I do this every day

mercredi, le 06 juin 2012

I was catapulted into making this lifestyle choice a daily routine three years ago. I would lie if I said I enthusiastically dragged myself away from whatever I was busy with to take The Princess for her walk in the local park every day. But in true Pavlovian style, she reminds me every late afternoon that it is time for us to go. Such is my loyalty, commitment and dedication to anyone but myself, that I willingly oblige.

There are early morning walkers and late afternoon walkers. There are joggers and cyclists. There are big dogs and small dogs. There are pretty dogs and ugly dogs. There are dogs that swim and dogs that don’t. There are dogs that chase balls and dogs that don’t. There are dogs on leashes and dogs who roam free. We’re a motley crew. Some of us have a lot in common and some of us nothing at all. But the glue that binds us is our undeniable love for our dogs.

Over the years, both The Princess and I have forged wonderful and lasting friendships in the park. The park has been kind to us both.

Time is fun…

mardi, le 05 juin 2012

When you are having flies, as James Clarke once said.

Sometimes it feels like yesterday. Sometimes a lifetime ago. Sometimes I don’t remember it at all.

That day, Leonard Cohen reminds me, I just didn’t care what happened next. It looked like freedom but it felt like death. It was something in between, I guess. [I know now] it was closing time.

That day, you stepped into the setting sun and walked towards your loyal and adoring fans, bedecked in the finery of the Emperor’s new clothes. That day has been etched in my soul with blood, in my cheeks with tears, in my mind with disbelief.

You have asked me a few times since that day to forgive you. I often wonder what exactly you think you need forgiveness for. What is it that torments you from time to time that only I can take away? What, after all these years do you still want from me? I gave you so many reasons to love me, but nothing ever came of it.

In my handbag

mardi, le 05 juin 2012

I empty the contents of my handbag on the coffee table and try to make sense of how the pieces that fell from it, reflect the lifestyle choices I make.

The bag itself is partly a lifestyle choice and mostly a lifestyle dream. I bought her on my most recent trip to Paris whilst The Interior Decorator was shopping for a Louis Vuitton bag. I would far rather have something unique, different and quirky than a well-known brand name where it is difficult to tell the difference between the real thing, which you need to mortgage your mother for, and a Chinese knock-off that is so cheap that it is being sold by vendors at traffic lights in the city where I live. She’s a constant reminder of how much I love Paris and to keep following the dream to live there. One day. When I am big.

It was interesting to realise that there were in fact two lipsticks in my handbag. I very seldom, if ever wear any make-up, let alone lipstick. Yet, I have been known to do a 104km bicycle race around the Cape Peninsula with lipstick, perfume and some money in my saddle bag. Oh, and I guess some tools too.

Monday Lunch

lundi, le 02 juin 2012

Oh, the things I plan to do and never get round to. The things I want to do and never even start. The things I sign up to do and never finish!!

And it spirals down and down and deeper down…

My Mother once told me that all I was made of was good intentions. My Mother isn’t inclined to succumb to malice. Nor to sarcasm.

The Adventurer

dimanche, le 01 avril 2012

Around 10 this morning I took the last picture of The Adventurer as she turned the corner and drove out of sight on the heavily laden Dax heading for the fairest Cape of them all.

I swung my camera over my shoulder, bent down to hug The Princess and stepped into a sea of mixed emotions and feelings. There she goes. Again. On an adventure. Alone.

A piece of my heart slipped into her baggage. Heaven knows where it found space. But there she goes. Again. And I turn back. Alone.

It is that time of year where the darkness starts rolling in earlier and as it does so, it steals the last bit of heat from the weakened sunrays and brings with it its own chill. Tonight there isn’t only a definite nip in the air, but my house and my heart seem to have assimilated that same coldness that emptiness brings.

The Adventurer will be setting out from Agulhas, the southern tip of Africa on Saturday, to become the first woman to circumnavigate the second largest continent in the world. For more than 36,000 kilometers it will just be her and Dax, her trusted BMW Dakar motorbike.

Heart of the Rose

dimanche, le 12 février 2012

The music: Since being a little girl, I’ve always thought the key to unlock all answers lies somewhere in the lyrics of great songs. Being on a quest to create my own universe, there is no greater inspiration for me than this, narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier, one of my most favourite actors of all time.

