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

— @HaggardHawks

It could not have been any better, my birthday weekend. Bubbly birthday perfection. Bubbly joy on all fronts.

At 45, totally unfit, one is entitled to a bit of a midlife crisis and the wish to climb Table Mountain without any preparations on one’s birthday. Fortunately, I have the loveliest, spontaneous friends – two of them, visiting from overseas, agreed to accompany me on my mad quest. They’d been up Table Mountain many times during their regular visits to our beloved shores in the last two decades, but they’d never climbed the Mountain. What we could not predict was that we would be sharing it with well over two hundred matriculants and way too many boomboxes, but the kids were quite polite and turned down the volume when asked. ‘Let the tannie pass,’ one of them said when I was attempting to crawl past a group of them resting … ‘Enjoy those fit, young bodies while you can,’ I thought, ‘they don’t last forever.’

Fit or not, we made it to the top where we were met by drizzle and the Table Cloth on full display, so it was a change of clothes, hot chocolate and the cable car (free ride in one’s birthday month!) back to the city. Five days later and my legs are nearly pain-free again, but the huge sense of accomplishment persists.

The rest of the day was about resting, Skyping with my family, preparing for the weekend away and, happy as a bee, I went to the last of the UCT Summer Lectures on social insects presented by Karen Jennings. It was wonderful.

In the evening, my love and I went to the only restaurant I wanted to celebrate at this year: The Hoghouse, of course!

It was the first time I had their chocolate cake – and there is no going back. This is the ultimate chocolate cake (I will somehow have to break it to Bill when we return to Oudrif, but his is still the best chocolate cake baked on a braai!). I went to bed a happy woman.

The next day, my love arrived on my doorstep, ready for our bubbly birthday adventure. We were invited to spend the weekend on the Graham Beck wine estate near Robertson and it was an adventure of a lifetime. I have known many happy days in my life, but this was bliss on a different level. I had always wondered whether there is a point when one does not want to drink bubbly any longer – when enough is enough – and now, I can tell you: not for me! It will never ever get boring.

It’s harvest time at Graham Beck and the excitement is in the air. We visited the cellar where for the first time I was able to taste wine in the making, only a few days old, fermenting happily away in all its magical glory. I had never tasted anything like it – it’s very difficult to describe the textures and flavours of this incredible process. But if you ever get a chance, it is an absolute must.

But then, the real tasting began … of the bubblies that have made it into bottles and have been patiently waiting to showcase their sparkling beauty. The Maestro himself – Pieter Ferreira – and his amazing wife Ann Ferreira, also known as Bubbles Ann, guided us on this astounding journey through method, dedication and excellence.

I learned so much that it is difficult to capture in a few words. What fascinates me the most is that even someone like me who just loves drinking bubbly but knows very little about it can recognise the difference in taste and smell of the various approaches to bubbly making. An experience like this makes you look at corks and oak barrels with new eyes. Fun fact: corks have memories, and they can lose them :)

But this was only the beginning …

We had the enormous privilege of staying in the Grace House on the farm where a more leisurely celebration continued in the company of our wonderful hosts and their friends. There was no end to the beautiful bubblies, local and foreign, and no end to light, laughter and stories.

All of this and – after some deep sleep, no hungover (!!!), and another fantastic bubbly meal – a mousebird, and Rafa’s 21 Grand Slam.

Three lovely friends who joined us for the Sunday afternoon arrived with a mousebird they were nursing back to health after s/he had fallen out of the nest. I never imagined I would get an opportunity to hold and stroke and feed a mousebird, but there s/he was in my hands, chirping and stretching her/his wings which are nearly ready to fly. I was so happy! I will always think of her/him when I see my favourite birds – with their great hairdos, mouse tails and fluffy chests – in the air.

And then there was Rafa. What can I say? I am ecstatic, no?

Best tennis birthday present imaginable :) Vamos indeed!

There is no rest for the wicked, so we joined the midnight harvest for a while – even Pieter, who by then was on crutches, because of a bone fracture in his foot (which happened just when we arrived on Saturday before he even had a sip of any bubbles!) – in the vineyards and in the cellar, before getting a little bit of sleep and heading home on Monday, bubbles still – or not so still – on our minds.

