Butternut Soup

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Forum Homini, Roots Restaurant

Rather than rattle through the entire Sunday menu at Roots, where Rob and I celebrated our first six months of married life as we basked in the golden sunshine and tawny light of the highveld winter, the mirrored surface of the dam before us and the wood-and-glass elegance of the restaurant at our backs, let me share with you a sense of just one dish: the first course, after an amuse bouche – Butternut Soup.

Not just any butternut soup: this was presented as a scoop of – wait for it – curry ice-cream (yes, curry ice-cream) in the deep centre of a wide-rimmed white bowl; and when the bowls had been carefully centred on the perspex place-mats before us, through which we could read the six-course Lunch Menu and the list of Wine Teasers, a waiter came round with a tall silver jug from which she poured a careful measure of silkily refined, smoothly orange butternut soup.

A work of art, indeed: a study in colour, texture, temperature and taste that set the scene for what was to follow – and what was to keep us occupied, interested, entertained and absorbed well into the late afternoon.

What the heck, let me spell it out for you – prawns perched on a corn salsa with squid ink pasta, hondashi froth and sauce meuniere; chive crusted cob on tomato smoor lentils with peas and lemon cream; confit duck with a celeriac puree, honey-roasted beetroot, mange tout and truffle jus; a green apple sorbet to cleanse the palate; strawberry chocolate tart with creme anglaise and pistachio ice-cream; and finally (excepting, that is, the coffee and hand-made chocolates) a Danish Blue Cheese Cake with pears, walnuts and rocket.

On the drive back home, through the fading light that spread across the ancient rolling hills of the Magaliesberg, we joked about who was going to make the supper, and what we should have. And then we did nothing. How could we, after such an experience?

Getting things done

So here’s what can happen when you set aside some time to get a few things done, especially if the things that want doing have something to do with the government.

There has been no time, for several weeks past, to attend to personal business and so, in planning for this busy week – interviews in two cities and two universities, meetings, you know the drill – I also set aside this morning, to attend to matters of my own. In driving order, in other words, in the order I followed to go from office to office, I wanted to i) tackle the municipality about the bucket-load of money they have owed me, by way of a refund on an extortionate advance payment on my water and electricity, since I sold and transferred ownership of the house in Emmarentia, last September; ii) I hoped to collect the new police clearance certificate I applied for early in May, to send on to the Canadian immigration authorities; and iii) I planned to renew my vehicle licence, which expires at the end of this month.

Knowing that trying to call the city call centre on the telephone had less chance of success than trying to place a collect-call to Barack Obama, I climbed into the Landy after first getting myself into a positive frame of mind by working, most satisfactorily, on my novel for an hour, and headed over to the Sandton call centre to find someone I could make understand, politely, that the city had owed me for almost nine months now, and I wanted my money. I would even take it without interest – just pay me, okay?

Ja well no fine, as we say here in South Africa: the call centre was offline and unable to help me. That is, assuming they could have helped me if they had been online, which is a second doubtful proposition. Viva ANC, viva! Who was it, again, who voted these people back in? These people, who create a billing crisis of national proportions and then deny its existence? These people who can’t fill in a pothole or mend a streetlight but know where the best places in town are to party, at ratepayers expense? These people who – never mind.

Onwards and upwards: up the hill to Morningside, to the police station: no Mr Fisher (very polite, this lady administrator, at the Sandton cop-shop) your police clearance is not here. Try again next Friday.

Oh well, they did say it could take up to two months. So on now to renew the licence for the Landy. Fortunately this could be done at the Hyde Park shopping centre, at the Post Office, just a few hundred metres up the drag from our little town house. I zip into the parking garage, and go to draw some money. There is a queue to die for, and so I go shopping instead: a scarf (it is 14 degrees in Joburg today) and socks, from Woollies. Back to the ATM, where a family group has gathered for a puzzled – and extended – conversation. Eventually I draw the cash and make my way to the Post Office, which always has processed car licences – only to find a sign, the gist of which is that we can’t do that here right now. When? I ask someone behind the counter. What is the problem? We’re waiting for ‘them’ to send us someone to process the licences, she says. When will that be? I ask. She shrugs and smiles. ‘I don’t know.’ ‘So where can I get my licence?’ I ask. She smiles again and rattles off a list of post offices, from Sandton to Randburg.

