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

— @HaggardHawks

Oudrif. Oudrif. Oudrif. Visiting for the Easter weekend has become an annual tradition for us. And once again, we basked in every second of it.

Jeanine and Bill welcomed us with the usual warm smiles and cool drinks, and from the moment we arrived the world seemed a better place. Our straw bale cottage, the surrounding hills and their stories, and the now shallow Doring were waiting.

The days have a simple routine: morning coffee, walk, breakfast, rest, light lunch, rest, drinks, evening braai, sleep. Most of the food is vegetarian (best imaginable), but – if wanted – there is always a chop or a steak waiting at the end of the day for carnivores.

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Jeanine and Bill are amazing cooks and hosts. A few days in their care and one simply feels revitalised. They are super-conscious of the environment and are completely off the grid. They live with a few rescue animals with inspiring stories. Over the years, these animals have also become very dear to us. And this time, Mafutha decided to adopt us (always a great honour) for two nights and slept in our cottage when invited. (Do not tell The Cats!)

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For many years now, Jeanine has been involved in CLAWS, the Clanwilliam Pet Sterilisation Project, which helps control the feral populations of cats and dogs in the Clanwilliam area. They do stunning work and improve the lives of many animals and the humans who take care of their four-legged friends. Lockdown and the resulting lack of usual funding have been disastrous for the project, and many animals suffer. At the moment, Jeanine is hand-rearing six abandoned kittens. And although I nearly – accidentally! – became a kitten assassin (long story!), of course, I fell head over heels in love with all of them (The Cats know).

Behold: the unbearable cuteness of kittens!

For most of them, Jeanine has already found good homes, but there will be more little ones in need of love and care and a roof over their heads. Not all will be lucky. That is why the sterilisation project is so vital.

As always, there were also a few very cool humans visiting at Oudrif: a couple we have met before and adore, so we were very happy to see them again; a famous journalist and his amazing wife; and another fascinating couple who had great stories to share (and a bottle of incredible bourbon). One of the guests was celebrating a birthday, and Jeanine and Bill made their famous chocolate cake on the fire to mark the occasion. It is the ultimate chocolate cake, a culinary treat like no other.

Morning walk with Bill

I have seen the rock art sites we visited this time already, but they never cease to amaze me. I could stare at and think about them for ever. The aardvarks are my favourites.

Connecting with our ancestors

Most of our time was spent simply relaxing, and there is no better place that I know of to just be. No cell reception, no wifi, all you can do is talk, walk, sleep, swim, sunbathe, play board games, stargaze, read and eat. Occasionally, drink bourbon and devour chocolate cake. Bliss.

We are back home, but my soul has stayed behind at Oudrif – somewhere next to the river, or with the kittens, or the ancestors who whisper their stories through the rock art to us.

“Winter Special from 1 May till End July 2021 R1000 per person per night all inclusive,” says the Oudrif website. I think I need to look at our diaries and start planning the next trip …

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

There is a place I often go to in my head when I want to feel at peace: it is the shower cubicle in our cottage at Oudrif where veld visitors come to say hello through the fiberglass and not only the dust and sweat of the day get washed off, disappearing down the drain with all world’s worries. Sometimes, I stand under my own shower, close my eyes and think of the picture above, and everything calms down inside.

You can think of me standing there for the next few days – not only in my head, but in reality. There is no internet and no cellphone reception, so I won’t be blogging over Easter, but I will be in the safest headspace possible.

Tragic news reached us today, and it is very difficult to think beyond it, to know that someone you care about is utterly shattered and nothing, absolutely nothing, will ever be the same again. And there is very little you can do about any of it.

I met with an author today to discuss the final editing notes on the manuscript we have been working on. We had a socially distanced lunch in the garden, talked manuscript, books, life and loss. Afterwards, I couldn’t visit my dear friends living nearby because they are isolating due to possible Covid-19 exposure.

I cleaned the pool and mowed my small lawn in the late afternoon and sat in the garden with a glass of wine in the evening, thinking about the frailty of life. A friend stopped by to say hello. I spoke to Mom and Krystian on Skype. I replied to a million emails.