Karina (45)

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

“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

Headless chicken day, but I made it and saw amazing people and made good plans: new books are being designed, rewritten and conceived. And the path of social insects into scientifiction (yes, that’s an early, correct term!) has been fascinating to follow in today’s lecture. For most of the day, mud flowed out of our taps (repairs down the road from us – had no water at all last night, so mud is better than nothing, I suppose) and I could only shower in the late afternoon. A few of my taps had given up their ghosts already before the mud slide through the pipes, but the plumber was finally here to assess the situation and will sort everything out tomorrow. He doesn’t know it, but it is going to be a birthday present to myself – having functioning taps. I don’t ask for much … :)

But a birthday plan is in place and I can’t wait. The adventure starts early, so I am off to sleepland for some rest.

Good night!

Karina (still 44 tonight)

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

“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

Totally confuzzled – my state of being right now. Yesterday, I arranged to meet someone I haven’t seen in about a decade at Stodels Café, and went to the wrong one, and waited for quite a while before finding out that I was at the wrong Stodels Café. By that time, it was too late to do anything about it. Today, I prepared a really nice dinner for my love, but a completely bizarre set of circumstances left him standing outside my house for about ten minutes, while I was actually on the property and mostly in the house and did not hear or realise that he was ringing the bell. He usually has a key, but tonight he didn’t … By the time I looked at my cellphone and saw that he had tried to reach me, he was halfway home. And, of course, my landline is dead. I reported it to Telkom yesterday.

I ate the nice dinner all by myself. Luckily, the leftovers can be shared tomorrow, too.

The rest of these two days was kind of like this, too. Confuzzled. There were only two instances of inner calm: Karen Jennings’s lectures on social insects (I am loving them and can’t wait until the next one) and the meeting with my counsellor today. I was brave. Very brave. And she was simply wonderful. I feel safe in her presence. We have now dug as deep as it gets, no longer only scratching the surface … the real work can begin now!

I got another newsletter from Temenos, recommending a Equinox Wellbeing Escape and today it feels like the only thing that might save me. But, a really lovely weekend is just around the corner, so I just need to survive tomorrow …

Wish me luck! (And do not arrange to meet with me – I, or you, will not make it.)

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

“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

The hottest weekend this summer, by far. For someone with low blood pressure, this kind of heat requires a lot of bedrest in a cool ancient Victorian house designed for such temperatures, lots of reading, tennis watching, diving into a pool, gentle sunbathing in the late afternoon sun, and a steady supply of chilled wine. Mission accomplished, I am happy to say.

My lovely neighbours visited for drinks and snacks on Friday; on Saturday, my love and I went to the Theatre on the Bay to watch Alan Committie’s Comedy Carousel (and had a good laugh); on Sunday, we watched Survivor 41 (another exciting season).

Friday was an admin day, Saturday was reserved for rest only, and today, I worked on my book.

I am reading a truly fascinating book that is going to change – is already changing – my life: Stolen Focus – Why You Can’t Pay Attention by Johann Hari. It’s not that the research and ideas he presents in the book are totally new to me, or that I haven’t experienced or felt exactly what the author had gone through at some stage, but his coherent analysis of the situation and the solutions he presents to the challenges we face are stunning. With every page I read, I feel empowered to do better and to safeguard my sanity and focus, and my creativity, empathy and humanity. These are not trivial things! Stolen Focus is essential reading for our times and I am grateful that my love brought the book to my attention.

