Hope

I am no sports fan. But I have succumbed to the World Cup fever in a big way. My, what excitement! It feels like the entire country has come together, united for a change. I have planted a flag in a potplant in front of our house, I have a flag flying proudly on my car, and I have watched three games on TV so far. Unprecedented! And Snous has joined me.

Hey, what's this?

Wow, great move!

Okay, guys, now get that ball!

Yay, Bafana, Yaaaaayy!!!
















We are playing France today. I have great hopes for us.
Go, Bafana Bafana!! Go!!!!

Larger than (one) life

I have always liked the idea of having several lives, to be larger than my one life, so to speak.
Anairam, my online blog persona, is part of this. I experimented with Second Life. Tango also allowed me to live another life. (Sadly, I decided to retire from tango at the end of last year.) And the reason I am so addicted to books and movies is because they give me the opportunity to at least experience other lives.

Journal page (paint, pen&ink, dress pattern, clothing label, magazine illustration)
"Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself.
I am large,
I contain multitudes."
(Walt Whitman)

Home.

A journal page I made a while ago. After the horrible xenophobic attacks of 2008, many refugees were housed in camps in and around Cape Town. Some months ago, the last operating CT camp (at Blue Waters) was closed down permanently. Some refugees agreed to be repatriated to their own countries, rather than face the violence directed at them in local townships. Others agreed to be reintegrated in surrounding townships, although many expressed fears of being targeted again. The 187 remaining refugees, who wanted to stay on in the camp, were given a small amount of money and then evicted. I am possibly simplifying the situation. But imagine yourself in a strange country, where you hoped to find a better life, evicted with your small bundle of possessions. Whereto now? Where is home? Nowhere ...

Journal page (newspaper photograph, paint, fabric tape).

Clever dog!

The Emma Animal Rescue Society is where I adopted Snous. As you can see below, they specialise in rather clever dogs.

Snous doing a little light reading ...

Double knitting

Remember the I-cord knitting I did a while ago? Well, I bought myself some nice black cotton yarn, and knitted a very long I-cord with it. This was purely to relieve work stress and minimise neighbourly murderous thoughts; I didn't actually plan to do anything with it. (Knitting and crocheting are great stress-relievers. I found that out many years ago when I was writing exams. You just knit and knit, and at the end you pull it all out and start over again. I know it sounds completely wacky, but hey, it worked for me ...) Anyway, I was looking at this long string of black I-cord the other day and wondering what to do with it. So I used it as yarn, and knitted a small, chunky rectangle with it.
Double knitting, get it??
And once I had my small rectangle, I decided to make it into a winter choker. It is over 2 inches wide, so it is lovely and warm around my neck.  I used an old Xmas decoration and one of the buttons in my stash to close it.

PS I am having a BLOG party tomorrow night. Not on my own blog though, but on yours! Yes, for the first time in months I am setting aside two hours to visit you all. I am not quite finished with the editing, but I am checking the last of the second pages - so there is a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel. Keep the bubbly on ice, please! And a slice of chocolate cake will go down really well ...
xxx Anairam

A Tiny Protest Art Installation ... and a Very Looooooooong Protest

This is what we now see from our kitchen ...

and from our sea-facing livingroom window ...

We still see the sea from our front windows (which face the mountainside opposite) - yes, we still have lovely views which millions of others do not have. I guess I shouldn't complain. So what is that little round black object in the bottom right-hand corner then?

That is my Tiny Protest Art Installation - facing Mr Neighbour's new house.

• I am protesting the fact that (since I last wrote about it) he extended his house another metre forward. 

• I am protesting the fact that (after we asked him nicely to please be very careful) he dug right under our entrance hall foundation, causing subsidence which led to the cracking of tiles in our entrance hall. He came to have a look and then said that our house had a bad foundation to start with, and denied all responsibility.

