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.”
“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.”
I spent the morning driving around Cape Town, making deliveries and picking up stuff. First stop: the post office, where I finally figured out what all the people I had seen queueing the last three times I had been to the post office wanted: recreational fishing permits! Really? Wow. I also don’t entirely get the beach bans, especially because they are inconsistent in their logic, but I keep wondering how much better off we would be if all the energy that is being wasted in debating and contravening and fighting the bans went into actually keeping us all safe from the pandemic. I also love the beach, but I think I can survive without it for a few weeks. And I really want to survive the pandemic …
There is a US doctor I have been following on social media since the early stages of the pandemic: compassionate, wise, fearless in his public commentary. Today, I read a very moving piece about his life and how it influenced his stance throughout the last few months.
We expect miracles of others while we can’t perform the simplest things to protect ourselves.
On my errands run today, I briefly spoke to three people who all decided to cancel or drastically reduce their family gatherings during the festive season. They all have one purpose: protect loved ones. It was heartening to hear.
In the last few days, I have been thinking of how to get into a more festive mood. One of the ideas was to get some festive goodies from The Hoghouse Bakery. My love and I started feasting this evening when he cooked for us and I brought out the festive box for dessert.
My love makes the best risotto. I had never been an enthusiast until he introduced me properly to this delicious dish.
We did not see the planets align last night. The spectacle was not visible from either of our homes and I must say that I was too afraid to explore all viewing points in my garden as it is not a very safe place to be on one’s own at night. But I enjoyed the pictures others took around the world and I felt the magic of the moment anyway.
The planets have aligned for Karavan Press’s Death and the After Parties by Joanne Hichens. I saw the above image taken at the Book Lounge on social media today. Outselling Obama and Ferrante! How cool is that!? I am not certain when it was, but for one day that was the reality for this special book. May it soar.
At the end of 2020, Karavan Press is officially ten titles strong. I honestly don’t know how we got through this year, but here we are. Thank you to all who have been part of this incredible journey. Together, we made it!
Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.
“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”
After yesterday’s laziness, I was up early today and started work around six a.m., continuing until around two in the afternoon, lockdown- and festive season-style: in bed. Then, it was time for a shower and some food shopping and house cleaning. My love came to dinner and I braaied for us again.
Simply delicious (even if I say so myself).
It seems that the Mountain might prevent me from seeing the spectacular, once-in-a-lifetime planet alignment, but I will be out there hoping anyway …
One of my book reviews was published today: LitNet. And Joanne Hichens’s Death and the After Parties went live on Kindle this evening. Ebooks are not my cup of tea, but I meet readers all the time who prefer to read on their devices. The paper book went into its first reprint before the end of this year and will be reprinted first thing in the new year, so let’s see how the ebook does in the meantime.
First: The Great Conjunction!
“On the night of December 21, the winter solstice, Jupiter and Saturn will appear so closely aligned in our sky that they will look like a double planet. This close approach is called a conjunction. The fact that this event is happening during the winter solstice is pure coincidence, according to NASA.” – CNN
Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.
“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”
Utterly lazy. I meant to work today, but I managed to get up from bed only after one p.m. – I read most of the time, had coffee, watched some Wild Earth, had breakfast and lunch in bed, and just stared into space. It felt good. There was a moment when I thought of opening the laptop, but Salieri slept on it next to me and so it remained closed. After a shower and some more coffee, I had a Skype date with Mom and Krystian, then a friend came to pick up a book, and then I delivered some books to another friend before continuing on to my love for some TV watching, more reading and a simple but delicious dinner. A real Sunday.
I know personally more and more people who are battling with Covid-19, all variants, I suspect. The official numbers are not good. In the last few days, I have realised that I feel much more comfortable being in well-organised, public/professional/official spaces like restaurants, museums, or even shops where I am among strangers mostly trying to navigate the safety issue with care than in a private space where it is more difficult to keep one’s distance and keep on wearing masks and negotiate personal safety rules of engagement.