The photograph: Being mildly inspired by The monk who sold his Ferrari, I’m going to be The nun who bought a Ferrari. I don’t really care much for Ferrari’s but I do love quirky convertibles of years gone by. To grow a strong and disciplined mind, I am savouring the heart of the rose.

Number Five

lundi, le 02 janvier 2012

I have now successfully procrastinated myself to the end of the second day of yet another year.

A part of me is adamant not to merrily go down the waterslide of this year and, when I come through the last bend and suddenly see the inviting cool blue water in front of me, have a mild anxiety attack because I didn’t really appreciate the view on the way down and I didn’t really make the most of the ride.

As I am swimming away from the ride on 2011’s waterslide, I’m looking forward to doing some things differently in 2012.

Nothing to give

jeudi, le 18 août 2011

L’homme, today I bring you nothing. Not a brightly wrapped gift, not a smile, not a sigh. I can’t even find wishes for you, neither good nor bad.

That is what you always wanted, is it not?

But you live in my heart and in my mind every single day. It is just that today I have nothing to give.

The music: I think Adele is unbelievably talented for one so young and I do love this song.

The photograph:This morning I bought tulips for My Organised Friend and tonight I am cooking us dinner.

Farewell

mardi, le 16 août 2011

I saw you on Sunday. Your frailty hidden by your pyjamas matching your ocean blue eyes. Your hands gently clutching onto the story that was running away from you.

You were charming, you were witty, you were caring. You were so quintessentially you.

Last night you took a deep breath and set your spirit free. To roam to places unknown. To play with the angels.

Today you gifted us with pure perfection: a windless winter’s day, the sun’s rays making diamond sparkles on the sea and the whales waving their tails in the bay. Or was that your hand with sparkling diamonds waving us a last goodbye?

Wishing you a perfect life in perfect places. Thank you for the indelible marks you left on my life. For all the many reminders where I will always be able to find comfort just for knowing you.

Fais de beaux rêves.

The photograph: A really bad photograph taken with my iPhone of the whales in the bay on the day after you left us.

Tour de France, Tour de Force

lundi, le 25 julliet 2011

Le Tour de France, La Grande Boucle. My annual three weeks of dreaming, of wishing, of hoping. Of reflecting on what was, on what could have been and on what will never be. Of being inspired, being transported, being amazed.

I don’t miss a pedal stroke, a gear change, a tournesol brightly following the path of the sun, a chateau grandly alluding to an era gone by, a church steeple pin-pointing to heaven, a mountain peak majestically bursting through the clouds.

When this year’s race started, I didn’t have a clear favourite to support, not a rider, not a team. The first week was drawing to a close. The Tour had rolled off the Passage du Gois at low tide, wound through the oyster beds of Bretagne, passed under the watchful eye of the magnificent Le Mont Saint-Michel and was hurtling past the Chaînes des Puys through the Massif Central towards the Pyrénées.

And I wasn’t sitting up yet.

Then there was Stage 9. The last day of the first week. The last day before the first rest day. The Tour rolled out of Issoire at noon that overcast Sunday. Standing up through the sunroof of his post-box red Skoda, Christian Prudhomme dropped the white Depart flag and 187 of the original 198 riders set off on the up-and-down profile.

The feeding zone was just over a third of the way in, the intermediate sprint point 30 km before the finish, and seven categorized climbs lay scattered over the route. But, on that glorious Sunday in La Belle France, the Tour erupted like the Puys did 10,000 years ago.

The Peloton came flowing down Le Puy Mary, the first of three Cat-2 climbs, faster than red hot lava. Around a sweeping left bend just over halfway through the stage, someone had lost it. In an attempt to avoid the carnage on the road, Vinokourov was catapulted into the forest, fracturing his femur, forcing an early exit to what would have been his last Grande Boucle.

Then came Hoogerland’s tour de force into the prikkeldraad (barbed wire fence) and into the Polka Dot jersey and into every sport headline and straight into my heart!! Fletcha crawled out of a ditch and the driver of the French TV car that chose to hit the riders over a tree, sped off!

The lead group of five was now reduced to three.