Gratitude. Gratitude. Gratitude… I’ve been mocked in the past for this being my stock response. As if it were a default setting. Actually, it’s a muscle. One I deliberately built and exercised years ago, so now there is much muscle memory. And, just as with my return to cycling in the last couple of months,…
Eiffel for that
“I’m gonna cycle from London to Paris with some of my mates,” said my brother a couple of months ago. “Ooh, awesome, count me in! How far is it and how many days we going to take?” “270 kays. 24 hours.” “Oof. Why so quick?” “It’s a thing.” “Aah, yes, obvs. Well, I haven’t cycled…
Spilled milk
What a moegoe I am. After a failed night mtb ride yesterday (foiled by a closed gate at Tokai – what’s with that?), I’m out solo on the touring bike this morning. There I am, admiring the Atlantic views as I slog up Slangkop, when I get distracted from my reveries by a sort of…
There may have been tears in the iStore
We met in Bangkok, if I recall. (Forgive me – It’s a bit hazy. I got around in those days.) Lived together in Laos, Cambodia and South Africa – across, let’s see… How many homes? The French Colonial one on the Mekong, the one in that Vientiane garden (remember Covid together, just you and me?),…
Summary of my year to date
In the foreground, cerise blooms.Cindered mountain backdrop.Cold fog recedes after the deluge.Birds squeak.Sun rises.Summary of my year to date. Submitted my taxes yesterday.Yes, an audit likely still to comeBut so too the greenAfter a sparkle-mad arsonistEnflamed the dry flora. For I am Fynbos,Resilient to the burn (ish)Ready to flower (nearly)Post the flame and flood.
Six days to the solstice
Or, more importantly, six nights. Long ones. Dark so late. And so early. But soon it will turn, and those dawns will inch earlier. Bigger but: it’s not winter in my heart. Funny how some things are cyclical, and others not: I suddenly turned a corner. Hadn’t understood the pattern of the pendulum. Now I…
The house is sold. I am single again. And tired.
In airy inside-outside space in Bangkok’s Chinatown. Classic jazz wafts and dips on the winds of rotating fans. Walls a telephone-wire mangle of old roots stitching together ruins and offshoots. Thai Instagrabbers everywhere. And I have stopped. Literally. Figuratively. For the first time in the longest time. A pleasure more guilty even than the custard…
Nomads nesting
Tim and I have been shopping. A lot. It’s less than two short months since moving to South Africa, and we still can’t really face much of a mall, but we’ve bought bead-sewn denim and vintage dresses and squishy soft Doc Martens from thrift-store stands, sheets and casserole dishes and rechargeable lightbulbs at warehouse outlets,…
And then I met my match 😊
Some paths slowly meander in the same direction, casually. Others intersect. A definite meeting. Ours was that latter.
North x Moto + Wing(it)
He was heading north to Ratanakiri. I invited myself along. Plus asked him to delay departure by a few days. I had a ticket to the New Year’s ball. Frock and heels in need of an outing. Room booked at Raffles, one of the grandest old dames of a hotel in the region. And I…
