The Princess and the Pumpkin - Remembering the Good Old Days

My brother and me 10 years ago...back when I was still super skinny... He hasn't changed a bit!

My brother and I used to live together in our 20’s. Before long-term relationships, we were each other’s go-to plus-ones, mostly because we were best friends and had more fun together than with anyone else in that era. Think Ross and Monica, the early years. 2004 was a magical time.

Many a Joburg night was spent driving from one hot spot to another in his black Polo, car-bar in boot and sights set on having as much innocently intoxicated fun as humanly possible in a single eve. Those days are long gone – both my brother and I are now happily married and living with our respective significant others in our respective homes on opposite ends of South Africa.

We speak about the good old days occasionally, but neither of us misses it, as we had our full of them back then and are both very happy in our new, more grown up lives.

While I’m not exactly tied down at home with 3.5 screaming kids and a sleep-deprived relationship hanging from a thread, I am in my mid thirties and married, and thus have not gone out on a bender in forever.

This past week was different. I was visiting my brother in JHB – the Vegas to my Cape Town suburban lifestyle – and there was a rugby game on. We had done the malls, we had done the kuering at home. We had driven around in his fancy new car being all grown-up’y and we had spent 2 fun filled family days with his wife and 2 little boys, complete with kid-friendly restaurant lunches, me playing with baby-blocks and play dough and jumping on the trampoline with my 3 year old nephew, and having his 5 week old baby brother puke in my hair.

What next? After deciding to join an old friend to watch the rugby at an Irish Pub we bundled ourselves into the faithful black Polo, just like the good old days, leaving his fancy new car out of the equation. (Only this time, because we are older and wiser, we had pre-booked a taxi service to drive us, and the car, back home afterwards.)

South Africa won the rugby game and spirits were high – the air was filled with an electric thumping thanks to a tented dance floor just outside the pub. Our little trio of mid 30’s to early 40’s fell into party mode as easily as we used to in 2004, and we threw back our first shooter for the night. A thunderstorm raged and we ran through the rain to get to the tented throng, only to find that we were about 15 to 20 years older than the rest of the patrons.

That didn’t matter, of course, because I was already sparkling with Satruday night buzz, and got a few approving looks and compliments on my general appearance, making my out-of-practice head swell with pride. The disgustingly self-satisfying conversation that went on internally sounded something like this: ‘I’m not 19 anymore, but look at me. I’m still the tallest girl here, and I’m wearing a pair of drop dead Pringle boots! 19 year old me could NEVER afford such a purchase.’ I know its shallow, but we all like to feel pretty and admired once in a while, don’t we? I accepted another shooter.

We decided to head across the road to one of our old drinking holes and join a familiar, more age appropriate crowd. I used to hate Billy The Bums 10 years ago, but this time, I fit right in. No longer the sapling who was on the lookout for arm candy, but the well dressed, well sozzled woman who ‘looks great for her age!’ Head swelling continued as pink-drink-swirling persevered.

But as they say, pride comes before a fall. Fortunately I didn’t actually fall (though I could have, in my fabulous boots running squealing through the rain like a little piggy let out for the night) but my energy levels turned from princess to pumpkin at precisely midnight. Time to go home.

SO much fun was had, but I am suffering for it. In the words of the great Marian Keyes, I felt ‘rough as a badgers arse’*. Unfortunately I had to come back home to Cape Town the next day and I was a little worse for wear thanks to our nostalgic good old days night out. A 48hour hangover is what I ended up with, and let me tell you, taking trains, busses and an airplane with a hangover is no joke. Especially to a woman in her mid-thirties, no matter how good she looks for her age.

Reality came to me in the sharpened hardness of the morning after, slapped me up side my head and shouted ‘What on earth were you thinking?!’ I took my medicine and invoked the customary saying ‘I’m never drinking again.’

So no, I don’t miss those days and I won’t be so eagerly rushing back for more any time in the near future. I blame it all on the shooters. Back home, I am fully capable of finishing off a bottle of good red wine over a nice long social dinner party, but I have not had the contents of a shot glass pass my lips for as long as I can remember. Tequila makes me feel pregnant, and not in a good way.

Today is day 3 post-party and I am only interested in a nice warm bath, a hot cup of tea, and a great night-in, reading from my Kindle till I fall blissfully asleep at 9pm.

