OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

My orchids. Rachel gave me hers, hoping I could save it. Karen and Gerhard brought one when André passed away. Tracey gave me another as a gift. I inherited one from Emma when she emigrated. The one that has refused to bloom all these years but is now finally about to flower came from Rahla. And the little one is from Gustav and Family. The orchids live in my bathroom and mystify me. I haven’t inherited my green-fingered Mom’s gift; growing things usually defies me. My garden is a wild jungle that thrives without my interference.

I water the orchids once a week in summer and once a fortnight in winter. Otherwise, I just let them be. And when they are ready to share it, I simply marvel at their outrageous beauty.

Like my orchids, I am extremely patient. Rahla’s is about to bloom for the first time in six years. I can’t wait to see what colour the flowers will be. Emma’s arrived without most of its roots. I put it in a new pot, supported by small poles, so that it could remain upright. In a few weeks’ time, I will remove the poles. New roots have grown nearly strong enough to be able to support the plant. I also wonder what colour its flowers will be – one day. The little one is growing a new leaf since its arrival. One tiny step at a time.

Luckily, by now, Rachel’s and Tracey’s flower regularly in all their glory.

The grief orchid always reminds me of the kindness that sustained me through the most devastating time of my life.

I grew up with the superstition that the last day of the year will prophesy the year ahead. I spent the last day of 2019 next to my love on a flight from Vienna to Cape Town, reading the latest novel by Sarah Lotz. We arrived home just before midnight, showered, opened a small bottle of Austrian bubbly to celebrate the new year and slept a deep, content sleep of satisfied travellers with stories to tell.

Whenever I fly, I cannot help myself, I still think of death. It is nearly six years now since André passed away next to me on a plane flying over Brazzaville. I have flashbacks to that flight whenever I board a plane. Fortunately, they are no longer followed by panic attacks or bouts of despair. Time and love can heal one.

Despite the pandemic and lockdown, my love and I travelled a lot this year, mostly in the Western Cape, but also to Botswana, making the most amazing memories and celebrating our fourth anniversary of being together during one of these trips. And we met at a time when I had no leaves, no roots and thought I would never be able to blossom again …

Reading and working with authors I love saved my sanity this year, giving me a purpose when everything else seemed nearly meaningless in the face of what we were facing.

I spent a lot of time thinking about death this year. But I am landing safely again at the end of this rough journey. I am still healthy. Thanks to the love and support of my family, my love and my friends, I have survived.

Another new year eve’s superstition I grew up with: never leave any dirty laundry for the new year.

Today was a day of being with loved ones, of care and gentleness. I walked with a friend who needed company. I tied up a few loose admin and work ends. My love and I walked together and had a braai for two and shared a little bit of delicious wine before it was time for him to head home because of the curfew. I raised a glass of bubbly on Skype with Mom and Krystian. I am now ready for bed.

My laundry basket is empty. My heart is full despite the sorrow it has endured …

Best books of 2020?

For me, the ones I have had the privilege of publishing: Karavan Press

New year’s resolutions:

1) Keep healthy.

2) Publish more beautiful Karavan Press books.

3) Finish my own next book.

Life is like taking care of orchids. You never know what the one who arrives on your doorstep will need. You will have to be patient and kind. Sometimes you will have to let them just be. They might have to grow new roots and leaves or rest for a long time until they are ready to open up to the world again. But when the time comes, they will reward you with their astounding beauty. It only takes water and time. And hope. And love. Those everyday miracles.

It also helps to wash one’s dirty laundry before embarking on a new beginning.

Healthy and happy 2021!

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

I am getting lost in books, reading several simultaneously and editing one when it is time to work. Being able to focus feels like a blessing again right now. Those 497 recorded deaths yesterday, the sixty thousand excess deaths I heard about today, all the reported new infections and the news of a friend’s closest family member fighting for recovery after being put on a ventilator is all very difficult to process.

I woke up with a headache today and immediately panicked, but then I realised that it is that time of the month and that it was perfectly normal to feel this kind of awful, and I just lay there with Glinka purring on my chest and relief washing over me.

