2007

2007...
was interesting.
i managed to spend six months in one place and six months in another ...a fair plan for a nomadic heart.
finance wise, neither excellent, nor a total disaster.
job wise... i worked some, not enough to make me rich or unhappy, so all in all, a salubrious outcome.
haircuts...i had a few, none of them so bad as to warrant suicide or a sojourn in a convent.
family...i am, as always, blessed by the richness and diversity of my beloved family.
old friends...as loyal and as loved as ever.
new friends... keep living and you keep making, a fruitful year.
health...i continue healthy and energized, if perhaps, a soupscon over the desired weight limit for my height and bone structure.

i read many good books, listened and heard the wise words of many. i ate with relish and gratitude. i slept well when i was not awake. music and lyrics soothed my soul and electrified my mind. i watched a lot of rubbish tv, with, as always...the occasional gem thrown in as a curved ball. the odd bottle of red found space in my cellar and brought joy to my taste buds. wine wise i have discovered and enjoyed france, california, australia and italy. my previously stubborn south african palate learns the ways of the world.

namaste 2007

lost in the clouds

we are lost in the clouds today and the silence is even more silent.

michelle is making toad-in-the-hole with her spectacular home made onion gravy. the warmth and aroma of good home cooking meanders through the house.

i love scotland, i find myself most fortunate to have ended up here, in this wild and winsome place.
life has taken me many places and taught me many things...
i think perhaps scotland will hold my heart.
my wanderlust, my nomadic leanings, grow still. the land speaks to me of permanence and gentle satisfaction.

i will always love my homeland, mother africa...bright and harsh, beautiful and unforgiving. i carry her in my heart, she flows as the blood in my veins.
it is a constant sadness to me that my people seem to have lost the gentle realization of 'love your neighbour'. that ego and the eternal i, appears to rule the hearts and minds of south africa. i don't believe it will be forever, at our core, we are a people of great generosity and talent.we have been damaged through the iniquity of apartheid and we need time to heal. time to forget the past and remember the blessing of being born...
under the african sun.

south africa, for myself... a place, once called home...
where many of those who share my life and fill my heart, still live. a place to visit and glory in the warmth of the familiar, the harsh accents, the bright colours...
the differences which keep her young, vital and intriguing.

scotland, so different, now owns this nomad heart.

the stuff of nightmares

last night, i dreamed a dream.

a band, a very famous band, (sorry, their name was lost in my waking up process) were to have a reunion concert. a once off, last ever reunion concert.
manfred was to play with them. at the last minute their lead guitarist fell ill and they desperately needed a replacement. my mann suggested me, they listened to me play (must admit, i was brilliant ;-)) and decided i would do. i felt honoured but kind of nervous and admitted i would love to play but unfortunately...i had no guitar.
the very famous lead singer...whose name i can't remember...maybe freddie mercury...as i was totally in awe!...
brought out his very expensive, very wonderful orange guitar and said...
"not to worry, you can use mine."

the day of the concert arrives and i am pissing around, wasting time...as one does in dreams...trying to decide what to wear etc etc. eventually we arrive at the stadium ten minutes before the band is due to start their performance.
and guess what... i have left the effin' famous, precious, very valuable guitar behind at home!
so...i have to tell this very famous leader of this very famous band... not too worried, they will doubtless have a spare guitar somewhere.
but no, they don't! i must set off in search of a worthy instrument to play.

i meet a guy who is totally impressed that i am to play this concert.he tells me his mother owns a guitar shop in a nearbye mall...he calls her and repeats the whole sorry saga. not a problem she will open the shop for me.
we arrive at the shop and she has the guitar ready for me...obviously the 'piece de resistance' of her stock.
omg! what an ugly instrument, it had these long, thin, brass extensions, which grew out of the body of the guitar. but... beggars can't be choosers...so i said
"ok that will be fine...i'll be sure to mention your kindness and the name of your business to the crowd."

business owner says...
"that will be 25000 pounds."