• I am protesting the fact that he dug up the sewage pipes which our property shares with his existing house, introduced two acute bends to facilitate the installation of a set of steps next to his new house, against the advice of his plumber, and has, up to now, stubbornly refused to install the inspection hole which another plumber advised him to do. We would gladly have installed a separate sewage pipe on our side of the wall, but this would require us to dig up our back patio, break down our entrance hall and the stairway leading down to street level, dig up the bricked front yard, install a new pipe, and then rebuild it all - an expense which we certainly cannot afford. In addition the city council official whom we consulted advised us against this. He said that houses sometimes have shared sewage pipes in this area because the developer may have found underground rocks on a specific property.

• I am protesting the fact that when excavations started, our telephone and Internet cable was ripped off - he then bought a new conduit and sent us the bill (yes, I also couldn't believe it, but we were so shocked that we just paid!), he had his builder install it, which was done in a slap-dash fashion, so that four months after the fact, water started leaking into the conduit, our Internet/phone connection was disrupted for weeks on end, until we had the whole job redone at our own expense. Properly.
•  I am protesting the fact that we have no privacy now - his existing house, all three storeys of it - looms over ours, so that our two bedrooms and bathrooms are overlooked. And now his second house looks straight into the south-east side of our house. We will have to permanently decamp to our garden. No wait, we can be seen there as well ...

But most of all I am protesting the fact that he smiles and smiles at everyone, charming as always. Not at us, of course. We had the audacity to complain when we saw that he was building without approved plans, because it was directly affecting us. The city council then interrupted the building, until he had submitted the proper plans. I think that really annoyed him. He is quite a bit younger than us, with lots & lots of family money (he doesn't have to work) and he once referred to the fact that he has friends in high places. I guess to then have one's actions questioned by newcomers to the area, ordinary old people who are not influential, well, that must be simply galling ...

If you have read this far, I thank you. Nothing could be more boring than another person's neighbour problems. I had to let off steam,  but I realize that I have to put this thing to rest now. How would you put something out of your mind when the physical presence is always there to remind you? Meditate? Let me know!

Home Sweet Home - an installation by Anairam (paper doll by Jezze, plastic construction vehicles, vintage toffee tin with the inscription: Take The Home Sweet Home)

A happy birthday and a bit of synchronicity

Today is my birthday. But that is not actually what I want to tell you. No. I really want to tell you about this lovely bit of synchronicity that happened a few weeks ago.
On the 12th of April, the Cape Times crossword puzzle had this clue:
10 Ac: Part of the rosary, we hear, for the ancient monk.
L'Usband, who is a boff at cryptic clues, immediately shouted: "Bede! Bede!"
Now, I collect rosaries, I have them from all over the world: USA, France, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Scotland (but not England - dang, I forgot to get one when I was there!), France, Czech Republic, Argentina, and of course, South Africa. So I do know that rosaries are made from beads, but not being English and not being religious and furthermore, being a total illiterate when it concerns history, I had never heard of Bede. L'Usband had to inform me that the chappie was an ancient monk and was actually known as the Venerable Bede.
Wow.
Two days later, on the 14th, to be exact,  I was working on a proofreading project, and looked up BC and AD in Wikipedia to confirm that this dating system does not have a year zero (proofreaders learn all kinds of interesting things, it is about the only perk of the job) and who do I find? Yep, old Bede again:
"The Anglo-Saxon historian the Venerable Bede, who was familiar with the work of Dionysius, used Anno Domini dating in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, finished in 731. "
But that is not all! The very next day I am in the Kalkbay Bookshop, and I look at their Sale table, where they have a book with a rather striking typeface on the cover - The Dangerous Book for Boys Yearbook. Not the kind of book I would normally pick up, but the cover attracted my attention. I immediately paged to my birthday (as I always do in these types of book). Jeez, what can I tell you? There it was, in big bold letters with a picture and all:
25th of May - the Feast Day of the Venerable Bede ...

Happy Feast Day, Mr Bede!