Water

Living on a farm is great – wide open views, plenty of space, fresh air (unless our neighbour has just spread slurry on his roll-on lawn growing operation) and wonderful tasting, unchlorinated water fresh from our own borehole… that is as long as said borehole is functioning as it should. The trouble with boreholes is that they depend on electric pumps. And pumps that spend all day below ground sending water up to fill our tanks, eventually get fed up. And go on strike. They clog up. They blow a fuse. They just wear out now and again, exhausted by the task set them by these demanding farm dwellers.

At regular intervals, usually on a weekend, we find ourselves turning to our rain tanks for our washing water. Our friendly electrician and pump expert is happy to come out at short notice, but not on a Sunday and that is usually when the pump decides to give up the ghost.

So yesterday unshowered and dirty haired, I removed the dirty dishes from the dishwasher where they’d just made it through the pre-wash, hand-washed them in our carefully collected rain water, boiling kettles for hot water, and admiring the lather you get from such soft water. We had guests to a braai for lunch, so there were plenty more dishes to process that evening and another chance to reacquaint myself with the time honoured hand washing method, with buckets of water carried from the tank and every drop counted.

It really makes you think about water more carefully when you don’t have it on tap. The rinsing water got put back into the bucket to flush the loos with. My practical husband managed to link our rainwater tank into the main house pipes, so we did now have a trickle of water into the system, which made all the difference, but we were still very conscious of how long that one tank might last. We managed a (very) shallow bath this morning but left the water in for loo-flushing later.

The electrican showed up half way through this morning. His first report sounded grim. It looked as though the first borehole had run dry. My husband departed to consult and assess the damage with him, so I was left trying to carry on with the editing job I was working on, while emergency measures surged through my brain. He had said that sometimes underground water streams can collapse in on themselves, especially if someone else drills a bad borehole further upstream.

How could we survive on the farm if our underground stream gave up flowing…. I started to dream up elaborate water catchment systems to store our winter rainfall, a huge underground cistern, with an overflow to a dam. Water rationing would have to become second nature, the washing machine water would have to empty into big tubs to be re-used for toilet flushing. But would there be enough water pressure to run a washing machine? Our drinking water would have to be collected from a neighbour’s farm in big containers every few days.

Luckily my husband only left me in suspense with this vision of a post-apocalyptic survival scenario for an hour or so, before coming back to say they’d found and fixed a couple of problems with valves and fuses, there was water in the borehole and they just had to locate a leak in the pipe before switching us back on to the supply. A gust of relief as our lives returned to normal once more.

But each time the pump malfunctions, it is a salutary reminder of how dependant we all are on water. Without a supply of clean water it is impossible to keep on living in a place. That underground rainwater cistern is sounding like a really good idea!

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Winter at the Beach

Winter at the beach - blue skies with wisps of cloud high above. Black rocks on Blouberg beach and shoals of mussel shells to hunt through, picking out the iridescent shards worn to jewel brightness by the waves.

Rocks and rock pools to explore, provoking the anemones to defensive closing by dropping unsuspecting sea snails on them. The girls were sure they were eating them, until I said they closed tight because they were frightened. Now we have to look up what they do eat.

You need dark glasses to catch a ball in the bright sunshine.

And the water is too cold to do more than paddle in the shallows... but then the water's too cold on this Atlantic coast in summer too.

Our reward for surviving a week of rain and mountains of laundry - a few jewel-bright days of sunshine and clear skies. One reason why we like the winter better than the summer here. In summer the wind blows too strongly on this beach in the afternoons, scouring your skin and saving you the trouble of exfoliating.

We're back home in the evening chill now getting ready to light a fire and snuggle up for a cold night with hot water bottles and a DVD.

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Bedtime stories

I’m really enjoying the age we’re at now. All the children’s books we’ve been hoarding for years, the old favourites from both our childhoods that we assiduously collected in second hand book shops before we left England, now make the perfect bedtime reading for all three kids. We used to have to separate out for story time. Dad would read The Chronicles of Prydian or the Narnia series to our son, while I would read The Tiger who wouldn’t go to Bed to the girls. Now that Youngest is nearly 7 and can concentrate as well as the older ones, we can all read the same books and I look forward to bed time as much as they do. They more often than not decide to forego watching TV after supper, so that they can get into bed earlier and have longer story time.