i say...
"huh! thought you were going to lend it to me"

unfortunately i do not have 25000 pounds, not even to save the last ever concert of this ever so famous band!

i leave the shop and start to make my way back to the stadium, it is already ten minutes past our starting time. i hear music and the crowd screaming. the band are playing, they have found a replacement guitarist, with a guitar. the last ever concert continues without me...
i have lost my chance at immortality!

i awake...heart racing, dripping from a night sweat.
analyze that!

by the by...whilst i excel at 'air guitar"...
my guitar playing abilities, well...
i can play the first few notes of 'peter gunn'...
i mean...who can't...

back to reality

yoiks! back to reality!

this morning, i happened to come to rest on top of the bathroom scale...
not good, not good at all.
said scale whispered to me of overly zealous celebration, the need for an immediate return to the land of lettuce without salad dressing.

i have tipped my private stash of chocolates into the general consumption container. i firmly intend to ignore the bucket of ginger biscuits (well...half a bucket now ;-) )...made to my late mom's original recipe by my wonderful daughter nikki.
such sacrifices are sometimes wise...nay, let's admit the truth... necessary.

hmmm...perhaps one last biscuit with my morning coffee...

boxing day blog

boxing day blog

the day after christmas. well fed...hmmm, to be perfectly honest...over fed. chocolates and new reading materials heaped high...

one book by my favourite medium, colin fry...
i watch his tv show 'sixth sense', this bloke is uncanny! one by another great british medium, tony stockwell...tony sometimes guests on the 'sixth sense'.
i have always been interested in near death experiences, past life and between life. i only felt the need to find a talented medium after manfred bowed out of the life physical.
manfred and i were great pals and equally inquisitive about what is, what was and what may be...
we spent a good part of our years together in deep conversation and debate about... well, just about anything that took our fancy.
quite naturally, when i developed cancer, we discussed life and death and how to make the most of our given time between birth and death.
when we received the devastating news that manfred had prostate cancer and that it had mestasized in his spine...no operation, no cure, just holding treatments to extend his life. at first we were so shocked, so afraid, we almost lost our ability to communicate. the human race are so adaptable, given enough time we will learn to accept almost anything.

we had many reasons to be glad, the mann had retired early and we had moved to a lovely cottage on the natal south coast.we received the gift of time and we learned to use it well.
we asked how long...we were told..."not easy to know, could be three months, could be ten years".
we were granted four years. four mostly good years, the last year more difficult. the medications stopped working, the cancer spread, the pain became difficult to control. my mann was a fighter, stubborn and brave.

for five days after his physical death, he was still around, i could feel his presence although i could neither see nor touch him. the sixth day ... he was gone, the house empty....
oh god how i howled that day.

in all probability, i moved to the uk because i could not bear home and the familiar without him. i really don't know, i thought i was functioning normally. i have now come to realize that i may have been walking and talking...
but for at least three years... i, me, myself, was in some manner absent. lost in an unfamiliar world, forced to survive without my soul mate.

during that lost time, i developed my interest in the world of the medium, the hope of contact with my lost beloved.
i visited three different mediums before i lost interest, they were in no way able to connect me with him. they told me interesting and very useful insights into me, my life, my talents and what i should be doing, where my path would lead. amazingly insightful and accurate... not at all what i was searching for.

my mind knew manfred so well, if i ask, he is still able to help me figure things out. sometimes i hear his voice so clearly...
i feel him, i dream him... i have no proof that he continues to be.

then i found the 'sixth sense' and colin fry, medium extraordinary. i believe that if manfred wished to contact me, colin would be the man to translate for us.
perhaps, one day, i will find the courage to test my theory, to look for the proof of life after death. or perhaps i will stay safe in the realm of my dreams, where my love waits for me on the other side.

Happy Christmas

once a year a celebration, a reminder of...

