Holidays

My battery runs on empty. There is not the slightest bit of juice in it. juiceless is how I feel. No power at all. I NEED A HOLIDAY!

We had planned everything. The kids are on holiday since Friday. Last puppy went yesterday. After we found out that the ATM didn’t want to give us any money for the holidays. Insufficient funds it said.
We even finished a radio feature in two days, but the money has a long way to travel.
For weeks we are waiting for a new book contract. But it takes time. Nothing happens. Just wait. Being patient exhausts me more than anything else. I feel blocked. Obstructed.

Last year at the same time we had the same situation. I wanted to go and there was no money. I prayed so hard for a miracle to happen and it didn’t. Nothing happened.

Than I had this revelation on a beautiful day after lakes of tears of desperation. We drove up a mountain to watch the sunset from the top. On our way up, the car got stuck in the mud. No way to get it out. We had to walk back to the farm. Our friend said to Luzie who was whining: “Now you can decide: Either you make the best out of it and have the best time of your life, or you whine and complain all the way back; you have to walk anyway.”
It was the most beautiful evening, we walked trough the protea fields, the birds were singing, the frogs quaking, there was so much peace and beauty, and I suddenly understood that this was the place where I had to be, the most beautiful and right place, because there was no other place like this. I could always go to the top of the mountain, it will always be there, but at this moment I was here and it was good.

I am at the same place again. I want to go, but I can’t. But I am determined to go!
We have a house-sitter, we gave away the last puppy (sniff), Antons matrace fits exactly into the back of our car. Sven fixed the tent. We are ready to go. And there is no money. It is not that we don’t have it, it is just not available. NOW.

The kids are running in circles. Sven is at the edge of his nerves. I am angry. We still keep on planning the holidays. We are determined to go!

After the puppy had left with his new family yesterday, I saw Jessie, the mother licking something on her pillow. I took a closer look and I found a completely wet and scruffy hamster, former Ashley now Zoe. Zoe means life, I learned today. I must have left the cage door open after I showed him to the little boy. Luzie burst into tears. Hamsti looked ok. We prayed for him and than we put him back into his little house. It seemed as if Jessie had found herself a new baby. It was just too much. At night I watched Memoirs of a Geisha. The only movie that I haven’t seen yet at the little video store.

This morning they started to dig up the road in front of our house. AGAIN. Höllenlärm. Noise from hell. Sven wrote an e-mail to my Berliner bankman. He didn’t reply. I checked my mails every 10 seconds. I phoned him. He was in einem Kundengespräch. I phoned him again, he was still not available. I left my number. 10 minutes later he called back He said it is okay, he will give me another 500 Euro. NOW!

That will keep us going. And from there we hope that the rest will just come in time. We are so excited. Busy packing. Getting ready.

We will visit Berlin and Potsdam and Hamburg. They are all on our way. I didn’t know they were only a 1000 kms away. We are going to the wild coast. Can’t wait to see. Can’t wait to drive!

Something that still has to be invented: A holiday without packing!

Winter Walk

Kleiderkrise

Clothes-Crisis

I went shopping with the kids for winter clothes. It is always difficult with both of them at the same time because both need my assistance and attention.
We dropped Luzie at KFC while I went to Ackerman’s with Anton to look for clothes for him and return all the stuff that I had bought for Luzie the previous day, because she didn’t like it.

Anton is very specific. He can’t wear T-Shirt or any thing made out of similar fabric, because he can’t stand to touch it. He doesn’t like any print on his clothes, what makes it very difficult, he hates to try anything on and he doesn’t care about clothes at all. I was very glad that we quickly agreed on three shirts and a really nice blue and grey jersey, after I had spent about 20 minutes at the counter returning Luzies clothes.

While I was waiting in the queue to pay for Antons clothes a furious Luzie came and complained that we didn’t pick her up at KFC and that I didn’t ask her if she wanted anything from Ackerman’s.

We went back to KFC after looking at WII games at Musica, because I needed a Coke and the kids were still hungry. They shared large chips and I shared my Mini Twister with them.

Than we went to Mr. Price, where we found a lot of nice things for Luzie and a pair of pants for Anton. That took us about an hour with me rushing between the children’s and the men’s sections, heaps of clothes in my arms, making sure, checking Anton in the changing room, talking to former neighbors and advising a friend buying a pair of shoes.

I was exhausted, hungry and glad that we had successfully managed to get what we needed, when we finally sat in the car. All I wanted was a pack of droe wors (dried sausage). We stopped at the Petrol Station to buy slap chips for every one and I got my wors.

At home I had to clean Luzies hairbrush and schoolbag from puppies pie (only curly is left and we might even keep him) and when I finally wanted to get my dried wors (Trockenwurst) I found out that Anton had eaten almost all of it. Only three tiny pieces were left.

