Rest in Peace, Madiba

Such a sad time for all of us.   We knew it was coming – after all he was ninety five, a good innings by any standards, and he above all people had had a hard life, a hard physical life, not to mention the emotional and mental strain he must have been under, all those years of incarceration and separation from his family.  What would that do to any man?  But this was not just any man, this was Nelson Mandela, known affectionately to all South Africans as Madiba, his clan name.   And as Tata to many, a term of respect for an older person, a term of veneration, what you would call your grandfather.

But he was larger than life, it just seemed to all of us he would go on forever.   So the end when it came was a shock, bringing an intense feeling of disbelief and horror, that this man, who had steered our country, against all expectations, through a peaceful transmission to democracy was there no more.  I remember it so clearly, the first free elections, when we stood in the rain for hours waiting to vote, but the atmosphere was so upbeat, so optimistic, it was an experience to cherish, to file away with other important , never to be forgotten, life experiences.   I remember his inauguration, when there was so much talk of chaos in the country, when people, people we knew were hoarding baked beans and candles, in case of food shortages and power failures.  I bought some beautiful candles and a bottle of our local sparkling wine – I cut out a picture of our new flag from the newspaper (such flags were not readily available at that stage) and we watched the inauguration, lit our candles and raised the little paper flag and also raised our glasses to this remarkable man who had defeated all the naysayers and achieved what most of the world would have considered impossible.

I didn’t have the privilege of meeting him, to speak to.  But I did shake his hand, twice.  It was just before the 1994 elections – he came to my daughter’s school (which had been my school many years before) – she was part of the choir which sang for him.  I was in the crowd,  a large crowd outside the school, waiting for a glimpse of the great man.  The choir sang and he listened to them and watched them, in fact everyone was focused on the choir, except a select few men, who were facing the other way and keenly scanning the crowds – his bodyguards.  It hadn’t occurred to me but they must have been very necessary – there were many in the former South Africa who felt very threatened by what was to come.   Then, after the singing, he graciously went round shaking hands with the crowd.    I wriggled to the front and by dint of extending my hands in two different directions, managed to shake hands with him twice. I can still feel the rough skin, the workman’s hands, from this high born man, this royal son, this amazingly eloquent lawyer, who was forced to do manual labour in a lime quarry, work which not only hardened his hands to those of a manual labourer, but which damaged his eyesight from the glare and led to the future lung problems to which he ultimately succumbed.   Shaking his hand was one of the highlights of my life, right up there with being present on the Grand Parade in Cape Town, when Archbishop Desmond Tutu (another of my heroes) presented him to the nation as our president elect.   It was also my first experience of a praise singer, an extraordinary African tradition.  

I can’t believe he’s gone – the reactions around the world show how much he was valued.   We like to think he was ours but he was too great to belong only to South Africa, or indeed Africa.  It is not often that someone’s life enriches so many the world over, but this is such a life.  I feel honoured and humbled to have been so close to greatness.  Long may his legacy live.  Rest in peace, Madiba, we owe you so much.

Drought

It’s not a block

It’s more like a drought

It’s as though I’m on the wrong side of a glass wall, a frosted glass wall

I can see shapes but no detail 

Perhaps I’m done, a small voice cries –  a disloyal, mean small voice – I pay it no heed

Then another voice says ‘Try something new’, and ‘Start over’

That one I take seriously.   Another genre, perhaps even under a new name

The idea excites me, intellectually, but still the drought

Then I think of the brain fog I got last month after the antibiotic

Perhaps, though I’m not even aware of it, it’s still there, frosting up my window on my world, on my imagination

Perhaps I should just forget about writing, enjoy the glorious early summer days, walk on the beach with the dogs

I should feel grateful to be alive and well, living in such a beautiful corner of the world

 

When the time is right the glass will clear

I have to believe that

Nothing to write

I can’t write.  I literally can’t write anything; I can’t think of anything to write.  When I think about the books I have written so far I realise they have one thing in common – in each and every case I had a story that was screaming ‘Write me! Write me!’   Such a persistent scream that I had no option but to sit down and write it.  Which probably explains why I have generally finished the first draft in four to six weeks – it’s hard not to when there is an irritatingly persistent voice screaming in one’s ear.  