I told Mom and Krystian today that I don’t feel like Christmas. I am tired and in no mood for any kind of proper celebration. They feel the same. So we are just going to have an ordinary Skype meeting over an ordinary lunch or dinner and just get through the silly season without fanfare.
There will be more laziness. I badly need rest.
Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.
“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”
I have been promising to visit The Book Shed in Noordhoek for a few months now, but it has been such a crazy time that, even when I did manage to get to Noordhoek on a few occasions, I just never had the headspace to indulge. I finally made it today. What a wonderful discovery it has been. It is one of the cosiest book spaces on the peninsula and the beautifully curated second-hand collection it holds is a real treasure. I got two new Harry Bosch novels and an early, out-of-print Duncan Brown. Megan, the owner, is lovely and I also got to meet the resident cat, Finnegan.
If only we could have a small launch or poetry reading in this lovely space … but it is too small to consider during a pandemic. Luckily, it is perfect for visiting on one’s own and I can recommend it wholeheartedly.
After the bookish visit, I went to see my dear Friend, Dr M. We had coffee and chatted for a while. Always balm for the soul.
Then it was time for a wine tasting with oysters at the Cape Point Vineyards during which I met a knowledgeable, passionate wine writer and a fabulous chef whose food I had had the privilege to enjoy a few years ago and it was wonderful to meet her in person. I also met a talented little boy who gave me one of his drawings with a fantastic duck included. He also drew one for my love. So cute!
The afternoon turned into evening and more wines were opened and tasted and delighted it. I returned home late and am quite tired now, but tired in a good way. It was a day full of light and contentment.
May the night be just as satisfying.
Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.
“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”
It took perseverance and patience and quick booking skills, but my love finally got us a lunch table at Wolfgat. What. A. Treat!
I did not know what to expect. I have had some fancy meals in my life, Michelin stars and all, but I have never before eaten at a restaurant pronounced the best in the world. And it is practically on our doorstep, if you can forget about the two-hour drive to Paternoster (the anticipation keeps you going).
It was all delicious – what stood out were the unusual ingredients and flavours, the limpets being the highlight for me, taste- and texture-wise. The restaurant itself is basic, even a bit shabby, but the view from the stoep is glorious, the service excellent and the food top-top. It surprises. Everything that smells and tastes like the sea is a joy in my book. And at Wolfgat it all comes with an exciting local twist. The oysters wrapped in cucumber slices … Culinary delight!
Did I mention how much I love oysters!? ;)
Covid protocols were observed – distance, sanatising, mask wearing. All tables were placed nicely apart on the stoep of the restaurant. It was easy to relax and simply enjoy the feast. It’s not easy to get a booking, but the long wait was really worth it.
I worked in the morning before the excursion and in the late afternoon afterwards. Last trip to the printers, signing of financial statements, payments, emails, admin, and festive season greetings exchanges throughout. Even though everything is winding down for the holidays, I can’t get into the festive mood. I am not sure that Christmas will be celebrated much this year in our home. I plan to continue working and then taking it easy for a few days around Christmas, but no special cooking or seeing people apart from perhaps a friend or two. I feel as if I just want to get beyond the holidays and start the new year with a spark of stronger optimism. I have a dream about a new space for my study in the house, but need to see whether I can bring up the energy to make the move. A bit of renovating would be required as well. Not sure I have the strength for it after this brutal year. Let’s see.
Tonight, I am watching TV and ironing. The pile of laundry is begging to be dealt with.
Tomorrow, I visit a friend who is going through a very rough time and I go to a wine tasting and hopefully visit a bookshop I have been dreaming of for months … And I hope to do some travel writing!
But first: The Pile.
Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.
“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”
It took me nearly fifteen years to realise that – like me – Mozart loves pistachio ice cream! He would not take no for an answer today when my love and I had our dessert after I’d braaied some chops for us this evening – Mozart wanted his share of the ice cream and that was that (he was not interested in the chops)!