The joy of giving...
The grace of receiving...
Our love for our neighbour...
The importance of family...
The desire for peace...

why so parsimonious ... we should celebrate more often!

tonight my lover

tonight is not all darkness
the moon approaches fullness
clouds line the sky and yet
light caresses the dark landscape
the night reigns majestic
the wind gives voice tonight
amidst the whip and whine
i hear whispers of the past
the breathy hopes of tomorrow
she touches me and tugs
hair grown long and shaggy
with playful voracity
my breath catches at her touch
the wind, tonight my lover

All materials Copyright © 2004-2007 by Eryll Oellermann

who the dickens are digg?

they banned lesbiatopia

they banned just a girl in short shorts

they banned cap'n dyke...

who are these digg people?

do they practice homophobia?

this is just not cricket....

down with digg ... stand up and be counted!

casper

pj phoned last night, he and gereth are on holiday in capetown. he was calling on his cell phone and the line was bad.
he had sad news for me ...my much loved cat casper had died.
he died on the couch in their tv lounge, probably in his sleep. blaise, a dear friend who lives in a cottage in the grounds, took his little cat body into the vet to be cremated, the vet said....probably a heart attack.

casper was special, black with a white chest and face and the cutest black mustache and beard. he was born on the verandah of nikki and ian's town house, mummy cat took up residence there and delivered herself of five very cute kittens. casper was the runt and to save him, nikki hand fed him. i fell in love with him the very first time i saw him, when the time came for him to leave his mommy and venture out into the wider world...

only one problem, my mann did not really care for cats. we already had one, nikki had kind of negotiated him into allowing her to have sammi.it has always been kind of difficult to say no to nikki! plus, we had two dogs, one bull mastiff, luke, and tessa, a bull terrier.

eventually casper came home...
and manfred, disliker of cats...met his soul mate. they became inseparable. casper could do no wrong and he was the first and only cat ever allowed to sleep on our bed!

casper grew into a real character, every night before bed we would take luke and tessa out to do a late evening patrol and leg lifting exercise. casper would hide in the deep shadows, wait for tess, the bullie to wander past, and then leap out,jump onto her and sink his claws into her buttocks.he always hid in a different place and she always nearly had a heart attack. luckily bull terriers seem to lack sensitivity when it comes to pain and it was the surprise factor that got to her!

when manfred died, casper was my comfort, it felt as if there was still a connection with him through that small black and white cat.
when the time came for me to move to the uk, pj and gereth were happy to adopt him...no way would we have allowed our casper to endure six months in quarantine.

i have been home once since i left south africa. casper was pleased to see me in his rather offhand cat manner! i was in seventh heaven and felt honoured when he came to sleep in my room. I was hoping to take a trip home sometime next year...time with my son, my family, my friends and my beloved casper.

goodbye my furry little friend, i'm glad you went easy with little pain and suffering. say hi to the mann for me, in time, i will see you both on the other side.

not nice ice

in the end i guess my nicotine habit will kill me... perhaps...
in a previously unimagined manner!

so last night...there i was, smoking my last cigarette of the day. the night was pitch black and freezing cold. but...i am a considerate smoker, i always smoke outside, sharing the pollution of my dreadful habit only with mother nature.

i knew about the ice!
between the cottage and the retaining stone wall there is a large concrete slab...stops the mud from actually taking over the house. all winter long water seeps from the hillside behind the house, through the stone wall and then dribbles out over the concrete.
sometimes it freezes. last night...guess i lost concentration. my legs started to slide apart, as if i was doing the splits. i have never been able to do the splits ... there is always a first time...
the pain, omg... then a dreadful cracking sound from both my knees and then i was on my (fortunately fairly rotund) arse. i screamed...nobody heard, the kids were already asleep and stone houses are amazingly soundproof.
my first thought was...

"omg you idiot $%&^* what the $%^&* have you done now!"

i'm not really that good in emergencies, if you have one...you should probably call someone else.

i managed to scrabble up into an ape like, semi crouching position. hmmm...everything seemed to be working, i straightened up, not too bad, i could walk...aaahhh...adrenaline!

two hours later...my knees were sharing with me how it would feel to be one hundred years old. i swallowed an ibuprofen, arranged myself very carefully in the bed and off to the land of nod, to dream....or not, as the case maybe.