Now there is nothing and I feel rather flat.  Oh, I have odd ideas, (in fact some are very odd ideas – which reminds me of a Hager the Horrible cartoon I saw years ago – Hager says ‘Helga and I have been married thirty odd years’ to which she responds ‘Thirty very odd years!’ – I tried to find a copy as a card for my husband when we had our thirtieth anniversary but had no luck), but nothing clear cut.   My daughters tell me I should write murder mysteries, complicated murder mysteries (they think I have a devious mind – perhaps they are right), and though I have had some ideas along those lines, there is nothing that quite makes a story.    They say (the ubiquitous they, who know everything) that everyone’s got a book inside them.  Perhaps seven was what I had in me, perhaps I shouldn’t be greedy.  I should just enjoy the newly arrived summer here in Cape Town.   Then, like not looking for romance, I can be pleasantly surprised when the next story just arrives unbidden.   If it does, or when it does, that remains to be seen. 

Till next time J

Birth Announcement

My latest novel, On the Ninth Day, is now available on Amazon.  No 7 in the Southhill Sagas, though each story stands alone.  I had fun writing this one – actually I have fun writing all of them – I tell myself I’ll stop writing when I stop having fun but it hasn’t got there yet.  I have no idea of what, if anything I’ll write next.  I have several partly written stories but nothing I am desperate to finish, nothing that really makes a novel  – sometimes an idea just turns into a longish short story, maybe I’ll combine them one day.

Perhaps I won’t write any more – that’s what I say at the end of each one, but somehow or other another idea just pops into my head and before I know where I am I am banging away on the keyboard.   Take my third one, But a Dream – I had written two stories and wasn’t planning another and I woke up one Saturday morning with the idea, the almost completely formed idea for But a Dream, even the title, which felt quite appropriate considering where the idea came from.   That’s how I write – I always have to have a title, a basic storyline, a beginning and an ending and the characters, all firmly in my head before I start writing.  The actual story from A to B just develops from the characters – I give them free rein and they tell their tale – that’s why I find it so much fun, it’s a little like watching a movie for me, I’m never quite sure where it’s going or rather I know the ending but not the route.  
On the Ninth Day is fiction but one of the characters is definitely not made up – Smudge is or was, a real cat, a completely crazy but very beautiful and affectionate cat.   Is there an element of the paranormal in this story?  You decide.

Till next time J

I’m Back!

I had a great holiday in August – we went to Edinburgh (my first visit to Scotland) to see the Military Tattoo, an amazing spectacle which I can highly recommend.  Honestly, the televised version comes nowhere close.  My sister felt that the lone piper at the end was better on TV but I have to disagree.  The zoom of the TV lens loses the poignancy of the one lone piper on the castle wall in the distance.  Anyway, a wonderful experience.  I loved Edinburgh – such a beautiful city and so vibrant!  The Edinburgh festival was just starting, also the international book fair so the streets were really jumping.   We were lucky with the weather too, though the locals have a very different idea of fine weather.  When we were reaching for an additional jumper and pulling on a rain jacket they were all saying how lucky it was the weather was so fine.   But it wasn’t really cold – days about the same midsummer as our Cape Town winter I suppose, though there were some warmer days.  We stayed in a cottage, formerly a cow shed, a few miles out of the city, next to a very beautiful reservoir.  One of the highlights for me was that we picked delicious small wild raspberries, growing wild near our cottage – much nicer flavor than their larger cultivated cousins.   I love foraging – I am definitely a gatherer rather than a hunter.  I have just received my copy of Sergei Boutenko’s new book Wild Edibles and the DVD, which I am really looking forward to starting.
Then after just over a week we flew to Bristol to see our daughter and son-in-law, which was just lovely.  It had been a full eighteen months since we had seen them so a very happy reunion.  We were also able to see our grand-dog and meet our two new-grand cats.  They gave us a wonderful time, highlights of which were the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta,  a truly mind boggling spectacle, and the other was whole day trip on a narrowboat down the river Avon to Bath which was very interesting and also just lovely, so relaxing and good for the soul.  I love boats – our year spent on a canal boat in France is still such a fond memory.

All too soon it was time to come home – though not too soon for our cat, who thought we had abandoned her in a cattery forever and who didn’t leave our sides for the first week after our return.  Our dogs were pleased to see us, but had been having a lovely holiday on a wine farm with our friends, so they were feeling anything but abandoned.