I have been back at my desk full-time again these past two days, and, although a lot of work has been done, I feel once again like I am treading water. But, it’s the nature of this year. One just needs to plough on and hope for the best.
One also needs to understand that mistakes will be made – it’s the pandemic brain and impossible pressures. Miss Molly helps with coping. I am on my second (very!) generous glass …
A woman I know and like very much is in a hospital, fighting to recover from Covid-19. An author I work with is at home, trying to fight off this virus. He says it’s rough. My heart is sore just thinking about it. The numbers everywhere are so frightening that I put on my mask, wash my hands and keep my distance from everyone with renewed fervour. I don’t want this disease! I don’t want to pass it on to anyone either …
My love and I have cancelled all our Christmas plans. No social gatherings of any kind. We will continue to engage with the world, but only in each other’s company. I feel that one-on-one interaction with masks on is fine in all kinds of controlled circumstances, especially outside of confined spaces, but everything is so difficult to judge. One really needs to be careful. It can be a matter of life and death …
An early night. TV, more bubbly and some sleep. What a year!
Recently, I wrote a few book reviews. You can read one of them here: LitNet
Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.
“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”
My Little Brother Krystian is FORTY today. We celebrated lockdown-style with a family lunch on Skype, birthday cake with forty candles, singing, bubbly and all. And tonight, he is having a virtual party with his friends.
I can only imagine what Krystian wished for when he blew out his candles, but I know exactly what I wish for him – health – and I know that all good things will follow from there.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the best brother in the galaxy – may the Force be with you, always!
Be kind. Wear a mask. Support local.
“Physical distancing remains one of the key strategies to curb this pandemic.”
WildEarth live safaris have kept me sane during the entire lockdown, but it was finally time to experience the real thing. My love organised everything. Passports and negative Covid-test results in hand, we drove out to the ghost town that was Cape Town International in the beginning of December and began the long trek north to Joburg, Maun and Khwai. Although we were there mid-morning, O. R. Tambo International felt like an airport long after midnight: shops closed or empty, hardly any people or planes to be seen anywhere. But everything went smoothly. The safety protocols in place at the airports and during the flights (Airlink and Mack Air) were excellent, with staff everywhere adhering to and safeguarding the rules as well as trying to make one feel comfortable despite the challenges. But: fellow travellers leave a lot to be desired. I don’t want to exaggerate, but it is difficult to forget the stupid, careless, occasionally vicious, behaviour we have witnessed en route.
(If you want to wilfully get sick, suffer and die, fine with me – really – but you are not alone on this planet and don’t start f@#$%^ breathing down my neck when you are meant to stand in a queue one-and-a-half meters behind me.)
Sorry.
Deep breaths.
We were supposed to stay at two Natural Selection camps in the Okavango Delta and arrived at the first one, Tuludi, with the only other guest, a British travel writer who turned out to be a fascinating travel companion. The three of us were the first – let me repeat that: the first – guests at the lodge since the lockdown in March. And tourism, like water, is the region’s lifeblood. There were four other local guests at the second camp, Sable Alley. And we met a German couple travelling through Botswana during our unexpected visit to the third Natural Selection camp, Meno A Kwena, a two-hour drive south of Maun, on our last night in Botswana (yeah, you guessed it – we had to go back early to Maun because of the local government’s confusing messaging around Covid testing for the return trip home; instead of planned rapid testing at the airport just before our flight, we had to go the more conventional route and do the ordinary test one day in advance – but the staff at Natural Selection handled the entire thing with such efficiency that we did not feel that we were losing out on anything, just gaining an additional amazing experience). These camps are not meant to accommodate two, or three, or six visitors only, and it is heart-breaking to see them – with all of that glorious wonder that they have to offer all around – nearly empty. I am not even going to start on the totally empty camping areas we saw on game drives. It was devastating.