I am also grateful to myself for never succumbing to the pressure to join Facebook or WhatsApp (and I am constantly bombarded with requests to do so). I have a cellphone that takes pictures and connects to the internet, but it is not the cellphone I use for making phone calls or sending text messages. Apart from these two functions (calls/text messages), all my notifications are off at all times on both phones (one is always on silent, the other most of the time – the reason I put it on to ring is actually quite horrible: in case ADT phones when my alarm goes off …). I mostly use the cellphones when I feel like it, not when they demand my attention. People sometimes get very angry about my telephonic unavailability – and I always say, if you really need me, I have a landline and I will always hear it ring when I am at home; when I am not at home, I probably do not want to be bothered with phone calls anyway. And even if it takes a while sometimes, I do reply to text messages – eventually. Two of the websites/blogs I run (Karavan Press and Philida Literary Award) have been ad-free since inception (this personal one for several years now) and I am very happy to pay for this freedom. I still spend much too much time on Twitter and Instagram, but as of now, I have not managed to really figure out how much of a tool these social media are for my own professional and private use in comparison to how much they use and abuse me. I assume that further investigation/introspection will reveal that change in this respect is necessary, too. However, one way or another, I have been quite precious about the way I interact with the computer, the internet and the cellphone. And I know there is still lots of room for improvement. My focus is definitely not what I want it to be and I am going to do what I can to restore it to what I remember it like from before the attempts to steal it became a reality and a threat to the integrity of my/our world. It is poetic karma that a physical book will help me find the right path forward. As I am reading, I am also trying to reconfigure how I rest, sleep, time-manage and be kind to myself and to everything that is meaningful for me. It is an empowering journey to be on. A bit scary, too, but I am often braver than I think, and usually quite resolute.

I love being creative and I love writing – thank you for reading and sharing this journey with me.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

“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

Bittersweet was our return to Solms Delta. The farm is a husk of its former glorious self. But Sanna was there with her generous hugs and eyes smiling above her mask, and her presence was enough to make the visit completely worthwhile. We – five Brinks – were the only guests at Fyndraai (still serving delicious food) and the Museum van de Caab (the main exhibits still there, yet the space feels gutted), but we did see four other people arrive when we were leaving. Despite obvious farm activities all around us, the place felt strangely empty. Apart from the ghosts, who were all there. And our links to the farm’s history remain undeniable. Philida … All those horrific and brave stories. I brought a few bottles of the old wine back home and look forward to seeing what their memories will taste like.

‘No one makes music on the farm any more,’ Sanna said, and that broke my heart.

Driving back to Cape Town on the Old Elephant Path, like always, I kept thinking of Philida and her resistance to injustice, and felt inspired. The third recipient of the annual Philida Literary Award will be announced on 6 February.

And I thought of my own writing, a form of resistance to injustice on a different level, and the fact that I was meeting my editor Danél that afternoon felt like serendipity.

We haven’t seen each other in ages and it was simply wonderful to catch up on the gorgeous stoep of the Vineyard Hotel. Incidentally, one of Lady Anne Barnard’s sketches inspired the artwork that features on the Afrikaans edition of Philida, among so many other connections between the two places – Solma Delta and the Vineyard Hotel – for me. I gifted the cover artwork to the first of André’s grandchildren to get married two years ago. May Philida continue to inspire many more women to forge our own paths.

The amazing day ended with a meal with my love at our HARU. The place was full of people last night. And that was really good to see after everything that they have been through during the lockdown. I can’t wait until that moment when one will have to book in advance again to get into HARU :)

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

“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

A long, intense day. It began with coffee with the wonderful Catrina Wessels, who is Karavan Press’s literary agent. Seeing her is always a joy and I haven’t had the pleasure for quite a long time. It was great to talk books and possibilities with her.

For the rest, a lot of admin, organising and email writing. There are days when I think that I will never get them all answered. EVER.

My counsellor asked me today whether I feel exhausted after our sessions. It differs. Mostly, I am energised by the insights we reach, or relieved about being able to confront stuff, but sometimes the work with her is hard and draining. And everything – cleaning out my home, writing, seeing a counsellor – about this year so far feels like an excavation, external and internal. I am digging – using both spades and brushes as my tools – in cupboards, in the past, in language and my soul. Some of this is really tough and nearly impossible to face. At the end of my session with the counsellor today, I thought: Karina, just articulate these five sentences and get it over with. I think I know what the key to unlocking the deeply buried pain I feel is. It is so simple, and yet it feels like climbing Mount Everest – beyond my capability. And it’s not enough that I know this for myself. It is the act of articulation that will open the path to healing, calm. There is still so much grieving to be done, especially for those things that are not gone, but remain unreachable for the time being. How brave am I really?

A long day. At the end, there were still a few tasks on the to-do list that were waiting, but I just gave up at six. I had to free a bird that somehow ended up in my bedroom. Luckily, she realised pretty quickly where the big open bathroom window was and flew away.

Afterwards, I just set in the early evening sun with The Cats and had a glass of pink wine and slowly the tensions of the day began to disappear.

