and if you think that i exaggerate, a couple of pictures:-
sorry not that clear but top shelf is black (one and a half piles) and grey, middle shelf is white - hope you are impressed there is a bit of colour there too, bottom shelf - don't get shocked by the polka dots (that is a nighty and wont be seen during the day - lucky michael!!!). perhaps i did exaggerate on the tidiness point it does not look as neat as i thought.
still experimenting with the new camera so the pictures are not that sharp. below is the kitchen as it is today:-
the before picture to save you scrolling back to the "simplicity" post:-
the tin collection:-
the snobby tin collection (bet you all have bought either the biscuits, tea bags or a single carrier bag from harrods, but have you got the fortum & mason's biscuit tin?)
on the subject of things british it is my brother david's birthday today (he is half-british but more south african than me). david is 36 today (there you go nic - if you are still a follower - he has asked me very nicely to please stop using the em, bb and bs in my posts - apparently it is fine if the entire post is anonymous but it is a bit irritating to new readers (and to him). he always gives constructive criticism so point taken). it was 6 years ago on this very day that my mom (the eccentric one), dalene (the bestest one) and i flew into london for david's 30th birthday. it was a wonderful 2 weeks with the family. nicky deacon joined me once dalene left and we had another 2 crazy weeks - time in london with dave and gareth, a week with matthew in bristol and a very memorable paddy wagon tour to ireland.
i think you may enjoy this little clip as well. sushi in soho, london exactly 6 years ago today - after very fancy cocktails we met up with some of david's friends for sushi. below you will see me taking on one of his mates in a wasabi challenge.
i accept your respect. note the worried little sister's voice in the background (and how many times my mother says jen, jen, jen, jenny and jennifer). also please note how andrew ducks out of the challenge - not very noble (no invite to the wedding for him). i have an amazing video that david made of the trip and would love to show you bits of it but i need to have a crash course in editing first.
i see the dictionary definition has 5 parts. as i child i remember my grandfather (he was a very funny man) calling people "simpletons". it always sounded a bit like a surname to me and i had a picture in my mind of this family of simpletons - do you know the simpletons? funnily enough i have not heard that word in ages - i must try to use it again sometime.
when we talk about something being simple people assume that it's lacking in sophistication or good sense or intelligence. i think that is very foolish. i like the last definition "clarity of expression".
what springs to mind when you think of simplicity?
dressmaking patterns?
there is this whole new way of living - voluntary simplicity - "a lifestyle that is characterised by living with only essentials". i tried very hard yesterday to practice some voluntary simplicity. i had the afternoon to myself and decided to de-clutter and organise my clothing. why do i get attached to clothes that i know i will never wear again? why do i have 21 black t-shirts? do i really need them? i unfolded them all and managed to discard only 3. re-folded them again and at the end of an hour i had completed only 3 of the 6 shelves. 18 black t-shirts, 8 longsleeved black t-shirts, 5 white t-shirts, 6 white longsleeved t-shirts. i managed to de-clutter and give away some colourful tops (4, maybe only 3 if i pull back the one i am not too sure about giving away) that i thought i may one day wear but i know i won't. so the 3 top shelves are still too crowded but are now colour co-ordinated (if you can call black, white and grey colour co-ordinated) and very, very neat (even if i say so myself).
would i love to live a minimilistic life? i don't think so, i love surrounding myself with all the things i love. i found this picture on my computer the other day of my kitchen taken 2 years ago
not much has changed except that the cement counter under the window is now filled with plants, cuttings of plants, herbs, a new coffee maker. i'll show you a picture soon. also quite a few more tins added to the collection which i managed to steal from franklin at work (don't tell his wife but he is addicted to auctions).
so basically i am not a simpleton, i do like the whole idea but it is not really me.
off the subject, aren't these simple soaps divine?