Since getting back I haven’t actually written a word – sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever write again, then a new story just hops on board and I find myself devoting eight to ten hours a day till I have got it down.  Are all writers so obsessive?  Or is it just me?  Who knows?  I haven’t even finished tweaking my latest one, On the Ninth Day the Cat was Sick.  Partly because my friend and fellow writer Deborah Goemans, (http://www.amazon.com/Amaranth-Bloom-Deborah-June-Goemans/dp/1439286906)  very kindly assessed part of one of my novels and as a professional editor told me all sorts of things I didn’t know, such as the rules for indentations, and spacing and dashes.  So now I have to go through this book and make all these changes, when I do the tweaking and the rewriting.  (Not to mention my previous six books!)  I am most grateful to Debbie but this means lots of work and I am very good at avoiding work!  The trouble is I don’t have a deadline – and I am one of those people who can only work with a deadline, even a self imposed one.  So I should probably set myself a date, like the first of November for this book to be up-and-running.  Yes that’s what I’ll do – you saw it first here.  Look for my new book on Amazon on Friday 1^st November!

Till next time J

First draft written, work starts now

Well, I have finished my first draft, but it needs lots of work and some fleshing out.  This is not how I usually write but the story line this time was quite complicated, with three parallel stories so I was anxious to get to the end.  But it's not long enough and some of the chapters need expanding.  You know the sort of thing - they always say 'show don't tell'.  
This is quite hard work, and not nearly as much fun as the main story writing, so I plan to do it fairly slowly and will in any case be taking a break for most of August when we are in Edinburgh and then Bristol, visiting our family.
We saw a brilliant play last night, Solomon and Marion with Dame Janet Suzman, and Khayalethu Anthony.  It finishes its run in Cape Town this week, then like us goes to Edinburgh where it can be seen in the fringe.  Not sure what we will see in Edinburgh - we are joining my sister and brother-in-law and will be going to the tattoo, which should be amazing.  I have never been to Scotland, in spite of living in England for twelve years, but Colin spent part of his childhood in Aberdeen where his mother hailed from.  So I am quite excited! 
Then we go to Bristol to visit our daughter and son-in-law.  She is a veterinary student, a mature student who entered the field after years of being a dancer.  She's just going into her 4th year now, so in two years time she'll be a qualified vet.  
The heat wave in England continues so we are watching the weather carefully before deciding what to pack.  I had thought we would take our normal winter clothes, as Cape Town winter has in recent years been on a par with English summers but if this carries on I'll have to think again.
Right now it's cold and rainy in Cape Town with a maximum of 18 degrees C today, so not warm but not cold by northern hemisphere standards - equates to 64 degrees F, but quite cold enough for us, thank you. 

I am now wabbing - wab is a wonderful word which our daughter, the one in Singapore and her friends coined - wab is an acronym for work avoidance behaviour.   Back to my draft!

Till next time :)

Hurt my ankle but now having fun!

    We live in a very small townhouse in a suburb of Cape Town.  Really little with two small bedrooms, one bathroom and a downstairs loo.  Plus a pocket handkerchief size garden.  Last September when we sold a flat we had in England I had this bright idea of putting in a tiny splash pool in our little sun trap of a garden.  It worked fantastically, despite the mess involved in the process.
    Now we have two tiny poodles and a small cat, all about the same size as each other, who play together with great gusto.  Two weeks ago, the night before my birthday, they were in fine form, the dogs chasing the cat and vice versa.  Then after some time, Colin, my husband, pointed to the cat who was sopping wet!  Obviously in all the excitement of the game she had landed in the pool! 
   A while later I went upstairs (after we had dried the cat off and she had joined the dogs to resume the game)  to fetch something, completely unaware that Miss Molly, our cat, had been upstairs. Nor realising that she had spilt water on the tiles upstairs I came a cropper in our doorway - one leg out in front, the other bent under me with the weight of my body on it.  Bad news - the first time in my life I have turned my ankle. I yelled for Colin who came and helped me down the stairs.
   He obligingly went to the chemist and bought me a crepe bandage which he applied, and some anti inflammatory tablets that I refused to take when I saw all the possible side effects.
  Next morning my ankle was swollen and painful, however a hot bath seemed to help, so I looked up various hot treatments, for ankles.  The one I liked is this one    http://drbenkim.com/articles-sprainedankle.html   I followed his advice and my ankle felt amazingly improved.   However ankles, as I am learning to my cost, can't be hurried.  Six days later I went to my aqua aerobics class which I love - I was very careful not to do anything which hurt.  Unfortunately the warm water lulled me into a sense of false security - it was great in the water but really quite sore afterwards.

  So I have cancelled my aqua, and my kundalini yoga, both of which I love, and am doing gentle ankle stretches in warm water as well as a few short walks with the dogs.  Meanwhile I am resting my foot  on a pillow while typing on my laptop sitting on my bed.  
   However there's a silver lining to every dark cloud and I find that I am getting on well with my book - it's fun to write  - I now have three interweaving stories.   I am now on track to finish the first draft before we leave for Scotland on 1st August.

Till next time  :)