That was when I lost it. I screamed at him and Sven screamed at me because he was exhausted as well and wanted peace and I screamed back at him and I took the dogs and even it was already getting dark and I was so tired and all I wanted was to lie down and eat my droe wors, I and ran out of the house.

I was so upset, I started to cry. While running down the streets in tears, I tried to figure out how I could get so upset over some stupid wors.

The reason is, I haven’t been able to by myself a descent piece of clothes for more than 2 years. I can’t find anything I want to wear. I don’t know where to go I am wearing hand-me-down jeans from my mom and a woolen coat with holes in it, I bought centuries ago at H&M. I feel like a bag lady. All the pleasure I have is eating and even that they took from me.

The next day I tried my “skinny jeans” on, which I had bought two years ago after not having eaten for 5 days on my book tour two years ago because I was so nervous and had an upset stomach. I lost more than 5 kilos and thought the best way to keep my weight is to buy a pair of pants. They did fit me for more than a year until they felt a bit uncomfortable and I stopped wearing them. Now I couldn’t button them up anymore.

After cooling down I came to the conclusion that the droe wors attack was a clear message to rather stop eating and trying to fit into my Jeans again.
But I still need more clothes!

Prophetic Dream

This night I woke up with the sentence:

There are times, when the only good thing to do people can think of is
to empty the dustbin.

This strange billboard suddenly appeared in my neighborhood.

What We Know About Love

Here is the first chapter of our book What We Know About Love in English. We are still looking for an English publisher.
Auf Deutsch erscheint Was wir von der Liebe verstehen Ende September bei btb!

For the first time in my life I decided to make peace with winter and to improve my workplace by buying a new matrace!

The Splatter House

On our daily walk we pass an abandoned rugby field. It belongs to the primary school.
Luzie never wants to walk across the field. She prefers to walk along the street.
I said to her, “come on, don’t be so boring, you have to take a risk from time to time”.

She giggles and says, “when I’ll write a book about my life, I will write :My mothers idea of taking a risk is entering a field with a sign that says: Okkie Smuts School property. Enter at own risk.”

On this field is a rundown little building that used to be toilets or changing rooms at times when the field was still in use. It has two separate entrances.
Abandoned houses always look eerie and I’ve never been close to it. Today was the first time.
We looked through the broken windows.

The walls were splattered with blood. It looked as someone had been slaughtered, even more horrible than I had imagined. The strange thing was that the little drops were evenly spread all over the walls.

Sven said, “that’s not blood, it is birdshit”. He was right. On the windowsill I saw dried red berries. The birds were feeding on these berries which gave their shit the exact colour of dried blood.

Chapman’s Peak

We drove along Chapman’s Peak for the first time since my 40th birthday. We had a picnic at that spot. Everytime we went there, the pass was closed. First I was disappointed that the weather was bad, but than I decided it was the most beautiful grey and rainy day.

Wehmut

Wehmut is a beautiful word. It is sweet and bitter at the same time. I had to look it up in the dictionary. It said wistfulness or woefulness. Maybe Wehmut is another word like Angst, which the English should adopt into their vocabulary.

My friend A makes the most beautiful children (and adults) clothes. I just read her blog and that reminded me again of the dresses she made for Luzie about 7 years ago, while she visited us in Bangkok where we lived at that time.

I looked at the photos and I was so sad that this little girl was forever gone. She will never come back.
Part of me is sad; part of me is glad.

Ray of Light

Since my daughter and I swapped bedrooms, I have no morning sun.
Only this morning, for the first time, there was this strange, unexplicable string of orange light on the wall.

Cutie, Curly And Chubby

Our sweet puppies are now ready to go. Almost every day we prayed for good homes for them, because we can’t keep them, but we only want to give them to either people we know or people in the neighborhood so that we can stay in contact.

I sent emails with cute photos to everyone I know, but nothing happened. We put up ads at the pet-shop and the vet, but nothing happened.

Yesterday a friend called and asked if she could have the one with the short legs. She came and picked up Shorty (former Chubby) and he was gone. Da warens nur noch zwei. We renamed the leftovers from Curly and Cutie to Pipi and Kaka because that is what they do most of the time.

Today we went for a walk and when we came back, Sven said, he felt that the people in the house around the corner want a puppy and he will go and ask. I stayed back, because that was just crazy, knocking on strangers doors to ask them if they want a dog. Sven has no problem with doing that and he does it without anyone thinking he is a madman. People just love him.

I thought he will come back quickly, but he didn’t. I went to look for him and he was still chatting with two young women. One of them was German, she was visiting.
They were smiling and laughing and said, they will come to look at the puppies.

I asked Sven on the way home what they had said. He said, the woman who lived in the house was actually considering getting a puppy for a while and her friend also wanted one.

He said how stupid we were getting worried about homes for our puppies since they are only ready to go now.

Cutie left and Curly right

Jet left and Chubby right

Sky this evening

UFO clouds