All I can say is that ‘2004 was a very different time. 2004 was a very different me.’**

Love, lust and fairy-star-dust

Cherry Blossom

*This Charming Man, by Marian Keyes

**The Angel from my Nightmare, by Sim Sibanda

Allelu yahweh

Nostalgia comes in many different forms. Today it was an email from my Dad with a sound clip of a song he recorded in the church when I was a child. I remember listening to this song, singing along and enjoying it immensely back then. Listening to it again now had all those childhood memories rushing back. Only I have changed a little since then, and the message has lost a some of its meaning for me.

Knowing what I do now about so many of the people who stand and sing songs in church, patting themselves on the back for being so holy while harbouring hatred in their hearts for others (a big no-no in Jesus' teachings) Suddenly I saw a beautiful song that was filled with lip service rather than 'service' in the true sense of the word. I felt the need to expand a little and add my own thoughts. So I took it and tweaked it, re-wrote it and added to it to make it mine again.

Allelu yahweh (new improved edits in italics)

When you sing to me beloveds

Sing with joyful melody

Lifting hands and lifting voices

To praise me worthily

When you sing to me beloveds

Let my spirit employ

Your hands and minds and voices

And fill them with my grace and joy

Allelu yahweh let your hearts be as the lamb

Allelu yahweh If you seek the Great I am

Allelu yahweh let your love be like a dove

Allelu yahweh if he reigns, he reigns, in heav’n above

When you sing to me beloveds

sing with kindness in your hearts

Lifting up your fellow creatures

hold no judgment for their paths

When you sing to me beloveds

Be accepting of your kin

Just as I have accepted

your darkness and all your sins

Allelu yahweh let your hearts be as the lamb

Allelu yahweh If you seek the Great I am

Allelu yahweh let your love be like a dove

Allelu yahweh if he reigns, he reigns, in heav’n above

When you sing to me beloveds

May you sing with one accord

Lifting hands and lifting voices

Lifting up to me, your Lord

When you sing to me beloveds

Let my spirit employ

For your love for one another

glorifies me in heaven above

Allelu yahweh Worthy, worthy is the lamb

Allelu yahweh Who is the Great I am

Allelu yahweh Descending like a dove

Allelu yahweh Who reigns, who reigns, in heav’n above

Love, lust and fairy-star-dust

Cherry Blossom 

The One that Got Away

Every fisherman has a story; a sad tale of lost glory, missed victory, of the mystical unicorn-of-the-deep that got away. The fish we didn't catch. Only my tale is of a fish I did catch.

Winter in the Western Cape may call for most to stay indoors, bundled up with mugs of steaming hot chocolate and fuzzy slippers. But to a fisher person like myself, it calls to gear up and get on the still waters.

Every year Husband and I book one weekend per month for the winter season up in the mountains to spend some time on our favorite fly fishing dams. Last year was no different than any, except that we had a lot less luck than usual with weather. The weekends that we weren't fishing seemed glorious, and yet every single time we went on a fishing trip, Armageddon descended. 

Rain is one thing, but when the Cape of Storm’s very best gale force winds howl and torrential downpours strike, it makes for an unpleasant, fruitless fishing expedition. Having had one too many of these weathered out weekends, we decided to push our luck and book just one more weekend late spring, in hopes that the water not be too warm for the fish’s wellbeing, and the weather just right for the fisherman's prosperity. We desperately needed to catch fish after such a long wet-wintery drought.

Everything turned out perfect. Weather played along beautifully, and the crystal clear waters were as cold as they were glass-like. Fat, energetic rainbow trout swirled in the shadows, blissful at their game of hunting. But perhaps my long fishless winter left me a bit sluggish in my casting abilities, because try as I might, I still couldn’t catch a single one that day.

Finally, after hours of persistence, changing technique, switching flies, even trying to trawl my line unethically without Husband noticing, I finally caught a fish. And a good one too! She fought me gallantly, making me work for her right to the very last moment when I finally managed to get her into my net. Fortunately, the sheer length of the fight gave Husband enough time to get back to me from his spot across the dam, and he took the most amazing photo of me rocking my 3kg trout in the water, giving her a little breathing time to recuperate before she lurched and shot off with an irate swish of the tail. 

It was ideal, the most perfect Kodak moment ever! The evening light was just right. Fish lay effortlessly in my hands as I cupped her belly just beneath the surface, her spots glistening in the twinkly water, her pink stripe gleaming. My surroundings of reflective dusky blue and mountainous background complimented the happiest smile under my dove-grey Akubra hat. Even my nails could be seen in all their French-tipped glamour, peaking out from my sun gloves, giving the whole thing an elegant Audrey Hepburnesque cast. If this was a movie, this was the winning shot. The perfect combination of woman and nature and fish. I couldn't WAIT to get a hold of that photo to put it on my Facebook page, my fridge, and have it blown up and framed along side the many of Husbands perfect moments on our mantle at home.