Outside in the parking garage I pause: shall I just call it quits for the day, go home and have some lunch? Hell, I say, I’ve set aside the day for this, I’ve got to accomplish something! So I get back into the Landy and forge my way through the traffic to Rosebank; park the car, and head down the escalators to the Post Office. I hand over my licence disc. ‘Can I renew my licence with this?’ I ask. ‘Yes – just fill in the form – .’ The fellow at the counter pushes over a green form – ‘and I’ll need your ID.’ He points to the place on the form where it says Type of Identification. Traffic register number; RSA ID; foreign ID; business reg. no. ‘I have a drivers licence,’ I say. ‘No,’ he says. ‘It has to be one of these.’

So the traffic department, whose business, whose reason for existence, is cars and drivers, won’t accept a drivers licence as ID, when absolutely EVERYONE else does? Go figure. I take a deep, deep breath, and mutter the word ‘shit,’ loudly enough to turn one or two heads.

And so, eventually, I return home at one o’clock having accomplished, of the three objectives for this morning that I have carefully and with forethought set aside, precisely none.

Except that I did manage to drop off some dry cleaning, and replenish my stock of ink and notepads – I will be needing those, when I get stuck back into the next round of interviews.

Winter Solstice

We have been married six months precisely, Rob and I: we did the deed on the summer solstice, and wake this morning on the winter one. And indeed, the six months past have flown effortlessly by, like a dream, a very happy one I have to say.

From here the days grow longer, and so too, I hope, will years of happy married life reach out ahead of us.

How many sleeps?

If I go to sleep now, you will get here sooner. So on Friday night I set my alarm for 5.30am, thinking I would collect Rob at Sandton Station at 6, or 6.30, or maybe 7, and went early to bed and quickly to sleep. And so it was: early on Saturday morning, 10 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, there was an SMS from Rob – I am here! I am through customs and immigration, and on my way to the train.

The first train leaves at 5.30: I had just time for a quick shower, and then the 10 minute dash to the station. As I pulled in to the drop-off zone, I looked towards the escalators which bring passengers and commuters up from the deep bowels of the earth, but there was no-one there. I drew up to the kerb, switched off, and got out, and as I walked around the back of the Landy the first traveller rose into sight. Then another, and then it was Rob – hauling a large red suitcase, full of Arctic gear for Eve and Shaun who head out in December for a hiking and climbing trip in Nepal, and another, smaller carry-on, and a duty-free bag from Abu Dhabi, with cognac and sticky arabian sweets in it.

By 6 o’clock we were home, and by 6.15 Rob was soaking in a hot tub, warm and happy after two long nights cramped in an aircraft.

Some childhood mantras work, sometimes. How many sleeps till we are there?

Full Eclipse of the Moon

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Gail Elliot, lunar eclipse

I have not been able to pass Gail Elliot’s picture, this past week, without stopping in my tracks, in disbelief. The photo, on the programme for Gail’s memorial service, has lain face up in my office at home since I attended the service at Sacred Heart a week ago. I have left it there, reluctant for some reason to let it go: I stop on my way out of the office and think, this is absurd, why don’t I just give Gail a call and arrange to meet her somewhere for coffee, and put all this silliness to rest.

But, despite the robust appearance of life that her photograph represents, she is gone: she died of a heart attack, after what by all accounts was a happy day’s diving in Madagascar, about two weeks ago – just barely into her fifties, five years younger than me.

Gail was a colleague and friend, and I worked with her often during my time at the NBI. I enjoyed her mind, her humour and intensity, her raucous smokers laugh. Others knew her much better than I, we were not personally close, but she was a fixed part of the world as I knew it, someone who was always there – and the person you knew without doubt you had to call, when a particular issue came up, in the realm of skills development and training.

Monday was my daughter Eve’s birthday, and yesterday was Jonathan’s: my two daughters and their partners came round for a braai last night, and we spoke to Jonathan in London. The evening was clear and chilly, but I had built a fire in the fire pit and built up a bank of coals, and we sat around the fire with our glasses of wine and our plates of food and watched as the earth’s shadow crept across a white-hot moon, turning it a rusty red. On the other side of the world, Rob was spending her last full day in Toronto before flying home, much later tonight, to me.

Planes cross the skies, the moon is clouded and coloured by the earth, and people’s voices ring out in the darkness. Life has to continue, and does, despite the losses and portents.

When life takes over

I had other plans for today, other responsibilities – but the day was fine and mild, and after sitting outside with the FT over a mid-morning breakfast, after a cup of coffee and an indulgent cigar, other ideas took hold. The past week or so has seen a lot of travel, so I wanted to be at home; the days have been full of interviews and reading, words and talk – I have begun the final section of the second last chapter of my novel, I have had emails to write and documents to draft, and screeds and screeds of handwritten notes to file, mentally as well as literally – so I wanted some other kind of diversion, something else to absorb and satisfy.