i am bit over the expression. it has a morbid feel to it (not that i am adverse to being morbid). actually i have been more morbid than usual of late but nicely morbid (that is possible). i have been thinking a lot of a close friend, vaughan who died over 10 years ago. vaughan was a "bucket list" person - an ideas man who made lists, who would come around for dinner with his diary and fill in details of when, where and with whom we were going to do things. and we did things. he would hear that joe cocker was coming to cape town in 6 months time, diarise when the booking opened and be first in the queue to get tickets (before internet and on-line bookings). we had wonderful weekends at his holiday home in betty's bay, he booked a spontaneous trip to plettenberg bay for a weekend just to check up on the house we were renting in july, he loved music - all kinds of music and had a rule that if you started playing a song you could not cut into it or change tracks because you did not like it, you had to listen to it to the end and then decide (i still feel guilty whenever i do not obey that rule - which is pretty often), if it was a warm summer evening you would take your supper to the beach or the forest or even keurboom park. he was not afraid to get in the car and drive. he would drive to stellenbosch in the morning to pick strawberries to have with ice-cream for lunch. he was not afraid of anything. he must have ticked off many things on his bucket list and he would have had an extremely long one but very tragically his list came to an end far too soon. i should write a whole post on vaughan (maybe even a book) - he taught me so much but not enough as i am extremely bad at getting around to doing things - good intentions and ideas but not too great on the follow through (and i switch tracks when i don't feel like listening to a certain song!)
so on thinking about bucket lists and my personal list i realised that so much of it is wishy-washy stuff that everybody would like to do - visit all 5 continents (or is it 7?), go to india, learn mandarin chinese, skydive, run a marathon, parasail in acapulco. all a lot of pie-in-the-sky things that you would maybe be able to do if lots of extra cash fell into your sweaty little palm but if it did not why even dream or bother? having a list can motivate you and seeing it in print is important but let's try and keep it real. after my lovely day on saturday i realised that putting the stellenbosch food market at the top of your list and then ticking it off is extremely satisfying. so what about a list of attainable things you feel the need to do? sadly i would still have to divide my list into sections, which unfortunately once again fall into "almost free", "some cost" and "will cost" (lists in no particular order)
almost free:
watch more sunrises (so many sunsets in your life and not enough sunrises)
take more photographs
sleep under the stars
more swims in the ocean
walk in the rain and stamp in puddles
take time to visit albertina at her home (followed by lunch at mozoli's)
take more day trips into the country for lazy lunches
organise photographs, albums and frames
sit in my garden in the early morning with a cup of tea (even now that the mornings are darker and colder)
re-discover and organise my old music collection
declutter
write some poetry
have an afternoon watching soppy and sad movies with old brown sherry, a fire and girl friends
laugh more
smile at strangers
read more (or more importantly finish one book before starting another)
tell the people who i love that i love them whenever i can
give more and expect less
some cost:-
walk the catwalk from muizenberg to kalk bay for breakfast
the builders warehouse food market in retreat on a wednesday night
a day trip to riebeeck kasteel to visit their local nursery
treat myself to a new purse
visit little orchard nursery in constantia
visit wine farms in stellenbosch that i have not been to before
high tea at the mount nelson
take the double decker cape town tour bus around cape town and learn more about our city
do the bo-kaap walking tour
take painting lessons
learn to make pasta
join a bookclub
try and see 2 new movies a month
will cost:-
straight back to new york to picnic on bagels in central park
treat michael to golf at augusta and st andrews
take another roadtrip (to anywhere) with the em, bb and bs
take my 3 boys on a holiday to ireland, then new york and to see new england in the fall
take amy and kelly to london to see buckingham palace (and try and get amy an introduction to prince harry!!)
tour the uk, visit family and friends and see the lake district in good weather
tour scotland
visit cheryl in new zealand
a girls holiday in france or italy - walking, cooking, eating, wine and fun
enjoy the holiday tomorrow, put your X in the right box and let me know what is on your list.
i love it when things fit beautifully into place. jigsaw puzzles frustrate me though.