Except I never got the photo. Husband, a few minutes later, in a moment of appreciation, decided to try take a one-handed picture of the moon rising into the beautiful sky, and promptly dropped the camera into his lap, through his legs, into the float tube, and out the bottom, down to the depths of the deep, dark water. There lies my photo in its watery grave, never to be seen again. I could have cried - I nearly did cry! I was infinitely more upset about my lost captured moment of success than Husband was about loosing his camera.

Truth be told, I never actually saw the photo, and so have no idea if it was anywhere near the award-winning image I have just described. But there in lies the tragic beauty of my fly fishing tale - the one I will tell for years to come around the dregs of the campfire when the last of the coals are shaking their final glow off for the night. The one I will mournfully regale, how I lost the very best fly fishing photo ever taken.

The one that got away.

Love, lust and fairy-star-dust,

Cherry Blossom

Magic and a Brooch

Family heirlooms are more of a book theme than a reality to me. Little trinket jewels and symbolic emblems – the dragonfly necklace in Twenties Girl, or a nifty mocking-jay pin in The Hunger Games or One Ring to Rule them all. But in a world that is not on the best selling list, what is the point of these things? Where does the magic lie? I think about curios that people have passed down from generation to generation and wonder what it is about a material thing that could be so important?

Surely a plate of food, or a family vacation, or having a car is more relevant than some silly little nugget with monetary worth locked up in it? I have never faulted anyone for selling off those old keepsakes for the sake of their current situations. After all, a precious timepiece doesn’t pay the doctors bills.

Maybe my lack of appreciation for symbolic histories has a bit to do with how I was raised. 'Value' was never something we attested to earthly man-made possessions. And magic doesn't exist. Even if there was something left to sell, my most recent ancestors didn’t really have the option to pass things of value down the family line as world wars, death taxes, continental relocations and too many offspring watered out any possible inheritance we had before I was even born.

But that was OK with me. I have never felt the need for a fancy clock, or a vintage chair, or even an ancient jewel. Though I often thought it would be nice to have a beautiful old ring or some equivalent that I can treasure, it would only have been gimmicky - pretty cool - like something from a novel. But I have never seen the deeper value in those possessions. I never believed in magic. That is until now.

I had a surgery last week that I was very worried about. I struggled to sleep thanks to anxiety, but when I did, my nights were filled with nightmares leading up to it. Nothing could help me because all the pre-suffering was in my head, and I am about as stubborn as I am tall. Not an easy thing to deal with before going under the knife. I didn't need pills, I didn't need stern talking to's. I didn't need prayers or meditations or distractions. I needed magic.

That is why I put on my grandmother’s brooch. It’s the only thing I have of hers, besides her British, almost see-through skin, fair hair and love of words. She meant so much to me growing up and still fills my life now that she has passed on.

When she died, there wasn’t much for me to remember her by. I got a selection of her books – mostly poetry – and her dictionaries. I have a cherished doll she gave me when I was 5, a blanket she bought for me in my early adulthood, and I have lot's of photo's. But none of these things could go with me about my daily business. Not like the brooch could.

I hung the brooch from a necklace round my neck. It is actually a gift I gave her some time before she died, and so the family felt it right to let me have it when she passed. It is not valuable - I bought it on a budget years ago. It is a cheap, pretty thing that probably won’t last my lifetime. But it is all I have.

I am sad I don't have a ring, or something easy to wear that will last. But I am glad I have what I do. 

Just wearing that brooch made me feel better. Protected. Almost as though having it with me could make me stronger and more able to face what was coming. It gave me the little bit of magic I needed, wrapped up in the mindfulness of wearing a thing that belonged to my dear Granny.

So maybe it has nothing to do with the amulet itself, but is more about the person who it represents to me. Perhaps J K Rowling's explanation of horcruxes (loosely) is the closest to the mystery behind it (though, of course, taking Harry Potter out of the equation, and using magic for good - not evil)

I plan on keeping some special things, a few trinkets and little heirlooms to pass on when it is my time, so that my future granddaughter can have a piece of me when she needs it most. And I plan on being the grandmother to her like mine was to me, to give that trinket the magic Granny gave me last week.

