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Its beginning to look a lot like a family reunion...

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Inspired by various families I have witnessed while on holiday... The family chat group that Kevin begrudgingly belonges to exploded sometime in February when one of his in-laws suggested that they all celebrate the coming Christmas together at a hotel. It would coincide perfectly with his mother in law's 70th birthday. Everyone on the chat group, apart from Kevin, agreed that they could think of no better way to get into the Christmas spirit than to spend seven solid days in each other's company, including nine children all under the age of 10. Since then the chat group has been riddled with extreme holiday expectations and awkward reminders to pay for accommodation. Kevin spent the next 9 and a half months in mild therapy with his padel partner, Brian. Their final post game beer, sometime at the beginning of December, ended in a bracing hug with Brian reminding Kevin that he is only a phone call away if things get too much.  It is now two days into the seven day Christmas ext...
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42

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 On the eve of my 42nd birthday I found myself alone in the gym at eight in the evening, running. Stephen had given me strict instructions to keep my heart rate up in order to get his crucial Vitality points. I pointed out to him that my wearing his watch would earn him Vitality points no matter what activity I do, even if it's just walking to the fridge. I'm not exactly ready to run a marathon, or run in general.  I also checked myself into the gym last night because my reflexologist, (shout out to the phenomenal Lauren Shattock Hammersley) mentioned in my last treatment that my legs might be feeling a bit heavy. Legs do generally feel heavy if you haven't bothered to lift them in over six months.  The good thing about running in a gym, alone at eight o'clock at night is that no one can hear you breathing. Not even I could hear myself breathing. If it weren't for headphones I would never, ever exercise. It's a lot easier to punish a treadmill with one's slu...
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The Voice of Scout

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  As a teacher one hopes to create that one iconic moment for students where academia becomes magic. My moment as a student happened when my ethereal English teacher, Moira Lovell, began reading 'To Kill A Mockingbird' to our Grade 10 class. If one is familiar with the book one knows that the opening pages are somewhat long in the tooth. Lots of sociopolitical context. The introduction is one which will make a 16 year old fresh from having eaten lunch a little heavy lidded.  Enter Scout. The moment Mrs Lovell changed her perfect elocution and adult tone to the gritty, fiesty accent of a little girl from Maycomb County, Alabama I believed that anything was possible in a classroom. The entire class was transfixed. Similar to how I'm sure the generation of radio listeners felt at the lead up to the next Goon Show, or War of the Worlds, our English lessons became much anticipated events. We would sit enraptured for an entire lesson as the voice of Moira Lovell, an English teach...
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Healing Event

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The picture above documents a pretty standard event in our household. It's actually a daily event. It's my 'reboot' nap.  As many of you will know I suffer from congenital hearing loss that is ultimately going to lead to me having to have cochlear implants.  Many of you will also know that I'm a Drama teacher.  Being half deaf and a Drama teacher isn't one of my favourite combinations.  I have only ever identified with a Miss South Africa once and that's when our current Miss South Africa, Mia Le Roux, pulled out of the Miss Universe pageant due to health issues related to her ears. She was suffering from vertigo and 'deaf fatigue'. Never has a fatigue more accurately described my daily struggle to have enough capacity for everything required of me.  And I'm going to be honest - it's has, of late, really been getting me down. It's my Achilles heal, or Achilles ear if you will, and I can't help but wonder how much easier everything wou...
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Jem and Scout

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My first experience of ever really loving children inside and out was when my legendary high school English teacher, Moira Lovell, read 'To Kill A Mockingbird' to the class and introduced us to Scout and Jem.  I can still hear her commanding voice change into that of six year old Scout, making that fiesty little creature come to life in a hot Maritzburg classroom. It's a skill I was to later share in life with my Westville girls in our oven of a prefab classroom. Those lessons reading Mockingbird are still some of my most treasured.  And now, its several years later and an English colleague got me thinking about my favourite novel again.  Our conversation began with me explaining that this holiday Eva taught herself to read and write. She's a January baby and let's just say that she's whizzed through all her milestones. Being a second born, a girl and having a brother four years older than her helps. As a teacher I'm well aware of the burden literate kids ca...
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Lent Day 44: Porcupine

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Last night as Stephen and I were getting ready for bed we got a message from our security company, Ensure, to say that there was a porcupine at the bottom of our garden. The message came with the above picture. While we scrambled to put shoes and coats on we watched the elusive creature rummaging around with the help of our camera monitor. By the time we got to the bottom of our garden it was gone.  We then got a message from our security company (who obviously watched us trying to view the porcupine) saying that we must be careful because they are dangerous creatures. They were also worried about our dogs. We assured them that the dogs were locked inside.  Two nights ago our dogs went berserk in the middle of the night and I immediately contacted our Ensure team who did a quick reconnaissance of the footage and confirmed that it might have been the security guard walking across the Kearsney field who kick started their response.  Our Ensure team also warn us when it's go...
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Lent Day 43: Reflection

Goodness me, and like that I'm nearly done. One more blog to go tomorrow and I have honoured my Lent commitment.  I've just read over my 42 blogs. That's over a month of thoughts. Thoughts that I would normally keep to myself, or thoughts that are so fleeting that they barely cross my consciousness.  It amazing what can happen in 42 days - I started at the end of a very torid term (aren't they all?) and I ended with a huge adventure. In between there has been loss and difficulty, and rashes and recipes and RnRs.   When one starts to document one's life day by day one starts to notice that, if we take the time to stop and reflect, God has designed moments for us in everything we do, even the hard stuff. And sometimes the moments are glaringly obvious, and sometimes they only shyly sneak out as we write a sentence.  I suppose that's actually the best way to describe a relationship with God - sometimes He's so obvious that He is physically tangible and sometime...
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