I awoke this morning with sincere regrets that i still inhabited the mortal plain. my knees were now allowing me to experience two hundred year old joints.
i am able to walk, only just and very carefully. any sideways movement tends to lead to a horrible howling sound emerging from deep in my throat.

managed to eat and swallow some more ibuprofen. now the question is, should i look for a lift down to the village surgery or should i just lie here and hope for a miracle!

oh yeah... and happy christmas to you too ;-)

surf's up

introducing my son adam and his wife michelle...learning to surf...somewhere in aus!



my kids are home! safe and sound and beautifully brown after three weeks in the australian sunshine.

seems they had a wonderful time, are not (as yet anyway!) tempted to move to australia. yep...afraid the nomadic thing seems to run in the blood.

what's more, they came bearing gifts...duty free camels! smoking in the uk is a very expensive business. i am more than happy to exchange board and lodging for a couple of cartons of duty free. ;-)

we in south ayrshire are enjoying our third day in a row of....
drum roll...clear skies and sunshine. this morning the hills are white with frost, the sheep appear unaffected by their new frozen food...they continue to munch relentlessly.

I am happy and at peace ...once more breaking into tuneless song and executing snazzy dance steps all by myself!
my heart celebrates the return of my muse.

Of course we still have enormous problems, we are still separated by the atlantic and our diverse cultures. The circumstances of our past experiences leaving herself and myself with vastly different life expectations.
for now, it is enough to hear the beloved voice and share the day to day events of our lives.

the witch is back

ding dong ding dong

the witch is back

my five foot nothing, italian/jewish....

princess is back!

weaving her spells, making my knees weak.

yep! and all this from 4000 miles away ;-)

i am so effin' pleased... yihaaaaaa!

tick tock

tick tock
tick tock
i need a new battery
for my heart clock

"today is the first day of the rest of my life"

'kay...looking for attitude ...

wake up...coffee...freeze my arse off endulging my nicotine addiction.

big lightbulb moment! no need to crawl back under the covers...there are other ways of keeping warm.

been so long since i stretched a muscle with intent, so long since i played dance music...really loud. time to stop avoiding and start doing.

forget lazy, loaf about, lie in...remember endorphins...mama nature's little happy makers!


stiff, is for tomorrow... no free lunches.
man, i feel so good... love my body, love myself.

good morning world...

what can i say ...

Please note, The Rising Blogger award to the right! Man, I am majorly chuffed...thank you to all concerned :-)

Thursday was celebration day, the top floor of BRICC house is mine from the 1st January 2008. What a feeling! This nomad has a most settled feeling settling in her nomadic bones....

I miss my muse.

I miss sharing the miracles and small triumphs of my life with her.

I miss her voice on the far end of a trans Atlantic cable.

I worry about her... is she well, is she safe...

Love ...

What can I say...

meet the family

meet the family

I have three wonderful, exceptional, highly talented and extremely intelligent children. Damn! sounds good to say that out loud.

Nikki, my first born, Adam, my second born and PJ....

PJ (the artist) is the youngest of my three children. ..
I will introduce the artist first as he was gifted a photo shoot with Merwelene van der Merwe, a highly respected South African photographer. Result...yesterday my boy emailed me a couple of photos of his extremely hunky self. Proud mommy that I am...I need to share.

