baking bread

In honour of my son Ben's safe return to the Seychelles after yet another trip through pirate-infested waters ... this time dropping some special-forces types off on a ship before it entered the Gulf ... I decided to share his really great bread recipe with you.

Ever since he taught me to make it a year or so ago, I haven't bought any bread at all. I allow myself one slice, hot out of the oven and covered in farm butter, but the rest of the loaf is for Greg. It lasts about a week (and miraculously stays fresh-ish).

So here it is... a bread so easy you can make it in the middle of the ocean!

600g white bread flour
2 packets of dry yeast
2 tsp salt
4 tsp sugar

mix all together in big bowl and add 600ml lukewarm water

Cover bowl with clingfilm and leave to rise in a warm place for an hour or so.

Pour into bread pan (it's gloopy... not stiff like normal bread dough) and bake in the hottest possible oven (mine's 230 C) for about 40 mins.

that's it. Easy peasy.

sunday sunshine

It should be the middle of winter, but our trees still have all their leaves (the oak is still mostly green)and the spring flowers are beginning to come out in our veggie garden where I scattered handfuls of seeds last spring.

Is this the effect of global warming?

of resolution

Making resolutions is one of my specialities. I'm good at knowing exactly what I want to do, and when and how I want to do it.
Sadly, breaking resolutions is one of the other things I excel at.

Last night, I planned to surprise Greg by getting up early and suggesting a bike ride up to Piekenierskloof to see the sunrise. It was a great idea, except for two things:
1. the sun rises on the other side of the mountain so we wouldn't be able to see it
and
2. when Greg woke me up at 7am I told him it was far too early to be human and suggested (not very politely) that he should go back to sleep.

And, of course... yesterday saw another resolution broken. After an impressive record of two blogs in two days, I missed Friday. Not because I had nothing to say, which would have been a very good reason. But because I had absolutely no inclination to turn on my computer.


The beautiful Rosie with her groom and one of the children who she is working with

Yesterday was a good day. We spent the morning with an old friend who we see far too rarely. She and I had time to chat while Greg took her horse for a very sedate ride through the gum trees. And I had a chance to watch her working.

Mari's company, Horseworx, provides exercise and muscle therapy to disabled or injured children using ponies which have been rescued by the SPCA or the Carthorse Association.

Yesterday I watched as she worked with a three year old boy who has had multiple operations for the congenital disease he suffers from. Yesterday was his first visit back to Horseworx after a long hospital stay.

It was amazing to see the joy on his face as he sat on the broad back of Rosie, a snow white little pony with a gentle temperament. It was hard to believe that this calm and placid pony had been abused by her previous owners or that she was so thin that she had to be slowly nursed back to health and confidence by Mari and her grooms.

As the little boy was led around the field, stopping every now and then to throw a hoop onto a peg, or to throw a ball; riding facing backwards, forwards or sidesaddle, he was exercising his tiny, wasted muscles without even realising it.

I really admire Mari for her courage and her patience. I don't think I would have the fortitude to work with disabled children, but somehow she manages it, without hardening her heart or losing her compassion.

Leave a comment here if you want to know more about Mari's work, or know someone in Cape Town who would benefit from her therapy.

smokin!

I feel the need to explain...
In yesterday's post I mentioned a smokey room in the Royal Hotel.
The smoke was from the fire. Not from us. No heated conversations. No cigars or even cigarettes.

It seems such a short time ago that smoking cigarettes was the thing to do. Now, I imagine that many smokers feel like pariahs.

And it's not getting any easier. The latest anti-smoking legislation in South Africa bans smoking in a car with children under 12 years of age. And, thankfully, also bans smoking outside public buildings. No more hacking through clouds of smoke before you get to the reception desk!

I wonder how many other things that we see as totally acceptable today will soon be looked at with the same level of disapproval? The results of the green movement are obvious, but there must surely be other things that we are going to blushingly tell our grandchildren that we enjoyed in the "good old days".

Any ideas what they could be?


Something else that's "smokin!" Greg's new-ish bike...and probably also on the list of "things to tell the grandchildren" if I ever get any!

finding a voice

June was a really productive month. I wrote hundreds (well, it felt like it) of articles, met and interviewed a host of interesting people, found new clients and got rid of one particularly dreadful one...
But in the flurry of it all, I seem to have lost my own voice.
Perhaps it is because I have spent a fair amount of time "ghost-blogging" for a couple of my clients? I've been crafting my words into their voices, hearing their tones and inflections and passions and speaking for them.
My mind is so filled with these other characters, that I am finding it difficult to speak for myself.



We did find some time for some fun things though... a highlight was breakfast at the Royal Hotel in Riebeeck Kasteel, which claims to have the longest stoep in Africa, or something. Here it is. A great spot. We went back for dinner... waterblommetjie breedie (stew made with water lilies) and because we were the only guests (we were early) sat in the smoking room in front of the huge fireplace. As the evening wore on and we got more mellow (I was drinking Allesveloren port) the room got more and more smokey, until the waiter and manager rushed in, all concerned, and opened all the doors and windows.

I've set myself the challenge of a post a day for July, and already I'm feeling a little daunted. Let's see how it goes...

would you approve of you?

I was driving home yesterday after a day being immersed in writing about the Spier Contemporary 2010 exhibition and I heard my favourite radio announcer talking about actor Hugh Laurie and his 50th birthday. The announcer, John Maytham on Cape Talk, commented that he had "never really got into the House character" which I found really funny, especially as I like both of them for the same reason... they're irreverent, irritable, intelligent and certainly not looking to make any friends.

Laurie's comments on his 50th birthday were really interesting: "From now on it's a gradually descending mist of confusion and doubt. I've never known less than I know now. You hope that your teenage self would like and forgive your 50-year-old self. It would be awful to think that they'd be ashamed and appalled - that you were a betrayal of everything they thought they'd become."

So what would your 18 year old self think of the person you have become?

I'd like to think my 18 year old self would be pretty happy with the almost-50 I've become. I'm certainly happier than I was then, and a lot more secure and positive about the future than I was at 18.

I wonder if it's a gender thing... are women are more likely to reach a place of contentment than men of the same age?

In fact, the only thing I'd swap with that 18 year old would be her figure. But somehow I don't think she'd be interested in doing the deal

mind the gap

I'm suffering from an excess of velleity.

Velleity is volition at its weakest. It's a mere wish or inclination, without any accompanying effort.

My velleity is fed by an overactive imagination... I can see in my mind's eye exactly what my dream garden looks like, for example. So when I am outside, I'm imagining a tree there, a shrub here, a winding path and a bank of flowers. so the lack of all those things and the lack of effort on my part to make them happen don't worry me so much. It certainly makes things easier when you are living with a very large garden during our excessively hot and dry summers.

I'd write more... but what can I say? Velleity strikes again.