last night i watched the movie crazy heart starring jeff bridges with michael and matthew (home for 2 weeks from kimberley for break from rugby - yeah). both of them were surprised that i watched the entire movie without being prodded or asked "are you awake?"
quick synopsis:-
"Jeff Bridges stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film Crazy Heart from writer-director Scott Cooper. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad can’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man’s crazy heart."
jeff bridges won an oscar for this performance. always an under-rated, under-the-radar kind of actor he is absolutely amazing in this movie AND he can sing (bonus a duet with colin farrell - wow). the soundtrack is awesome and that coming from me who is not a country music fan!! (the songs reminded me quite a bit of leonard cohen gone country). i have watched "the fabulous baker boys" with the bridges brothers and michelle pheiffer many times, i loved "the fisher king" and "the door in the floor". gareth is a number one fan of the man and "the big lebowski" is his most favourite movie. parts of that movie i still don't get but i don't think many days go past when either gareth or nic do not use a "dudeism" - "nobody calls me lebowski. you got the wrong guy. i'm the Dude, man" or "let me explain something to you, i am not "mr. lebowski". you're mr lebowski. I AM THE DUDE. so that's what you call me. you know, that his dudeness, or uh, duder, or el duderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing." crazy children and all very confusing but they will be suitably impressed that i can also quote the dude.
there’s one point in the movie when bad blake leans in to kiss maggie gylennhall - although she is drawn to him, she backs up, because of his breath (i am sure). watching him at work in this movie you know exactly what he smells (and tastes) like. cigarettes and cheap whiskey. no kidding i could smell his breath (and lank, greasy hair) through the screen (no wonder i did not fall asleep) and at the same time he manages to be so very sexy (i know bestest sister will not agree with me and argue this point - we don't agree on music or the hotness scale of men - how can you not like victor matfield??!). back to bad blake. he was once a big country star. he drives an old beat up truck and plays his gigs at bowling alleys. faded-past-their-sell-by-date ladies sway to him singing in smokey bars. it is all pretty sad. but these people remember and support their once hero - he is loved and remembered by his fans in these smokey alleys and bars but sadly he is so far gone in his alcoholism that the love of these fans does not seem to touch him.
i am really sorry that i did not see this movie when it was first released but to sit down last night and watch this dude act (and sing) was the cherry on the top of a great weekend. but then i could not go to sleep.
watch this clip first:-
apparently the director scott cooper approached country singer toby keith about filming a live segment of his film during his break at a live concert in albuquerque. the production crew had 10 minutes to film the two actors singing in front of 12 000 fans. this was a surprise for the audience who went crazy when they discovered that they were party to the movie. the whole song was up on youtube within hours. (a bit of useless trivia for you).
oops this is turning into my first movie review so back to the wakeful hours last night. i had a kind-of theme running for this week in the back of my mind. it was going to be about dreams and wishes and bucket lists and doing things for yourself that make you happy (i had such a great day on saturday, left for stellenbosch early with da girls - morning market, breads and cheeses and brownies and wine and that lovely biscuit pizza with rocket, italian cheese and balsamic reduction followed by watching nic play rugby for uct, bubbles and picnic on the sidelines (it was intervarsity after all and ikeys won), into town for coffee and carrot cake - i ditched da girls in stellenbosch (they had one more stop to make) and headed home to finish off the day with a dinner party at home with lovely people and lovely wine - in all a thoroughly lovely day).
so now maybe starting with crazy heart sets the scene for the week perfectly. the film is raw and sincere and bad blake's character grips at your heart. what i took away from the movie is that is is never too late to change, to become a better person and better friend. (there are some incredible moments with him forming a special relationship with maggie's 4 year old boy). we all have some of bad blake inside ourselves (hopefully not the smell of the breath and the hair), we all have battles to fight and a story to tell (some, like me just take a little bit longer to get to the point of the story - is there ever a point?). but thanks for the feedback i am getting from "the followers" - you are getting my point (or lack thereof) and as my late great friend vaughan would say "i am having a jolly fun time".