Nadia Davids wrote today: “I’m so weary of being wary of and for people. It’s impossible, exhausting, this low-grade constant simultaneous fear of others and the fear that you may in turn be a danger to them.”

I read, worked, swam, sunbathed with The Cats, walked with my love. He is cooking dinner for us as I type. Tomorrow, I want to spoil us with a new dish I discovered in one of my favourite cookbooks this morning. I try to focus on the everyday pleasures, on words and stories, on light and warmth – everything else feels too overwhelming to contemplate right now.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

I have finally used up my lockdown book voucher at the Book Lounge today and have started reading three of the four books I bought. I also got myself the Moleskin diary for 2021 – it’s time to face the new year.

• 

• 

• 

The day began and ended with reading. And there was editing and a lunch date with my love at FYN and a visit to the Book Lounge in between. It is an absolute delight to be able to read properly again, although I must say that the next Bosch novel wasn’t planned until I had listened to the President last night and just needed the safety of a fast-paced story to distract my brain before falling asleep.

Infected people are suffering and dying, the healthcare workers are exhausted beyond their endurance and begging us to be more careful and wear our f@#$%^& masks, and all we can do is whine about the new regulations! Yes, they were not entirely clearly laid out and they did limit us in our privileges substantially after midnight, but PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING AND DYING AND WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF HOSPITAL BEDS! Also, despite the partly vague wording, the President’s message about the regulations is quite obvious: limit your interaction with others to an absolute minimum and stop the spread of this terrible virus. The easiest way was to forbid social gatherings of any kind. Funerals are tricky, of course. But without understanding the importance of the ritual, one should perhaps refrain from comment.

And please, people, let’s not start bitching about the beach again. We have all seen how people just gather on the beach and party as if there was no pandemic killing us left, right and centre.

I also see how people confuse their general grievances with the government (mostly all legit) with their grievances against the regulations that are primarily intended to keep them safe. Don’t start demanding the stop to corruption just because your booze delivery did not reach you in time for the new year’s party you were planning on the beach. Take a real stand against corruption – at all times – if you really mean it. You want a concrete plan for the distribution of the vaccine next year? Sure, demand it, but do it because it is the right thing to want to understand, not because you are suddenly upset that you can’t get drunk with your friends in the park over the weekend.

What is the difference between meeting your friends in your home or at a restaurant? Well, for once, the restaurant – if well chosen – will be a controlled, well-organised space where social distancing will be easier than in your kitchen where your friends will want to hug, assist or stand right next to you when you make the tea (not consciously, but because it is so much easier to forget about the danger when you are in a familiar, relaxed place). Also, in a restaurant, you will be contributing to saving someone’s job – just saying.

(If you stay at home entirely and just read books for company and pleasure, you will be super safe and will be saving lives and livelihoods, mine included.)

And if a place does not feel safe, leave. Report them to the authorities if necessary.

I have been finding that it is much easier to negotiate and stay safe in public spaces like restaurants, hotels, museums and shops than in people’s homes.

If we had truly cared about one another and used common sense, the second wave would not have gotten so fatally out of control. Perhaps the regulations of level three will help us get back on a safer path. I would love to see people channelling all the energy that they are devoting to fighting, defying and complaining about the regulations to just protecting themselves and their loved ones from the virus.

Just please start wearing your mask correctly. Please.

I went for a short walk today in the afternoon and saw two young men walking right next to each other and talking with their faces turned to each other the whole time – their masks were hanging loosely around their necks. Apart from this now being illegal, what’s the point of those masks just hanging there …? I really despair.

Culinary highlight of the day and the entire lockdown, including home delivery when nothing else was possible in the beginning of the pandemic: FYN. Note the divine oysters and the brain food :)

No alcohol. No problem. The non-alcoholic cocktail I had and the green tea my love enjoyed were perfect and just added to the delicious adventure.

My love and I were meant to see a friend in his garden on Thursday, but we are not going to. No social gatherings means no social gatherings. And that’s sad, but also okay. We will do it late in January or sometime in February. If we behave wisely, we will have many opportunities to see one another in the future. And we might all be alive and well.

