c'est la vie

How many mother-in-law, or mother jokes do you know. Or tell yourself? Or laugh at from others? There are articles, podcasts and memes about the horror of all horrors, "the mother-in-law". Very often portrayed as the dragon incarnate, overprotecting (usually her son) her children, interfering and giving unwanted advice.  Then there are those that laud their mother-in-laws, love them for the relationship they share, find themselves gaining a 2nd mom and happily spending time with them. Where do you find yourself sitting in your relationship with your son and daughter-in-laws? The reverse of course is that the MIL (work it out)can have the same dilemma. Are you loving and warm and helpful but have the son and/or daughter in-law from hell who only sees you as unable to snip the apron string, or do you have that warm and fuzzy person you longed to have? MIL discussions and opinions are as old as the hills and they will always be a topic of conversation.  I got lucky with my futur...

  Letters. Photos. Postcards.  Private mementos. Personal moments. Special memories.  In my dad's drawers - in his office, in the drawers in the spare room, in his large filing cabinet, there are hundreds upon hundreds.  And now, what to do? There are letters in their dozens that my grandmother wrote to my dad when he was in High School here in Pretoria, having moved with her from Germany when he started Gr 8 at Afrikaans Hoër Seunskool. Yes, a boy who spoke German and some English. Till today I do not understand the choice. However he stayed in Res, matriculated from there and remained a member of the Alumni forever.  When my grandmother went back to Germany, she wrote hundreds of letters to him at school, and when he went to University to study to be a CA.  Now we have boxes and boxes and boxes of airmail envelopes and telegrams from her to him. We even found a Telegram she sent him when he passed Matric.  Now I do not have the head space to read the...

So here I am, like a stealth book character, being a mystery shopper in a branch of a well known SA coffee shop (or full restaurant in some areas).  The brief is extensive and the questions on the app aplenty as you go through the process of cleanliness, ambiance, staff attention, uniforms, products available and in stock, your welcome, getting coffee like you ordered it (extra hot), how your food was and your sweet item (you have to have both, so devastated). In addition how loyalty app was handled, was it offered and on and on. With photos of everything they ask. Luckily today people take photos of food when they go out, so I did not look out of place.   For this I claim and get my bill refunded to me and in addition a crisp R100 for my trouble. I can do a free meal and R100 thank you very much. Buys me 3 coffees at my favourite hangout in Gordons Bay. They have a lesser price for refills which is unheard of anywhere else that I go. Plus the two owners are really lekker...

There is surely a time in everyone's lives when some things just push all their buttons. Or as my dear dad would say "gives one the shits". I don't know if it gets worse as you get older, but some of these having been giving me the ....... for at least 30 years.  Now the last decades have brought us the mobile phone, which in time brought us irritation number one. People who sit in coffee shops (or restaurants) and take video calls or make business calls with their earphones in and laptops open. There is no reason, not one, unless your speaker is broken, not our problem, for having a conversation on speaker in a place where other people are working, relaxing or just not wanting to hear you and Tant Sannie chat on speaker or video or listen to Estate Agent, or a guy who is obviously just the man, speaking loudly whilst on earphones making sure everyone can hear just how successful he is. I asked a lady to tone it down recently after one hour. She shrugged me off. Those...

Well that saying is one that would always have applied to me. Understand me nicely. I don't run. You know when someone says "let me run and fetch this" - I don't even do figure of speech running.  Then at the end of July, after a lecture delivered by my kids as to my health, and do I want to live to 100 and do I want to still be able to play with my future grandkids and so on and so forth, I had a think. My exercise regime (apparently my beach walks are not enough) and great love of all things chocolate, had become concerning to them. Hence the lecture. I said ok (thinking in my mind jeez who is the parent). However I realised that I was panting a lot (between fridge and couch) and did sleep badly, have enormous stress (ok haven't found that solution yet), a new heartburn habit and some other things.  So I started the only thing that works for me - calorie counting. You may think it is laborious but everything has a kj label on it, and with a simple app on your ph...

  On Sunday I returned from 3 weeks with my gorgeous family in Pretoria. I was already sad that I had to leave them all, irritated by being inconvenienced by 6 people who delayed the flight for an hour while we sweltered in the plane on the tarmac and wanting to get home for the double header of F1 at 3pm and Liverpool at 5pm. That was the plan.  Immediately after the game ended, as we as diehard Liverpool fans waited for the fanfare and speeches of Klopp leaving, we heard an enormous thud outside followed by a chaotic reaction from dogs. Racing to the deck leading from our bedroom and the lounge, we saw a guy in our yard, our neighbour yelling to us and waving a torch and security reaction cars screeching into street, all at once.  Intruder / Perpetrator / Robber / House Invasion man, had got onto their roof.  When she pushed the panic button, he ran from security and sadly chose the worst direction, falling off the 2nd floor of their house, into our yard.  Tha...

So how is your week going? Yes I wrote this blog a while ago.  I have tripped going up (yes up, not down the plethora of steps up to our house) - one lekker blue knee I have gone to the Boks parade in CT with hubby.  We had a fantastic time.  We also returned home with his brand new birthday phone having being taken out of his pocket and me having stuff stolen out of my rugsack, including a fountain pen which my dad gave me just before he died.  Yes I carry it on me, I am one of those unusual people who write with a fountain pen —- lists, notes, anything. Did we not notice the stuff being taken? No, in a mob of tens of thousands of people.  No.  I have booked some brand new book titles at the library.  Many of these are books of my favourite authors, released after October this year, and in our library care of a grant.  R10 to reserve the book. R380 to buy it at Exclusive Books.  You do the maths.  I have had some bad news about somethin...