PJ was a surprise... in more ways than one! I experienced an enormous amount of difficulty falling pregnant with Nikki (took seven years). After her birth my gynae, who considered her conception to be some what of a miracle, advised that we try for a second baby asap. Adam made his entrance roughly twenty two months later.
And...that was that. until four years later when the artist decided to grace planet earth with his most interesting self.
He was not an easy baby! I endured three years of sleepless nights and hovered on the brink of mental collapse. The baby artist experienced 'night terrors'. Now you all may well have heard of such like...they took me by surprise. Your youngster wakes screaming, you rush through to comfort him as mom's do, is he comforted...hell no, he is terrified and screams even louder. obviously having a horrible nightmare, wake him up, end of story...only one problem, our PJ seemed trapped in his world of sleep. I am not at my best when woken from sleep, in the small wee hours! I eventually learned to deal with the situation by lifting my wailing son, carrying him through to the bathroom and splashing water on his face. It sounds cruel...but it worked.

The artist has an IQ in the top two percentile, school bored him, life interested him. PJ is a talented painter, he has his own very unique style, he has his own design company...FOG, he cooks like a dream and throws parties to write home about. Like his father, PJ can accomplish any thing he sets his mind to.

PJ lives with his partner G in Johannesburg, South Africa. They share their home with two Great Danes...Porkchop and Mash and two feline friends, Veggie and Casper.

Is my baby not a most beautiful boy?

the sky was blue

today the sky was blue, there was no rain and the wind was gentle.
i had an appointment to view a cottage, just south of ballantrae. so no lolling around under the covers this morning...no, no...up and at 'em!
lovely place, great view across the valley towards the sea. the previous tenants had removed the fire place, hmmm, people do strange things. the estate agent assured me that they would replace the fire place, she also mentioned that they quite often had breaks in the electricity supply.

me..."no problem, the central heating works with oil doesn't it?"

estate agent..."well yes, but, the oil heating needs electricity to work."

me..."oh!"

I had to supply them with two references...always a bit of a problem for me. the people in this old world who really know me and would be prepared to vouch for me, all live in the good old RSA. Luckily I have a previous successful rental to my name, managed to pay my rent and keep my nose clean whilst i was resident. I also decided to give them the name of my office manager from the time when i was actually employed in ballantrae, she knew me fairly well...

on my way home i stopped in at the office to let her know that i had been using her name in vain! unfortunately she was not in, but....
an almost magical sequence of events proceeded to unfold.
BRICC (my old firm) had built a new office block next to the original house they had been using... the top floor of the house was now empty and was being converted into a flat (apartment). they were looking for a tenant, was i interested.
was i interested...blimey!

funny how life works out...this flat is right in the middle of the village, wonderful views of ailsa craig, the mull of kintyre, the ocean. huge arched windows, light pouring in to every room, beautifully decorated, new double glazing and best of all...really cheap!

there will be a meeting of the directors and then...hopefully, i will have my lease. whilst i was at the office, i was also offered some work in the new year.

all in all, a good day and the sky was blue...

less than peachy

How could I have forgotten? I have never actually spent a whole winter in Scotland! Past two winters I spent quite a few months with herself in/on (can one be in Long Island or should one be on...hmmm...would the EP know) Long Island.
The winter months are not warm in her part of the world but, the sun does occasionally shine. Scotland now is a whole other story! Take today, must be day fifteen of wet, cold,grey dampness. Yesterday, the sun did pop out, a small reminder that life continues elsewhere in the world. So...we had sunshine followed shortly by rain and then very small hail.

Well maybe in the UK this size of hail may not be considered small, but let us never forget, I hail from Africa, wild country, wild weather. In South Africa when the sky grows ominously dark and the clouds take on a greenish hue, expect hail. Glorious hail, the size of golf balls, on the rare occasion tennis balls, hard, jagged, scary hail which tears the leaves from the branches, brings profit to window repair companies and would render one slightly unconscious were one to venture out in it.

I must admit, yesterday was not exactly...well, peachy. Today however we have attained a whole new definition of the phrase foul weather. I think we may be experiencing sleet. I have no previous personal experience of this phenomena but I have heard others describe the slanting, icy rain...peppered with what looks like snowflakes, mostly rain, a few snow flakes! The cold is bitter, the central heating is attempting to maintain a comfortable temperature... without much success.