Love, lust and fairy-star-dust

Cherry Blossom

Tokyo Night Walk

I was bitten by the travel bug long before I ever got the chance to leave South Africa thanks to my Grandmother's stories, and books. I was convinced that the world out there was fascinating, amazing, wonderful and full of crazy weirdness that would make me feel thrilled to be alive! I became obsessed with books about Japan and fell in love with all the imagery I conjured up in my mind through those written words. My Granny, (thought not the biggest fan of Japan for British reasons...) told me that I would have to, one day, go there to fulfil the love I developed for it. And she was so right!

I finally got to travel after school, to America, to the UK, to Switzerland and Italy and Thailand and other parts of asia, but my very favourite country that I have had the pleasure of visiting thus far is Japan. I finally got there with Husband in 2010. We spent the holiday traveling, skiing, seeing the snow monkeys and visiting loads of Buhdist temples and traditional gardens.

But Tokyo at night was something special. Having never experienced anything quite like it before, it stood out in my mind as the highlight of the trip (ok, that and the snow monkeys)

After seeing an article on Twitter entitled 'Tokyo Night Walk' which brought back a flood of wonderful memories, I was inspired to make my own little photo-blog of my Tokyo Nights.

Having arrived after hours, the first thing we did was find someone to make us a late late dinner of sushi. This was easier said than done, and the only place we found was in the hotel. The chef was very obliging and treated us like royalty - after all, we were his only customers. We weren't able to order different kinds of sushi like we do here at home, but rather were told 'Oh, sushi? You want sushi? You get sushi.' - and boy did we get sushi! 

Not that we knew what half the stuff on the plate was. One or two pieces resembled recognisable items, but the rest was fear in a fishy form! Raw sea urchin anyone? Slimy lumpy something grey? An eel? We smiled and grinned through it all, but learnt our lesson: Don't eat sushi in Japan. Our chef was wonderful though. He gave me a tea mug as a gift to take home too because I loved it so much :)

I found a KAWAI (Japanese brand) baby grand piano in glass that played by itself! I have an upright KAWAI at home, but mine is a manual, not an automatic.

The city lights in down town Tokyo kept me mesmerised and even though I couldn't understand most of the signs, I enjoyed watching the colours light up and flash intermittently. If I was a bug or some kind of flying insect, lets face it, I'd be toast.

Hello Kitty, who I know to be the Ruler of Japan (general knowledge according to Gilmore Girls) had many shrines in her honour. And being part kitty myself, I had to stop and worship.

Some images appear on the walls or store windows as you pass them by, and follow you enticing you to shop! It was futuristically ghostly and I LOVED it.

They had vending machines for everything under the sun, and a few things you would never expect too! (I have heard horror stories of used ladies undies...) This was a cake and ice-cream street stand. Too bad I was full after the sushi debacle.

And there was plastic food lining tables outside many restaurant to show you what they offered inside. Plastic. But looked SO GOOD I could have eaten it all right there and then! The plastic food industry is booming in Japan, apparently, and to buy even the smallest piece for display is unbelievably pricy. I think we'll stick with real food after all. (though I strongly considered getting plastic banana's for our kitchen - a little Japanese art-du-fruitbowl)

Dessert was rather interesting too, ranging from this gluey green stuff (which was quite good as it turns out) to jellied teenager 'boobs'. WTF right?

After giving a few other delicacies a try (or not!) I found the food I loved the most: Ramen. Good old ramen. Pork broth ramen specifically. Mmmmmmm - just thinking about it makes my mouth water!

But we eventually embraced our western innards and found ourselves a Mc-Knock-off. Delish.

We also found the New York Bar, made famous by the movie 'Lost in Translation', and treated ourselves to duck-fried chips, drinks, live music and an incredible view. The city is truly spectacular from above!

I found a few words I did understand - all too well - Dior and Gucci and Louis Vuitton, Oh My!

There was a Japanese showing of our own movie 'Invictus' at one of their local movie houses - we never went to see it but I would have loved to watch it in translation. Sigh - what a missed opportunity.

I found a smokey side alley which of course I had to go down. Because it was a smoky side alley. (which is basically 'Come Hither' in kitty speak)

And some more Ramen joints. (This may or may not be a picture of a  ramen restaurant, but I like the piggy mascot

)

We found a night market where I bought my now favourite silk gown with pink cherry blossom all over it. Most of the stalls were filled to the brim with useless trinkets, cheap plastic nothings that lit up or sang or whirred - and had it not been for Husbands steely guidance and a time limit, I could have been there all night! 

Pity he didn't let me buy the Hello Kitty alarm clock. Sad :(

Japan, Tokyo, you and I shall meet again. I am sure of it! This romance is far from over.

Love, lust and fairy-star-dust

Cherry Blossom