Perhaps because I have been browsing, knees drawn up under the duvet these cold and solo nights, through a book on photography, and a Birds and Birding photo supplement, I suddenly thought I might spend some time sorting through photos, maybe touching up a picture or two, maybe even making a print.

The day simply flew. Apart from a lovely call from my daughter Kathy, just back from two weeks running training courses in Kenya and Tanzania, and a call from my wife – it is time, now, my darling, to come on home  – all I could think of was the images I was working on: selecting, editing, running a couple of trial prints, discarding those that didn’t work and – by the end of the day, as the light outside was cooling and the sky became luminous and clear – I had two A3 prints laid out in Rob’s office, and a smaller A4 photograph. And here they are:

Like some of you who may be reading this blog, I have been reminded, too, too recently and too suddenly, that all of our lives hang by the merest thread: it is important that we live, while we are alive. Sometimes it’s good, when life takes over.

Potchefstroom

I am in Potchefstroom for another two days of engineering interviews, having arrived at 9:30am after an interesting drive down from Johannesburg in tricky and surprising winter conditions – torrential rain, dark, treacherous roads. Not to mention the pool of water I hit somewhere between Soweto and Carltonville, despite all my vigilance and care, at around 100km – muddy water over the top of the Landy and a wall of mud covering the windscreen! It was a case of hang on tight, maintain a straight line, and plough through to the other side!

Once in town I found a little shopping area – ‘Cachet Park,’ no less – near to the university: only one little coffee shop was sleepily open; apart from a woman smoking outside, I was the only customer. Outside another restaurant across the way, which had an open sign but was still closed, a polite male student addressed me deferentially as ‘oom’ – uncle – I am in a different kinda town here, I tell you!

On second thoughts, perhaps I’m not in another town, but another country?

Food and bachelorhood

You can tell I am (temporarily) a bachelor again, from the food: lunch yesterday, my own home-made minestrone, from the freezer; dinner last night, Rob’s beef stew, from the freezer; dinner tonight, Rob’s lamb stew, from the freezer. But tomorrow I shall cut loose a little bit and do a couple of veal chops, bought today at Thrupps – as Rob says, I like to plan my meals ahead.

The house is cold, although the days have been mild and bright; and the bed is cold, and empty too. Harder to warm up, on your own.

I’m glad Rob is off in Toronto, doing the Art Walk, having a barbecue with Boyd and the gang, meeting up with Stacey and Lesley and other friends for lunch or coffee or a walk – going through her accumulated mail, going through her bills, doing her taxes. It’s good to have a life, on both sides of the water; good that we both should stay connected to our roots, our separate and independent lives, our friends and our families.

But it will be good, too, when Rob gets back home to her husband; good when we both can be in our little house in Toronto together; good when we can have transcontinental synchronicity, as well as independence.

Bit by bit, we learn to move together, in the dance. Let go, come back.

BBC News – Albertina Sisulu: South Africa loses a moral compass

BBC News – Albertina Sisulu: South Africa loses a moral compass.

Further comment is unnecessary. The story, in all its aspects, speaks for itself. Go in peace, Ma Sisulu. And thank you.

Journeys

I write this from Durban – Umhlanga Rocks, to be precise, and my sister Laura’s new apartment – at the end of three days of meetings and research interviews at the University of KwaZulu Natal. So far, so good. On the other side of the world, Rob is yacking away, a million miles to the gallon, with Toronto friends Bill and Gail, also on their way home, but in their case, after a family holiday that has encompassed, so far as I know, Israel and Greece, France and who knows where else.

By lucky chance, Rob, Bill and Gail are all on the same flight out, from Paris to Toronto: and in the early hours of this morning, when I am fast asleep, they will be disembarking together at Pearson airport, and heading home. It will be the first time that Rob has seen her little house, at 84 Marchmount Road, since August last; and like a true production manager, she will bound into action this weekend, seeing friends, going places, taking care of domestic business and personal pleasures – happy, I am sure, to be home at last, and eager to lick every bit of sweetness off the lollipop.

But she is a married woman now, with a husband to come home to: and hopefully by the time she does head home, two weeks from now, she will be looking forward almost as much – maybe just as much – to being home again, in her other home, with me.

And by then, I’m sure, I’ll have had enough of work and solitude, and be ready to resume a life of happy domesticity.

Next trip to Toronto, it will be the two of us together – and with a rather different, Canadian, phase of our lives in mind.

So, hey, Rob, when you read this, think of me, okay?