Ma Wa Gray

This one is going to ruffle some feathers. And I'm still very undecided on it but I think some of the views I'm about to express need to at least be considered by my current generation of parents.  The other day I arrived 15 minutes early to fetch Gray from rugby practice. I parked on the side of the field and did some work. Five minutes before the end of their practice I got out the car to chat to another mom.  It was then that I noticed a very long throng of parents (mainly dads) watching the rugby practice. To be honest it looked more like the crowd for an actual game. I wondered how that many dads could afford to be there at that time of day. I also wondered how I could maybe get a job like that too.  I'm going to throw my first little curve ball out there. I get that my generation of parents are determined to not be the kind of parents their parents were. I'm generalizing here because my Dad was great at showing up but the stereotypical dad in the 80s wasn't ex...

When I was little I was totally obsessed with bunny holes.  Emily's Childhood Dictionary describes a bunny hole as :  Bunny hole Noun 1. A cozy safe place to snuggle. 2. Generally where all her favourite stories take place.  Bunny holes are the start of all my favourite stories. Peter Rabbit, Watership Down, Dunton Wood (although this one is technically about moles but there are even more bunny holes in a mole's world than there are in an actual rabbit's world). I think my obsession with small cozy places started from my favourite feeling as a child  Sadly it's a feeling generally lost on the latest generations, mainly because the lost art of car sleeping is no longer socially acceptable. But allow me some nostalgia tonight... Remember going out with your parents to a party. Probably a 30th (because our generation of parents had already pushed out three kids by the time they were 30). Your monolithic Peugeot station wagon gets parked in someone's garden alongside th...

  Dedicated to Pippa Walker In my first year of university I fancied myself a journalist and registered for a coveted BJourn degree at Rhodes. I studied with some of the greats in journalism. I wasn't, however, one of the greats myself.  What I did do, however, was get myself a slot on Rhodes Music Radio. My friend Manuella (name changed to protect highly successful international PR company) and I pitched the idea for a radio show and the management wisely relegated us a graveyard shift once a week on a nebulous school night. Not that Rhodes ever really had school nights. I like to think that at any given moment, at any given time of the day, there was a cheese and wine happening somewhere.  Anyway, once a week Manuella and I would go to the RMR library. We'd select the same ten cds every week and we'd play the same love sings every Tuesday from 2:00 to 4:00 am. I'm using the royal 'we' here because I seldom presented the actual show with Manuella. She spent mor...

  I went to watch my niece and nephew in their school musical last night. I'm not going to lie - having worked all weekend bringing the pizzaz for my school's Open Weekend I was a bit pizzazless on Sunday night. Nevertheless, my dear niece and nephew have cheered Gray on at various sporting events and it was time to watch them shine. And that's the thing about high school musicals - those babies shine.  There is something deeply satisfying when the chaos of bad harmonies, teens with two left feet and an orchestra that sounds like a whale dying suddenly comes together in a moment of pure magic on stage. And even if you don't know the personal backstories of every child you know that statistically speaking at least two of your leads were seriously hard work, one got a deadly virus the day before opening night and three of them fell in and out of love during the rehearsal process. There is no greater emotional roller-coaster than a high school production. One of my besties...

  This week a great theatrical light went off. Athol Fugard had a very good innings. 92 years at the crease, and I have no idea how he feels about cricket, but I would say he's 92 not out.  Most Drama teachers can probably recite a Fugard backwards - 'Master Harold', 'Road to Mecca', 'The Island', 'Victory'... his repertoire spans decades and reflects intimately the lives of every day people surviving in both the Apartheid and post-Apartheid world. Any Drama student who has been around since the 1960s will be familiar with the quote synonymous with Fugard - 'he gave a voice to the voiceless'. And, as a Drama student, if that quote didn't end up somewhere in your final examination paper in your essay on Fugard did you even study? There is something deeply humble about someone who devoted their lives to the plight of everyman. About someone who processed, through theatre, his own victories and betrayals in life, something that must happen w...

Ok so it's been a very long week for me. Friday night does not find be brimming with writing ideas. So I have decided to close my eyes and pick a random picture from my photo reel and regardless of what picture I chose I have to use it as inspiration for today's blog post. Obviously it would be a screen shot of a recipe. No rad pictures of me being a poster woman for motherhood, or pictures of my kids living their best lives 1672km away from the nearest screen or a candid photo taken of me by my doting husband as I gaze out across some exotic landscape.  It's not even a whole recipe. It's just the recipe for the dressing that goes on that 90s classic of cabbage, roasted 2 minute noodles and seeds. But it's a great salad. I remember the first time I ever had the salad. Kingspark Stadium sometime in the late 90s. My cool townie cousins had season tickets. They were at rugby basically every weekend and we probably watched a sum total of three games in that stadium for ...

Today we went to watch Eva's little class show us what they've been doing in their swimming lessons. There was lots of smiling and waving, not that much swimming.  The little poppets have been divided into two groups. The 'dolphin' group were girls who have a little skill in the water and who can thrash their way from one side of the pool to another in a mild resemblance of free style. The 'turtle' group are still learning some confidence in the pool and need a little more assistance from their teachers. It was flippen cute. And we all clapped as each little person did whatever it was that they have learnt to do - whether it was some back stroke kicks with a kick board or doing bunny hops across the pool.  At one point I heard the most delightful squeal from the turtle group. It came from the beaming face of a little person who I've known since she was two.  For most parents there she was, just a little girl having fun in a pool. But I know her story and I k...