Again, all the places we visited had excellent safety protocols in place. I never felt that I was putting myself at any additional risk while being there. I don’t know how they remained optimistic during all this time, but the staff members we encountered at these camps were not discouraged – they just put on their masks, kept appropriate distance, measured our temperatures and monitored everyone for symptoms religiously. On one of the drives, our fantastic guide, Russell, took us to the village of Khwai, where the first thing we noticed was a selection of masks drying on a washing line outside of one of the traditional homesteads. What we did not see until the fourth day of driving around was another vehicle on safari …
Russell told us that they had used the time of the lockdown to upskill people and upgrade infrastructure and did drive around as much as possible to assure that the animals would remember us humans when we returned one day, but it was quite obvious that, despite the local rangers’ efforts, some of the animals were not as relaxed around us as usual. And now, more and more young are being born who have no opportunity of getting used to these strange gawking creatures with their cameras and binoculars – new ones, nogal, a gift for the trip from my love – always pointed at them.
Wildlife highlights for me were: squirrels in the mopane forests, red lechwes, dwarf mongooses, all hornbills of the area, a blue waxbill, Southern carmine bee-eaters, lilac-breasted rollers, jacanas, coppery-tailed coucals, saddle-billed storks (Russell taught me to tell the female and male apart), wattled cranes, an emerald-spotted wood dove, go-away-birds, monitor lizard, tsessebes, a leopard tortoise, zebras, warthogs, crocs, giraffes, elephants, Southern banded groundlings, kingfishers, The Vultures, and then, of course, a leopard, a hyena, a sable antelope in the distance and the two male lions right next to our vehicle (they were too lazy to move after a huge feast – those bellies!). No leeches. No scorpions. Thank all goddesses! A truly rare sighting instead: a black coucal.
Personal safari joys of note: passing a copse, I noticed a feather falling from one of the trees and then pointed it out to the others, who then spotted the beauty it came from, a Verreaux’s eagle-owl. And I was the one who first saw a side-striped jackal slinking away through the tall delta grasses, but Russell identified it for us.
I am totally and completely in love with hippos. Their grunts always make me smile and seeing a hippo sail through the air like a ballerina on its outrageously ridiculous legs is a sight I will never forget.
A moment of despair: a lechwe mother fighting off vultures wanting to feast on her dead baby. She could not walk away from the small corpse for nearly an hour, giving up only when a pair of lappet-faced vultures arrived on the scene. No one can tell me that this was pure instinct only (instinct would have told her to leave because of the predators lurking). It was loss and grief and a mother’s brave heart on display …
A trip like this is physically exhausting – early wake-ups, long drives, heat, rain, vigilance – and yet, there is a part of you that rests in a way that allows the batteries to recharge even within a few days.
I did not know how to imagine the landscape before arriving, but the moment we landed I felt at peace with the world. The rains had started and we witnessed spectacular thunderstorms in the afternoons and evenings. During our mokoro excursion, we had two violent weather systems painting brooding clouds, lightening and rainbows on both sides of the water channel we were traversing, but between them, all was calm and so beautiful, I just wanted to lie in the canoe and look out and forget about the entire world – thunder, crocs, hippos and all. And this before the G&T sunset on one of the delta’s stunning islands.
I had Amarula coffee with a warthog and giraffe watching. I made Okavango rainbow wishes that I hope will come true. And I had one of the most luxurious baths of my life.
Throughout, I slept like a stone and thought that it was the malaria medication, but I continued taking it for a week after the trip and stopped sleeping properly again the moment I got back home, so it wasn’t the pills – it was the state of mind induced by this astounding place on earth, the Okavango Delta.
Writing a paper diary while travelling :)
Thank you to Colin Bell and the entire Natural Selection team, and my love – the best (travel) companion – for making lifetime dreams come true.
Karina Magdalena 