Category: this is south africa

Day 213 – Big plans and high hopes

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I planned to have time to do proper stuff and do a proper post on here today. Suffice to say, it hasn’t happened. But it’s been a busy day full of hard work, family discussion and a bit of catching up after the Robben Island trip.

I am still exhausted.

I’ll get around to gathering some thoughts tomorrow, I hope – although this week is already looking concerningly busy…

Some good news. The Boy Wonder went out leading a team in a Western Cape Scouting competition in rain, fog and then blazing sunshine yesterday, and captained them to 1st place from nearly 50 teams. It’s a fantastic result after a fantastic effort and I’m so proud.

But right now, some down time (if you don’t mind).

Day 212 – Special

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I’m exhausted. But it was all worth it.

I’ve just got back from helping out on a school trip to Robben Island, but no ordinary trip. This was an all-access visit, and so I found myself – alone – in Nelson Mandela’s prison cell this morning.

Incredible. Moving. Humbling.

But I am – as I mentioned earlier – completely knackered, so more on this tomorrow.

Day 211 – No Marmite

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Infamously, “you either love it or you hate it”. Or you simply can’t buy it.

I was shopping yesterday and I couldn’t find any Marmite. Four different shops comprehensively failed to yield a single jar of popular/unpopular spread between them.
And you can’t just replace it with Bovril, can you? Some of them might be vegetarians.

These things sometimes happen. I remember that time not so long ago that the Western Cape ran out of carbon dioxide (but how?!?!) and couldn’t make Coca-Cola. But Marmite doesn’t need See Oh Too for its manufacture, so what’s gone wrong here?

Well, I think I have worked out the answer.

Remember the whole Lockdown thing* when we weren’t allowed to buy alcohol and were all rationing whatever we had left? Well, because we weren’t allowed to buy beer, breweries couldn’t sell beer and so some breweries stopped brewing beer.

And the yeast that is produced as a by-product of all the brewing of the beer is exactly the ingredient that the Marmite people need to make Marmite. Suddenly it doesn’t seem so bizarre that we’re out of Marmite in SA. No beer, no yeast, no Marmite.

And we can all blame Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

You either love her or you hate her.

 

* we must be on Day 211 or something by now… 

 

Day 208 – A mention

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Nemone has been sitting for Lauren Laverne on the 6 Music Breakfast Show this week and she pulled out some absolute bangers this morning. You don’t get to choose what’s on the radio, and so you’re not going to like every track back to back, but every so often, there’s one of rare those shows that just hits the mark. Repeatedly.

Today’s show was one of them. And when this came on:

Magic.

… I got in touch with Nemone because I was taken back all the way to their mental performance at Glastonbury in 2003. Not least because it took nearly a minute for their 24 red-robed members to file onto the stage and take their place. Mad.

Anyway, long story short, she had also been thinking of that performance (because music can do that to you), she replied to my tweet and then I even got a very brief mention on air.
All the way from Cape Town.

Fame. At last.

Please form an orderly queue for autographs.
No selfies, (this is for everyone’s wellbeing).

Day 206 – Tree QP

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I’ve had a busy day, and I’ve got no plans to do anything but chill out this evening.

Have a quota photo of a dead tree (I knew you’d be impressed):

This was taken at Theewaterskloof last week. I liked the juxtaposition of the two bright colours at the top and bottom, the mute stripe in the middle and that angular tree pushing through all three layers.

Bigger here, if you want.