We can also start practicing burning those candles. My area is loadshedding at ten tonight. Just because everything else is so easy nowadays, right? Sigh.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

Back to level three, adjusted. What other option was there under the present circumstances? We have been irresponsible and are now reaping the consequences. My candle is burning already, I have no problem with any of the regulations. Basically, whatever it takes to stop the carnage. If it can’t be stopped because we actually care for one another and for ourselves, then let it be stopped, or at least managed, with these drastic measures.

It’s Monday. I did my usual Monday chores. But the bin has not been collected and I think it is because of people testing positive for coronavirus.

I struggled to get out of bed today, but after some reading and lots of coffee, I returned to my desk and computer and work. Completed a travel blog post I have been meaning to write for two weeks – BOTSWANA – and started on a new editing project. I skyped with Mom and Krystian for lunch. My love and I went for a walk around the Rondebosch Common in the evening and had leftovers for dinner. Then I skyped with my friend Charlotte before listening to the President.

Gus Ferguson passed away. I never met him properly, but we once shared a page in New Contrast and I felt so proud. What he has done for the literary scene in South Africa is immeasurable. We all owe so much to him and his creativity and vision. May he rest in peace.

I am more than merely glum.

But I really enjoyed reading this piece by Penny Haw: “What I have learned in 2020”. Very fitting for this day and the rest of this year. Writing, reading, editing – ways of surviving.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

(Really!)

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

Sunday. Most of it spent reading. I finished another Bosch novel and started a book I have been meaning to read for ages: Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Most writers know its famous quote about people who want you to write nice things about them having to behave better, and most writers I know have read the book at some stage. Now, finally, I am there. And enjoying it very much. I was thinking that it might inspire me to take up my dormant writing project(s) and then I came across this quote:

‘I would simply recommend to people in my workshops that they never start a large writing project on any Monday in December. Why set yourself up for failure?’

Okay, so maybe on Tuesday.

I did not hesitate when a while ago I was asked to write a few words for the Sunday Times about my ‘best book’ of 2020. I immediately thought of the short story collections I have read this year – all brilliant in different ways: If You Keep Digging by Keletso Mopai, Searching for Simphiwe by Sifiso Mzobe, Lester Walbrugh’s Let It Fall Where It Will (but for obvious reasons could not pick a book I’d published, no matter how much I love it), and Elleke Boehmer’s To the Volcano and Other Stories. I have reviewed all (even the one I published – that’s probably the greatest review one can offer a book), and in the end picked To the Volcano because when I saw it on the list of all the books I’d read this year, I immediately remembered its light and insights and gentleness and these qualities at the end of this horrendous year jumped out in my memory. The stories also speak directly to my own personal experiences with the South, my love and longing for it – now, my home.

What else? I spent most of the day in my human love’s company even though he was watching cricket and I was reading. Sometimes that is totally enough, just sharing a space and knowing that one can lean over and get a kiss but can indulge in whatever one wants to separately. I cooked dinner for us and we did watch some TV together.

We found out that another person we know is in hospital with serious Covid-19 symptoms. It is terrifying. And today, we have passed the mark of one million officially identified infections in the country since the first known case.

We all need light, insights and gentleness right now (and always) – and books offer solace. But, my soul is sore in ways that might only get better through writing. Tuesday, even in December, might be a great day to reach out for some literary healing. But tomorrow, some editing awaits and I look forward to it very much.

And this is the unofficial prognosis for next year:

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

I made two socially distant visits to Family members in the Western Cape today. They are not blood family, nor related by marriage, but family in all other respects – at least those that matter. In both cases, in Somerset West and Kleinmond respectively, we sat outside, well apart, and just enjoyed being in the same garden space together – catching up and having coffee and eating sweet treats. Loved it.

On my way between the two stops, I passed the famous Peregrine Farm Stall and saw that Liberty Books was open today. The bookshop recently relocated to the new venue and I could not resist having a peek. I walk in and guess what!?

The first reader I spot has a copy of a Karavan Press title in her hands: Shadow Flicker by Melissa A. Volker. I must say, I was thrilled, especially because the visit was completely unplanned. Pure coincidence. Pure magic. The new venue is a dream. Christy Weyer, the owner, is a real reader. Her selection of second-hand and new books is simply stunning. You cannot walk into her bookshop and not find something you have been wanting to read! I was there for only a few minutes and I walked away with two books I have been lusting after. Can’t wait to return to explore the new space properly. If you are on the N2 in the area, this is a MUST STOP. There is no way you will be disappointed.