Grief is unpredictable. After a shattering, how do we ever pick up the pieces? How do we ever leave the safety of a shower cubicle at the end of the world – where the devil says good night, as the Polish saying goes … How? Especially now, when most of us are heavy with loss.

All that remains is the casting of spells: Oudrif. Oudrif. Oudrif.

Stay safe, please.

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

A full day’s work and very little to report otherwise, apart from dinner with my love (a curry to fit with the changing weather). And tonight, I finally had the time to look at the photographs I took in Namibia with my love’s Canon. All the others I posted earlier were taken with my cellphone’s Leica.

A few Canon favourites:

Apart from sore cheeks, all good. But, it is nearly Easter and time for casting spells …

I am sleeping through the nights!

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

Did I mention that I have the best neighbours in the world? We were invited for socially distanced drinks tonight and it was absolutely perfect: the company, the drinks and the snacks. I feel so lucky – not only that I know these people, but that they are my neighbours.

I missed the family meeting tonight. But I have had enough lovely wine in one evening for the memories to last me through a booze ban, if there is one on again …

The rest of the day? Don’t ask. I struggled to get up in the morning just thinking about it. But I got through it, somehow.

Professional highlight of the day: the latest issue of New Contrast has arrived (cover above). The first one for our new editor, Masande Ntshanga. I had goose bumps reading his editorial. Such a talented, inspiring writer/thinker. And such a lovely human being to work with. Good things lie ahead for the oldest literary magazine in the country (turned sixty last 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

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A typical headless-chicken Monday, with the refuse truck arriving only late in the afternoon, full eight hours of intense work, no time for photographs (apart from the two above for IG to remind readers about Dawn’s event in Rheenendal on Thursday), and sore cheeks (once more; sigh). I had to send another rejection letter – never easy – and I have to consider ending a professional relationship with someone who is simply not delivering their share of the work on one of the projects I am partly responsible for (deeply frustrating and disappointing, but even my colossal patience has run out; I do understand how rough it is to do anything creative, or to keep a deadline, right now – I struggle myself like hell – but one needs to communicate the problem to others involved).

Yet, at the end of it all, there was a fire and a few chops and good wine and even better company, although my love was also shaken by his return to work after our Namibian adventure.

No new episode of John Oliver’s show to watch tonight, so I am going to sit in front of the TV for an hour or so and fall into bed, to dream, perchance to sleep (misquote intentional).

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

Day three hundred and sixty-seven. Not sure why, but I do not want to stop. Something about this record has preserved parts of my sanity throughout the last year and when I contemplated giving up the nearly daily writing, I felt sadness and loss. (As if any more of either was needed during these times.)

I worked a half-day today and spent the afternoon in the company of my love and lovely friends, talking travel, music, theatre, sculpture and food and sharing snippets of possibilities for the future. I felt uplifted. Driving back home, I thought: there is no escaping it – this is our new normal. And somehow, it all focused on the fact that we could not hug our friends when we said goodbye to them after our socially distanced lunch in their garden. I don’t know under what conditions I will ever be relaxed about hugging a friend or stranger ever again. It made me think about three hugs that I remember distinctly from my past. First was when I was fourteen and found out that we would be leaving our home in the US to return to Austria again. A few days before the journey was my official graduation event at our school. My parents couldn’t make it and my best friend’s mom offered to pick me up and make me part of their party for the occasion. Our house was almost empty, all packed up. I couldn’t find my belt and started crying in the middle of the departure chaos. Running late, I was desperate. Katherine’s mom arrived, had one look at me and simply pulled me into a long, soothing embrace. Eventually, I stopped crying and she helped me get ready and that evening clapped as loudly as if I had been her own daughter when I received all my academic awards for the year.