The sheep, bless 'em have moved down to our side of the hill, there must be less of a gale blowing this side! At least I have company while I smoke, outside, in the sleet! Set me to thinking...
'I wonder what it feels like to be a sheep, a very wet, actually sodden sheep. Does the wet penetrate right through that thick woolly coat, how heavy is a lambswool coat when it is holding gallons of rain water. Does a wet coat still keep you warm?'
They... the wet and woolly ones, appear unperturbed, they continue to munch their way through life and the green hills of Ayrshire. Now, if only I was a sheep whisperer we could all have a little chat, about the variety of grass available, the weather and how they feel about it. We might discuss the tendency of Scottish mud to seep between the walls of their hoof, where it hardens and causes pain and limping.They might even reveal whether they prefer their summer grass with a little slug added or if they prefer the clean, slug free grass of winter.

Unfortunately, I am not much of a sheep whisperer, so I stand, scrunched against the abysmal misery of this December day, wondering..."how much of a need to communicate do sheep have, they never stop chewing, communicating would probably interfere with their digestive process.'

This old world of ours is a grand place, never a day in my life goes by without a new question, a new answer, a new sense of wonder.

Then there is the constant burning question..."when are you going to give up smoking you yogurt top?"
Yep, that is always a question for another cold, wet day. I've tried answering that one before and I have come to a firm decision...some questions are best left unanswered.

thought for the day

if natural selection is so smart...
if us humans are so, supposedly superior?...
how come, we lost most of our body hair?

i smoke, i always smoke outside, it is often cold, cold and wet, cold and wet and dark.
i have socks, shoes, jeans, shirt, sweater and jacket (waterproof).
do they help...well barely!

the sheep stand around...munching, worried by the weather...no way. why? the little blighter's have wool, as in their own natural grown protective covering.
the cows...don't enjoy the rain in their faces, tend to turn their backs to the weather. do they appear to feel the cold, nope, nice thick hides, covered in hair. dogs, cats, the apes..none of them require clothing to keep them alive, all these critters can run around bare foot or bare hoofed...
what the devil happened to us?

there was our opposing thumb, our reportedly better brain, we clawed our way up the food chain until we were masters of all we surveyed. yeah..sure..but why lose our fur/hide/pelt..what advantage was to be found in the mutation towards hairlessness?

talking better brains, latest rumour has it that chimps have a far superior memory to us peeps. they did give the chimps a small advantage by pitting them against university students ;-)

beware the calorific count of a broken heart

Is there actually a physical reason why I find it necessary to gorge my physical body in an attempt to sooth my aching heart?

Damn! All I know is that if I don't rein myself in pretty soon...well...I will end up feeling like a Porshe (yeah...ok...classic Porshe) and looking like a campervan.

Yesterday was an excellent example. Young LS had an appointment with his paediatric neurologist at the York Hill Childrens Hospital in Glasgow. So Supernan was summoned to Saltcoats for child supervision duties.

Now, I did have a bit of shopping that needed doing...
I needed, uh... well, stuff. So in all innocence I popped into the local Tesco (Saltcoats local)...here in the hills of home it is rather more of a ...trekking down to...wherever!

Of course, the day was grey and cold....the supermarket was warm and inviting and full of exciting supermarket bakery smells. Now Supernan would never dream of visiting the Superkids without a little something edible. Any grandmother will know, the way to your grandchild's heart is most definitely paved with the three C's...cake cookies and candy ( which in English would read cake, biscuits and sweets... nope, does not have the same ring!)

Hmmm...what to buy... nice chocolate swiss roll for the kids, yummy walnut cream slab for the adults. almost reached the check out in safety...last minute...

oooh...fresh Christmas mince pies made with flaky, puff pastry, still warm from the oven and... two packs for the price of one! Now if there is one thing this girl can not resist, it is a bargain, especially a two for the price of one bargain. Those marketing dudes really knew what they were about when they came up with that strategy.

This morning, the bathroom scale is not my friend!