Ma Wa Gray

This morning I spent too much money on all the food required for our upcoming holiday. It's the only time I don't begrudge spending money on groceries because I keep imagining where and who we are going to be sharing meals with and it gives me a real surge of joy.  To be honest one of my best feelings is the feeling before an adventure. I love the planning and the anticipation. I love sitting with Stephen and the kids day dreaming about how it's all going to be. Sometimes the anticipation is actually more enjoyable for me than the actual holiday.  So, having loaded all my groceries into the car I was preparing to reverse my pajero out of its parking. A wiry, bald man a few years older than me (sound familiar?)  walked up and inspected the back of my car. I then opened my window and the stranger explained to me that my tow hitch was incorrectly attached to the car. He said, 'My wife... my late wife, had a car like this...' And then he described some complicated thing...

I'm sitting on my couch between two jack russels. Somewhere on the other side of the house Stephen is bathing the children. We've started packing bags for our big holiday.  Eva's art litters the floor and Gray's ghastly crocs are poking out from under the couch.  Gray arrives on the scene, fresh from his bath, refusing to put a tshirt on. Stephen follows him. Gray just read the sentence about his crocs and is offended. Stephen suggests 'betrayed' as an apt description. Then he monologues about Gray's love for long socks. Gray agrees, with his arms slung over Stephen's shoulder.  There's another long conversation about socks. Stephen calls Gray a half wit.  Gray wrestles Stephen, inciting the dogs who then jump onto my stomach to get to the action. Eva shouts for Stephen from the bath and they all disappear again leaving me alone. The dogs settle back in their vigil on either side of me. One takes moments of domesticity for granted. The normal everyda...

Yesterday after my previously mentioned weeding experience in the garden I took the kids to the Kearsney swimming pool for a swim. My doctor has told me that the only way to get rid of my frozen shoulder is to swim. Since he told me this at least two months ago I've been to the pool for the sum total of one session. This was to be my second. I stripped down to my costume, popped in my ear plugs to protect my rapidly failing ears and professionally slipped my cap on. Whenever I do this I am reminded of the days when I was a lithe high school swimmer who used to swim galas in this very pool. I was long, sleek and very fit. Gray is now the swimmer in the family and he he too is long, sleek and very fit.  Now, the Kearsney pool borders on our Sports Zone and a span of windows run the length of the pool as a result. They also double up unofficially as mirrors. I have witnessed many a school boy flex in front of these window/mirrors. Unfortunately as I strode towards the edge if the pool...

  My family and I like to watch a TV programme called 'Homestead Rescue' where the hard core Rainey family (homesteaders from Alaska) rescue homesteads. I'm sure you could have probably worked that out by yourself.  Having watched a fair number of episodes it looks like that if you want to qualify to be in the show your homestead needs to look like a low key squatter camp. A number of your rooves must be plastic. You must have a critter problem. Your vegetable garden must be a couple of old poles stuck into the ground with one dying cabbage in the middle. And you must be in constant war against mother nature - floods, fires, drought, possibly some inbreeding somewhere in your past.  I'm generalizing here but most of the homesteaders look like they need a good bath and a solid meal. Their kids are mainly feral but charming and a lot of them have given up careers as musicians, lawyers and postmen to live the way of their ancestors. It hasn't worked and their generator...

I've only ever watched 'City of Angels' once, but, like Braveheart, I would still say it's one of my favourite films. I will never look at pears in the same way again, and neither will I listen to 'Iris' by Goo Goo Dolls in the same way. Meg Ryan needs to take her bicycle safety more seriously. That movie ripped my heart apart, and the song still does.  'Iris' is in fact my favourite song. It's also the song I promised one of my best friends from high school that I would sing at her funeral. We were 17 at the time. I wonder if her funeral plans are still the same because those high notes aren't actually in my range. When I made the promise we were invincible, I feel less invincible now. Floey please don't shuffle.  This evening rather a lot of middle aged Durban people, who are no longer invincible, are sitting having unexpected date nights because our long anticipated Goo Goo Dolls concert has been rained out.  It's pretty bleak. The pla...

There are two sleeping bunnies in my bed.  They are soft and furry and mine. Outside the rain drips against the window pain And a fluff tail sings it's sad sing in the mist.  My bunnies sigh deeply in their sleep, Two auburn haired things cuddled together. I still can't believe they are mine.