Then, a few years later, in my late teens, I was staying with all my cousins at my grandparents home in Poland for the summer. The generations in my family are a bit mixed up and I have an uncle who is my age, so we grew up as cousins. I was having a miserable day, don’t remember any longer why, but once again when he saw me, without me having to explain anything, he simply hugged me and the world became a better place. A few years later, another summer, I had made a horrible mistake and he and his wife gave me refuge when I needed a place to escape. We haven’t kept in touch since that summer, but I named one of my characters in my first published novel after him.

Third hug was more recent. When André passed away, I got hugged a lot, by everyone, also strangers. The first time I visited my nearest post office after André’s death, Joseph, the gentleman at the counter that day, offered his condolences and called one of his female colleagues to come out and hug me on behalf of all the post office workers.

In the past year, apart from my love’s hugs, I have received only a handful of cautious, brief hugs from friends. The three above would not have been possible without the danger they would hold right now.

With all the monumental loss around us, these are tiny losses, and yet … And yet …

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

Three weeks. That is what I thought last year on the 27th of March when starting the Oysterhood Diary: record the lockdown daily as it happens for three weeks, the announced initial length of the hard lockdown in South Africa. A year later, here I am. Like the possessed olive thrush trying to defeat his rival in my window’s reflection for the past two days (maybe longer?), I seem to be doomed for failure. I was thinking of making this my last Oysterhood post, but I am not sure how I will feel tomorrow. The lockdown is long from over. The pandemic nowhere near its end. I think I have become more resilient, despite of – or maybe because of – all the upheavals of the past twelve months. I am still miraculously healthy, or at least almost as healthy as I was before the pandemic. What doesn’t kill you, makes you … Yet, something is dead: a way of being.

And there are, of course, the nearly three million official Covid-19-related deaths worldwide; millions of others who loved them traumatised, grieving.

No matter what else, it is impossible not to be exhausted from the constant onslaught of terrifying news, having to be always vigilant, trying to somehow make it through the day, and the night, with the shreds of one’s dreams clinging to one’s soul.

In desperation, hope has torn out a few of her feathers. What if they don’t grow back?

We dance on.

Glinka and I put in a good day’s work today and finally got to the end of the last big project we have been working on. Some polishing remains to be done, but these are tiny details.

In the evening, my love and I went to one of our favourite restaurants in Cape Town to celebrate his birthday which happened while we were nowhere near a fine dining restaurant.

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

The Cats had the most caring, loving Friend staying with them while we were away. They were completely relaxed when we arrived back. Happy to see us, but also content with their own home holiday. We are so lucky to have such beautiful Friends. Thank you, Debbie!

I spent the day organising myself back into home life and responsibilities and then relaxed with Salieri on the sofa in the late afternoon and watched some TV. Tomorrow, work begins properly again. But I think I can face it.

We have had an incredible holiday. My love and I travel extremely well together, but we also love returning home.

Today is the 365th day of lockdown. An entire year. Tomorrow will be a strange anniversary …

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 was working in my garden this afternoon during loadshedding (thank goodness, Eskom is not responsible for the sun) and out of the blue started planning a dinner party for friends. I was thinking who to invite and what to cook and how to seat the people for best conversations, and only after about ten minutes of these wonderful musings, I realised: PANDEMIC. I actually managed to forget for ten blissful minutes that we were still in lockdown and the dinner party I was cooking up in my head was not going to happen any day soon … But it was so nice to think about it!

They saw the suitcase, so I did not have to spell it out to them, but I did tell The Cats that I was going away with my love for a while. The loveliest of Friends is moving in tomorrow to take care of them, so they will have the best possible care, but they have not been impressed with the packing and preparations. Unfortunately, I did not manage to complete my last project yet, so I will be travelling and finishing my work, but the trip was not necessarily intended to be part of the planned Big Rest, so it’s fine. The trip is going to be a proper adventure, restful only for the soul, not necessarily for the body. The Big Rest is going to be all-round laziness, squared.

My love and I had a quick, delicious dinner at HARU tonight, so that we would not have to worry about cooking and washing up. It is always great to go there.

Time for bed. One more sleep and: ROAD TRIP!

Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.

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

— NICD