I returned home in the late afternoon to realise that there was an uncooked piece of beef in my fridge that needed to be taken care of. After all the sweet delights of the day, I decided to make a quick fire and braai a few pieces of the meat and had it with honey mustard and a fresh salad for dinner. I put the rest of the meat into a stew that will keep me fed and happy for the next two days.

• 

• 

The rest of the evening was spent on the couch in front of the TV with Salieri :) I guess it is time for bed now. Tomorrow is the last of the lazy days. Work awaits on Monday. Luckily, it is a project I am delighted about.

Good night.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

Out of nowhere, a domestic demon arrived on my doorstep and took over my body. For a few hours this morning, I was all over the place and cleaned nearly the entire house, getting it ready for … myself. I felt that, on Christmas Day, I wanted to wake up to a clean bathroom and kitchen etc. Mission accomplished.

In the late morning, I went to the small shopping centre nearby to wish my favourite flower vendor and bead artist a merry Christmas and to buy flowers and bead ornaments for Christmas from them. She was there and I bought a gorgeous bunch of the reddest of roses, but he wasn’t, and when I inquired about him, it turned out that he hadn’t showed up for work for the second day in a row and was quite ill, getting tested for you know what. I tried to message him, but there was no reply. He might be one of the over fourteen thousand new cases in SA …

I skyped with Mom and Krystian and told them about the situation, because they also met this talented man who has always been incredibly kind to me and them.

Deep sigh, another prayer …

After all these years in South Africa, Christmas in the sun still feels weird. I added some artificial snow to my pool picture. The cats joined me for the shade-bathing after the swim. They love being in the garden with me.

• 

• 

In the afternoon, it was time to put on my party dress and head over to my love’s garden where we had a socially-distanced Christmas Eve braai with my love’s son and his partner. First ever braai and first ever outside dinner on Christmas Eve for me. But the weather was pitch-perfect: warm, wind-still; it almost felt as if the weather was begging us to behave wisely and provided the ideal conditions for it.

• 

• 

• 

My love doesn’t do small fires, even when he is braaing only for two, or four in this case.

• 

• 

• 

Our guests brought the most delicious Christmas cake and ice cream for dessert and one of my presents was wrapped in the coolest gift wrapping one can imagine for 2020. The gift itself is something I fell in love with a few weeks ago. Tonight, we were reunited to my utter delight :)

The Austrian volunteer firefighters go around their neighbourhoods and spread the Light of Peace, originating from Bethlehem, to households. They also visited my family today.

I wish everyone health for the festive season! And those who are fighting to regain it during this time, I wish strength and miracles and other – merrier – Christmas celebrations for many years to come.

The most unusual of Christmas Eves – with pandemic-related loss, sadness and fear woven into its fabric – but it is ending with a delicious cup of Lady Grey, a gift from a dear friend. And a huddle of trees, a reminder of love and care and taking note – manifestations of true togetherness and interconnectedness.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD

OYSTERHOOD is reclusiveness or solitude, or an overwhelming desire to stay at home.

— @HaggardHawks

“Covid Marshalls” going to work this morning at the Waterfront. I had no idea that they even existed, but their presence was strangely reassuring.

The day started with my festive treats: coffee with a divine Hoghouse chocolate pastéis de nata.

Then it was the early shopping trip, admin, gardening, Skype chat with Mom and Krystian, book deliveries and house work before ironing in front of the TV. Yesterday, my bead Christmas tree came out of hiding and a few Christmas gifts have accumulated beneath. I got two lovely festive greetings cards and they are on the mantlepiece. I listened to Christmas carols and feel like I can face the festive days and be a little bit merry.

And yet, the official infection and death numbers (over three hundred Covid-related deaths yesterday, over four hundred today) make it impossible to celebrate – it’s insane. Frightening. I personally know people who are suffering as I type and I feel utterly helpless.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”

— NICD