And the books that started this modern miracle? Victor Canning’s The Runaways trilogy. All of them fell in love with the adventures of Smiler, a fifteen year old wrongly accused of mugging an old lady, who has run away from an approved school until his Dad gets back from sea to clear his name. There is a parallel story of a cheetah escaped from Longleat safari park, who makes a home on the wilds of Salisbury plain. We took a quick diversion after the second Smiler book into Noel Streatfield’s Party Shoes, which has all three of them equally captivated, but once the pageant is successfully staged at bedtime tonight, we will be returning to Smiler to see how he extricates himself from his latest dilemma and whether his father will finally return from sea. After that Ballet Shoes is booked in and our bookshelf is groaning with more of my old favourites which I want to read to them.

I loved all the historical books as a child: Geoffrey Trease, Cynthia Harnett, Barbara Willard, Rosemary Sutcliff but so far our son has avoided them in his voracious excursions into literature. His own choices tend to be fantasy adventure and the bookshops here bulge with endless series of that genre, but very few ‘real-life’ stories seem to have made it onto the modern reading list, except for the eternal Enid Blyton Secret Sevens and Famous Fives. So I am determined to brainwash the kids into some of my old classics while they’re still open to them. I’ve got a feeling though that the books will have to stand on their own merits. Our son usually has his own book on hand as I read and, if the story isn’t gripping enough, manages simultaneously to read to himself as well as keeping an ear open for our story hotting up.

What books are you reading to your children now, or do you remember loving when you were a child? I’d love to compile a list of really well written children’s books that stand the test of time.

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25 Firsts Meme

It's a meme kind of day. Charlotte posted this one this morning and here I am following suit.

1. Who was your first prom date? We didn’t have proms in England then, just a few school dances. Those of us not joined at the hip to a steady boy/girlfriend went as a mixed group and it was hard to get the boys to dance at all.

2. Do you still talk to your first love? No. It was a long distance relationship which was fading for me and I callously broke up with him by phone when I met someone else. He told me not to keep in touch.

3. What was your first alcoholic drink? Probably sweet German wine that tasted of flowers, which we were introduced to in a civilized way by our parents at dinner.

4. What was your first job? Temping as a data entry person in a London office. I’d hardly even made the acquaintance of a computer by then and didn’t know how to type, so it was the lowest of the low in the temping world.

5. What was your first car? A Peugeot 205 in my last year of university. It went well for years until someone drove into me and wrote it off.

6. Who was the first person to text you today? My phone is switched off. Probably nobody, unless the bank is trying to sell me something.

7. Who is the first person you thought of this morning? A swirl of family faces were in my mind as I awoke

8. Who was your first grade teacher? Mrs Holden. I remember learning times tables and colouring in sections of a picture to show which ones we knew.

9. Where did you go on your first flight in a plane? To Italy in my gap year, to learn Italian.

10. Who was your first best friend and do you still talk? Tiggy. We’ve pretty much lost touch, but I did see her at my father’s memorial service.

11. Where was your first sleepover? At Tiggy’s. I remember being given a new red suitcase for the occasion and worrying about being able to lock the door of the loo.

12. Who was the first person you talked to today? My husband.

13. Whose wedding were you in for the first time? My own. I thought it would be wonderful to be a bridesmaid, but when my uncle got married they didn’t have bridesmaids, so my only chance of a frilly dress was foiled.

14. What was the first thing you did this morning? Staggered into the shower.

15. What was the first concert you went to? It probably wasn't the first but the only one I can remember is going to see Bryan Adams at Hammersmith Odeon with my brother.

16. First tattoo? None, but my kids are now crazy about play tattoos. We’ve told them they have to wait for the real thing until they’re 18!

