8 June 2017

Awake at five again, lovely! I’m beginning to enjoy jotting down my thoughts, my day, my life. I’ve never kept a diary or a journal, though I’ve made several attempts. I have a diary – which in the distant past I used to rant … and rave. That was before internet and before facebook, thank goodness! I’m just trying to imagine if my drunken rants popped up every now and then on Facebook as ’Your memory from 20 years ago – we thought you might like to share it again’ Urgh! Fortunately my drunken rants are in a book, and I can keep it closed. Later on I used it to clear my thinking – usually when I was overly emotional and usually it involved a man. I did publish a newsletter at one point called Cost Reduction through Efficiency. Brought out 3 issues – each of which I still think is quite good! But each article was written passionately – as were my short stories. I’d like to get into writing regularly.  I also enjoy photography – though mostly I snap happily away with no regard for the outcome. Two years ago I took a month-long vacation in East London and kept a photo-diary of my explorations. I might turn that into a separate blog, or maybe even an eBook. I’ve done a lot of research on East London, it’s buildings, the National Monuments (or Heritage Sites, as they are called now), it’s history. I’ve spent several hours on several occasions in the museum. I’ve collected every useful scrap of information from the Research Library and the local Library in Vincent. There’s enough information there for at least a book – and one that hasn’t been done before. Nothing has been done in many, many years – and information is scarce. There are plenty of websites for tourists who want the main attractions, a place to stay, somewhere to eat – but nothing really offering deeper interest. That’s one idea.

In my last home, I had a balcony, and I started getting pots and sowing seeds, growing odds and ends. Here I have a big garden and I’m spending just about every spare minute – weather permitting – in my garden, and loving it! I’m learning a lot – the hard way, and although there are plenty of gardening sites out there, good ones and even good local ones; they’re always focused on home-owners. It’s all about turning back-yard into beautiful gardens or into fruitful gardens. Which does not inspire enthusiasm in tenants. Most sites share the joy of results of last years work – not so much the pure joy of doing the actual gardening. It’s all about results – and that’s like living in the future, not enjoying the here and now.  I get such a lot of pleasure from the gardening – and also some not so pleasant side effects (which the gardening sites also tend to gloss over, or not mention at all) – for now I’m sharing that only with my neighbour, and the occasional visitor. Everyone I talk to about my garden claims to catch my enthusiasm and says they’re inspired to do something themselves. I think that makes it something worth sharing! I’ve also got an idea of taking a series of photos of different plants growing from seeds, like a daily shoot ... could be a cool gif or something.

Like I said, I have a wide variety of interests; none of which I’ve mastered. The german, the woman and the engineer in me fight to hold back, wait until I can do it right first time, every time. Most of my life I’ve held back, waited until (insert condition here) was met. Now I’ve begun to realise time is running out. Nobody lives forever, and the older we get, the less our bodies can keep up. There are already some things, for which I am too old, which I won’t be able to do anymore. Or rather: can no longer do with the impunity of youth. I will be fifty in a few days. An age my father did not live to see. Although I look like my mother, I inherited my father’s medical make-up. And he died of cancer. So these past few years I’ve been struggling to come to terms with my own mortality. That required a complete paradigm shift. Most of my adult life I simply decided I wouldn’t see fifty, so I gave no thought to life after fifty. When I was still drinking, life was not sweet, so an early death seemed a good solution. That was then. I’m sober now and I’m living, really living life on life’s terms for the first time ever! Life is good and I’m not ready to give up, after all. That doesn’t make me immortal, though and I still had to deal with that. The solution was quite simple, albeit profound! It will have to wait for another time, though.

I can’t just leave the day without at least sharing the topic on everybody’s mind today: Knysna burning! Last night was an awful storm – the worst experienced in 3 decades, or so it’s been said. No rain, just gale force winds here in the Eastern Cape, with gusts up to 100 km/h! While I was lying snug and warm in my bed, listening to the gusts and fearing at worst a tree might be uprooted – Knysna was being evacuated. 10 000 people evacuated! Leaving their homes with not much more than the clothes on their backs – hearing later their home had burned down! It is inconceivable, the mind struggles to get a full grasp of what is happening. Driving towards Uitenhage I saw what I took to be weather clouds, but turned out to be one massive cloud of smoke. We barely glimpsed the sun all day, it was behind the smoke from morning rise till evening set. We could smell the smoke later in the afternoon – that can’t be Knysa? 230 km away – as the crow flies. No, it’s much closer, Thornhill, Van Stadens; the fires are spreading. A local colleague told of his friend who had lost everything in the Knysna fire. His home. Everything. All gone. Schools burned out. Libraries. And what of the Knysna Elephants? The Knysna Forest? It’s said to have spread all the way to Plettenberg Bay. On the bright side, only 10 people are reported dead, which – considering just how far this catastrophe reached – is fortunate; it could have been so much worse!

Uitenhage

Port Elizabeth