilege of my fine, great-hearted family and for the love and friendship of wise, loving, accomplished, trueblue people.

winter dreams the same dream every time

Have the worst flu since, well, since the last time which was years and years ago. I never get sick.

I don't doubt for an instant that this constitutes a stern telegram, or a text message rather, from the universe warning, “All is not well with you, young 'un.”

A recent dunking in the fastrushing River of Luurve, has given my wobbly-legged newborn life a bad dose of total drippiness. Chills, coughing my heart out, chest pain, bouts of weepies...

Who'da thunk it could come to this?

The vexing thing is that three months ago I had earned a certain degree of hard-won emotional equilibrium. Now here I lurch, slugging cough mixture and self medicating with CorenzaC like one undone.

Yet still I'm overcome at times by waves of gratitude for the experience and the deep knowing about which Tom Waits sings so wonderfully,
"You Can Never Hold Back Spring"

cinnamon rooms

My tiny house on the farm is finally starting to look like a home.

Space scented with huge cinnamon sticks found in a Joburg industrial catering shop where the flour comes in 50kg bags and everything is done on a grand scale. The walls are rough textured - an accident of my budget constraints that just works beautifully (tough exterior Cemwash paint aptly named ‘Clarens’). The uplighters are chicken nesting baskets based on an old French design from a garden shop (on sale of course). The kitchen dresser was a hideous monster inherited in the original building. Everyone shrieked 'burn it!'. But something told me transformation was hidden under five layers of variously coloured, gluey, oil paint (I counted because I did a lot of paint removal with my own fair hands). And there was.

I have yet to spend a night in the cottage (waiting for the rings so I can hang the curtains), but very soon I will be installed with dear books, sounds, fire and grace in a place that is entirely me and entirely mine and created from my own vision, energy and labour.

That’s freedom, right there.