17. First piercing? My ears, but not till I was about eighteen. I was going to do them when all the other girls at school did at about 14, but it was immediately vetoed.

18. First foreign country you went to? France. We were taken to Brittany when I was about 4 and refused to eat anything much because it was foreign. After that it was Scotland for several years. Then later we had several family holidays driving through France again, once we were old enough not to turn our noses up at foreign food.

19. First movie you remember seeing? Can’t remember which came first: the Herbie ones about the Beetle car, James Bond movies, Star Wars.

20. What state did you first live in? England

21. Who was your first room-mate? At school we were in dorms that changed every term. By university we’d progressed to single rooms, but our corridor formed the core of my group of friends for the next few years.

22. When was your first detention? I remember being mortified at being made to stay behind after class to finish or re-do something, when I was about nine, and then hiding rather than go into tea late and have everyone look at me, which of course resulted in a far more embarrassing school-wide search for me.

23. If you had one wish what would it be? I ought to be like Miss World and wish for world peace, but right now I’d settle for a regular and ample income stream... the joys of freelancing!

24. What is one thing you would learn, given the chance? How to paint gorgeous pictures in luscious colours and textures

25. Who will be the next person to post this? Any of you that feel inspired to.

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Winter Holiday

The first day of the winter holidays yesterday and the sun was shining after four days of nothing but rain. So it was in a holiday mood that we set off for the other side of the mountain, to Kalk Bay and Glencairn. We love it over there with its seaside, eclectic vibe, part of Cape Town and yet not quite of it, but for us it is a long drive: only 30 minutes to the edge of Cape Town, but then another hour in traffic on stop start roads, however beautiful the views of mountain and ocean.

We broke the journey at Canal Walk to get a refund on the new Woolies boots, which had betrayed our initial enthusiasm and come unstuck from their soles. Middle Daughter seems destined always to be a barefoot princess. We replaced them with some unstylish but sturdy school shoes with soles that are actually stitched to the upper. Fingers crossed these last out the winter.

In Kalk Bay we stopped off in Kassia and Figg. Inge has been tantalizing us on Vanielje Kitchen with photos of all the delicious baking she has been doing with her Mum in their new deli and finally we could taste it for ourselves. Those chocolate brownies really are to die for!!


It was so great to see Inge, meet her Mum and see the deli in real life. We could have stayed all day and carried on tasting, as everything on display looked delicious, but we had to move on to our friends in Glencairn, a little further on round the coast, just before Simonstown.

The children were all agog to see whales. Inge had seen them the day before from the window of their deli, so we fixed our eyes on the sparkling blue waves all the way as we drove. The house we were visiting turned out to have a grandstand view of False Bay and for the first half hour the children were glued to the window, looking for whales. And finally they were rewarded, several whale spouts sprayed up from the surface of the water. Occasionally a dark back surfaced and then sank below. Throughout the afternoon we had tantalizing glimpses of them out in the bay.

We couldn’t go all that way without going onto the beach, so while other guests came and went (it was an open house style party) we walked across the road and over the railway line to climb down onto the beach: a little sandy stretch encircled by rocks and with a man-made sea-pool creating a protected stretch of water.


The girls and I immediately started shell collecting. There were so many different types from on our stretch of coast on the Atlantic side of the peninsula.


Our son, came prepared and sat on a rock with his book, which he is totally absorbed by at the momnet, while the family eddied round him.


My husband inspired by the gorgeous light and setting went into photographer mode and took loads of shots of the girls.


Eventually he and our son departed to watch a major Springbok/Lions rugby match with some of the fellow guests, while the girls opted to stay longer on the beach.




Bright sunshine scintillating on waves, white spray as they crashed onto the rocks behind us, a treasure chest of jewel- like shells, ours for the collecting, a French Lieutenant Woman style sea wall to walk along, challenging rocks to clamber over and mountain views all around. We stayed until a chill wind picked up and shivered us into collecting up our buckets of shells and heading back over the railway track.