Last night, I found a relatively big praying mantis in the kitchen (apparently a bad omen when they come inside the house) and had to guide her to freedom.

Now, my inner lost bird and praying mantis need to be set free.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

“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 did not take any photographs yesterday, so here is a recent one of Flat Eric and me. I got Flat Eric from my Austrian friend, Isi, who is a huge fan of the iconic French puppet. Flat Eric has been with me for over twenty years now. He still remembers a Karina without grey hair :)

When my Ouma Ala was still alive, whenever I visited her, she would either have her famous tomato soup waiting or would make it for me. It was our tradition. Everyone loved her tomato soup, including Isi, but no one as much as I did. Ouma Ala never made a secret of the recipe. I watched her make the soup many times, as did others, but no one could replicate the taste, even when using the same ingredients and proportions. It took me a while to figure out that there was a secret ingredient after all, and that none of us could ever include it in our tomato soup attempts: Ouma Ala’s touch. It just tasted unique when she made it. I was not a great eater as a child and my parents struggled with me, but whenever I went to stay with Ouma Ala, my appetite reappeared and I ate the same bread and cheese (there was only one kind when I was growing up) that my parents would serve me, but without any fuss and triple the portion.

I remembered Ouma Ala’s kitchen when my family visited yesterday and my step-kids and -grandkids asked me to make crème brûlée for them. I make it every time they visit. André used to – he had the magic crème brûlée touch and somehow managed to pass it on to me just before he died. The last time he made the dessert, he asked me to assist for the first time ever in all those years that we were together, and so, somehow, fortunately, magically, I learned how to prepare it and and can bring back all those delicious memories in the old ramekins for friends and family.

Ouma Karina.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

“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

The full moon sent explicit directions: ‘Write,’ the note said. And so I did. Finally. It feels amazing: a mixture of excitement, relief, sadness and cathartic anger.

January’s full moon is known as the Wolf Moon.

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

“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

Cape Town, summer heat, work, love and adventure – the summary of the weekend.

And we are adding a new word to our pandemic vocabulary: endemic. But, the state of emergency has been extended, so lockdown continues until mid-February, at least.

On Friday, I finished the latest editing project and had a meeting with a fascinating woman. Our encounter involved all these books:

I hope that she and I can work on a great project together. Fingers and toes crossed.

It was impossibly hot on Friday and all I wanted was to get into the pool, but I ran out of time during the day. I did, however, end up in the evening next to the sea, at the Waterfront, in a perfectly air-conditioned restaurant with my wonderful love. PIER is not the cheapest place around, but when you delight in their exquisite food, you know what you are paying for: an experience that is impossible to recreate at home, no matter how good a cook you are.

Saturday during the day was all about reading and continuing with my resolution to clean out the house. This includes the garage. I started the excavation of this terribly cluttered, cobwebbed and dirty space yesterday and finished today. It is now emptier and cleaner than it has EVER been since I came to live in Cape Town in 2005. I even hung up an old painting in the garage, so it is decorated now, too.

I did get to swim on Saturday in the late afternoon and then made my way to my love’s where we watched a transcontinental Zoom wedding in the evening. There was love, a stunning couple, sheer happiness, beautiful wedding vows, laughter and tears of joy (my love was so deeply moved, he cried throughout, blowing his nose and smiling from ear to ear at the same time).

We drank champagne and were content with the world. That’s the magic of love: it multiplies when it is shared (even on Zoom).

Today, my love and I went for a walk on the promenade and I continued with the garage into the afternoon, and then went over to his place again for dinner. And an episode of Survivor 41! We did not know that it was coming, but fortunately the clever TV recorded for us. Great stuff.

I will not spoil my good mood by commenting on a certain covidiot (in this respect I have very similar thoughts and feelings to Oliver Holt). Let me just say that I am very pleased that I will not have to endure his presence on my TV screen in the next two weeks of tennis. I will be cheering for the delightfully named Salvatore Caruso to make the most of this remarkable opportunity. I don’t think I have to name my favourite to win, though :)

Tomorrow, something big begins. It is even written in the stars:

My car is serviced and my bills are paid …

Wish me luck!

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local. Get vaccinated, please. Live.

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

— NICD