Winter mornings in the Cape

Why hello there. It's been a while, (gets completely sidetracked by Facebook) since I last wrote I've had days of studying, early morning exams, a slight jamie olive addiction, become a star trek fan, minor breakdowns fixed by hot-chocolate with mini marshmallows, relief, a second kitchen tea, mornings of tv watching, re-discovering my books, 6 hours of baking, an aversion to chocolate (due to baking), winter sales, disappointments, goodbyes, hellos, cold cape weather and peppermint tea.

I love cold winters, going to sleep with the rain beating down on the roof, snuggled under layers of blankets. Which is pretty fortunate seeing as I'm in Cape Town for 2 weeks. 

Also helpful is bringing with a pile of books that I've been meaning to read forever. I just finished C.S Lewis's 'That Hideous Strength' which was by far my favorite of the three books in his trilogy. I think his use of Arthurian legend is really what got me hooked, and Merlin -oh it was so exciting. After that I read another C.S Lewis, his re-telling of the greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, 'Till we have Faces' and because I absolutely love greek myths I was always going to love the book. It speaks such truth about human nature and love- it's terrifyingly accurate in fact- and it made me want to read more on the greek legends (a good thing as i'm majoring in classics). It seemed to have the same affect of Graham because he is now hooked on a novel re-telling the Trojan war. Today I started an autobiography of F.Scott Fitzgerald which is slightly shocking, usually I detest biographies and auto-biographies but I do love me some Fitzgerald. And in amongst this I'm trying desperately to finish a book by D.A Carson that iv'e been sitting on for a few weeks now- so much reading and so much time to do it in makes Lynsay a happy lady.

   

I'm just trying to give my brain a rest after my exams (which went mostly very well thanks for asking) and I only had one incredibly disappointing mark, English. It's pretty disheartening when the subject I'm majoring in, the subject that is the whole reason why I'm even doing another degree turns out to be the subject I suck at the most. Perhaps I'm being too critical of my natural abilities. Everyone I've spoken to (or rather whined about this to) has been encouraging, told me that I needed time to adjust (apparently not applicable for the other subjects though) that english is just a generally hard subject to conquer, that it will be better next semester. I hope so otherwise goodness knows what kind of depressing its-the-end-of-my-life posts ill put on here (you should be rooting for me if only not to have to read those types of blog posts).

   

I have however been excelling in some other areas of life - the incredibly tiny culinary area of my life. My parents gave my Jamie Oliver's 15 minute meals cookbook and I have triumphantly been able to make two of those meals in under an hour. They were also really tasty. But the climax of my cooking career (so far) came last week when I baked 120 triple chocolate biscuits for a Church function- by the end of my 6 hour baking stint I never wanted to see chocolate again ever- and after they had been served I had a fair amount of people coming up and congratulating me (maybe I forced a few people into giving me their good opinion) on my baking. Even the caterer told graham that the biscuits were excellent. Some little old grannies said they would support me if I opened a bakery. I didn't have the heart to tell anyone that it's actually the recipe that makes the biscuits- anyone can bake (although apparently no one thought I could bake before this cookie incident).

 

I'm off to enjoy some bracing Cape Winter sunshine, some reading time and a delicious sandwich from Knead. Love always x

A long-ish friday morning (sunshine) post

Today the toilet and I are not friends (Graham says it's mostly my fault though) every cleaning day up until now our relationship has been very simple. I squirt pink cleaning stuff in the toilet, scrub the bowl and then it in turn is clean and shiny and smells nice (which is all I ask of it, really). But today when I delicately plunged my toilet brush into the porcelain abyss I got more than I had anticipated when I took the brush out again. It took a few minutes of standing there gagging for me to even figure out what to do. Graham's only in put into the situation was to tell me not to clean the toilet straight after he'd been on it. Lesson learnt. 

It's been marvelous having the past few days off to study; I can have tea in the morning with Graham, read, take my time showering, eat food whenever I feel like it, nap when the work gets too strenuous, have time to make the house sparkling, eat food- Like a mini vacation.

   

This past weekend my parents and a sister flew up to visit us. We took them to Durban's hotspots (just the beach). We had a spectacular breakfast at freedom cafe (to be honest I don't think I've ever had a bad meal there) walked along the promenade, ate ice cream, and then went to Barbacoa for dinner-more amazing food! At the end of the weekend Graham and I couldn't have imagined needing to eat for a while. But luckily on monday that feeling had passed so I made delicious Bacon Carbonara pasta and Bruschetta (I'm trying to figure out a way to make the sauce thicker- double cream just doesn't seem to be working...) and on tuesday night I made incredible sweet potato and chorizo soup which went well with the cold weather.

   

On the subject of cold weather I would just like to draw something interesting about Durban people to your attention. It is rarely ever cold here in winter. And by cold I mean cape town cold, the type of cold that forces you to wear 2 pairs of socks and a beanie and thermal underwear and two jumpers to bed whilst also having your heated blanket on. But for some reason Durban people, who do not experience this cold, think that after a day when the sun hasn't come out by 12pm and there is some drizzle in the air that an ice age is imminent. And this thinking is then worked out by rushing to their nearest supermarket and buying up all the soup and ready made lasagna and bread and anything that could be heated in a microwave. Tuesday was like this. Frenzied mothers with trolleys smashing me and other innocent bystanders (who are just there to buy a packet of mini marshmallows) out of the way in order to get to the last packet of tomato soup and then to hurry out of there before they are snowed into the shopping mall for the winter. It's pretty amusing to see.

   

[Sticks her head around the laptop and sees that the sun has come out and it's a good time to hang up the washing. Hangs up the washing].

   

Graham and I have spent lots of time this week (and other weeks) discussing what we think makes up a family. It may seem a silly question, something that you disregard the first time either of us brings it up but its an interesting and complex question. Are there certain elements that make up a family? Do you, for instance have to be blood related to be a family? No, obviously (I'm just trying to get you to think) and neither is it defined by having a mother or a father or a spouse or children. Sometimes people are pressurized into feeling like they must have one, or all of those things, in order to have a family, or to be a family. 

We usually take our rubbish out late on wednesday nights, after we get home from biblestudy, and to do this we have to walk off of our property and then come back in through the garage. And this week, as we were walking back and I watched Graham playing with our little dog as we made our way up the path I became so aware that this was my family, no better or worse than any other family but perfect for me. And I was happy.

 

off to ea... study, with some food.