We returned to the house to find a new group of guests had arrived, enjoyed some more interesting conversations, and finally dragged ourselves home as the sun set, whiling away the journey with a raucous sing-along to Garth Brooks, risking the displeasure of our son, who couldn't hear the story on his MP3 player because we were too loud. We got out our beach treasures for inspection as soon as we reached home and had lit the fire, in the chill of a clear winter's night.


We all agreed it had been a thoroughly good day.

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Midwinter Festival

Mulled wine, bonfire, sparklers, lanterns, soup and sausages cooked over the fire, these are the essential ingredients of our winter festivals. Over the years we’ve held winter festivals snatched in the intervals between showers of rain, when we had to hurry inside for pudding with our last mouthful of sausage still being chewed, but this year we had the bonus extra of a still, starry night that wasn’t even all that cold.


Quite a few of our usual suspects weren’t able to be there, but we had the core tribe of children all here, who come together four times a year to construct ever more elaborate volcanoes and waterworks. Our first winter festival was seven years ago now. These kids have grown up with a midwinter fire festival every year and progressed from toddlers being helped to carry lanterns precariously dangling from short sticks, to big kids who can make their own, balance two on a long stick and understand the science behind getting fires to burn.




While the adults chatted around the bonfire, doled out soup and wine and cooked sausages, the children lit sparklers, fired up their volcano and then hurtled around the sandpit in the dark, occasionally showing up for refills of hot chocolate or more sausage.


The only way to lure them inside was also the most infallible. ‘Pudding, pudding, pudding,’ went up in a chant to the stars above and they all disappeared housewards before we’d taken a step in that direction. Reluctantly leaving the bonfire to burn itself out, we followed them in and doled out guava fool, sun jelly and chocolate pudding.


This morning the sleepover gang of kids woke to a misty damp morning, but were able to rekindle the bonfire and fire up the volcano once more, fuelling it with pine cones and dried restios. Licensed pyromania with one adult deputed to keep an eye on proceedings, lest they get too ambitious…

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Winter in the Western Cape

It's pouring with rain, deluging down on our tin roof, interrupting the satellite signal broadcasting a tense cricket match between South Africa and the West Indies into our sitting room. The boys leave, clad in waterproofs, to find a house with a better signal. The girls bake rusks. Youngest is itching to get outside again. She has just taught herself how to ride a bike. This morning she at last triumphantly gained the necessary balance and confidence and keeps saying to all who will listen, "But it's so easy!"

While the rusks fill the house with that comforting smell of baking I download the photos from my camera. A reminder that winter in the Western Cape can be pretty benevolent despite the torrential rain today. This was last Sunday:


I found Youngest out on the lawn in her dressing gown, at 10 o'clock on a midwinter Sunday morning, playing with her toy horse by a bright yellow gazania.


And it was warm enough to sit reading a book on the lawn in the sun, cup of tea and daughters to hand. Later on we played Monopoly, which revealed itself to be a horribly mean and capitalist game that veiled the weekend relaxation in tears, as our son acquired Clifton (Mayfair in the UK) and proceeded to build hotels and ruin his two sisters, who had to sell the houses they'd so proudly acquired and mortgage all their properties. This was the first time we'd ever played to the bitter (and it is bitter) end. Monopoly might well find itself pushed to the back of the shelf in favour of Pictionary and rummy. I can't cope with the stress!


A baby tortoise was tempted out by the sunshine this week. The girls rescued it from an upside position on the stoep, probably left there by a dog. A satisfying crunchy bush snack for a border collie. He is no bigger than an egg, with bulgy baby eyes. He peed all down us, refused the apple we offered, and then scarpered into the restios at top speed on his thin legs when we released him further away from the house, in the hope that the dogs wouldn't find him again. We last saw him wedged firmly into a maze of restio stalks. Let's hope he's warmly tucked away in the sand today.

Next weekend is our Midwinter festival - we're hoping for a clear night for our bonfire, lanterns and sparklers. It can rain all it wants to this weekend though. The fire is lit, the satellite signal now producing roars and cheers from the sitting room and the rusks are baked.

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