Spring has sprung

And suddenly it's Spring, proper. I love this day of the year. The one when you wake up and it's suddenly lighter, warmer, the birds are singing slightly louder and the air smells of Summer. It makes my tummy do somersaults and my chest swell with joy.

It's today, that day. The day that reminds me that I'm not always a grump, I can actually be quite pleasant, smile, laugh, hell, even be a little bit funny on occasion. Every year during the dark, cold months of Winter I forget this, without fail. It's ridiculous. I've just looked back to last year, this time, and found the exact same rant.

Time for another letter, this time to myself, to be sent around Mid-Autumn next year. Remind me, won't you, please?

Dear Shiny,

You are about to go into the Winter months. I know you are less-than-happy about this but, I'm afraid, there is nothing you can do to stop it other than marrying rich and moving to the Northern Hemisphere for six months and you know how your previous efforts in that arena turned out.

I am writing to warn you that you'll be losing your shine and, perhaps, should change your name from Shiny to Grumpy. Just for the next few months, mind. Remember that after the hibernation period during which you frown a lot and stop making an effort (this year, please, can you at least keep on dying your hair, you're getting older you know!) the sun will come out again, and bring with it your personality. There'll be that day, you know the one you love?

In the meantime, listen carefully... Make a fire as often as possible in the hearth and practice your red wine drinking. It'll be okay, really.

Love always,
Shiny xxx

Hooray for Spring!

Jumping in, heart beating wildly

I had a friend at university who was scared of everything, from tasting anything she didn’t recognise to throwing herself into love and everything in-between. I often wonder now, where she is with that.

My mother forced taught us as children that we were never to turn our noses up at food, until we’d tasted it. I am eternally grateful to her for that and have tried to put that philosophy in place with everything I do – from food, to visiting places to reading books to falling in love, and by falling in love I mean not only with lovers, but friends, places, things, all of it.

I live in fear of not doing things and gaining no experience. This has, of course, at times put me in line for looking like a fool, for heartbreak, for silliness, but I figure it’s all been for a good cause. Where would I be if I hadn’t thrown myself into the midst of a Spanish protest or into the arms of an unsuitable suitor? Somewhere else, that’s where. Somewhere with fewer stories, fewer scars on my heart that make it beat more breathily and with more urgency.

Because, yes, for sure, my heart still breaks at the thought of some of those loves – my first, the one that was never resolved, the one that I never actually met but had a deeper connection with than I have ever experienced who turned out to be married, the years-ago one that could never be – they all add up into the life force that runs through me and makes me believe, completely, that the heart break is worth it. And that kissing a wizard in a dark night club and going to places that make the heart swell and driving out into the open spaces is what makes the world go around and the stories sprout. Each experience a beautiful, magical thing.

So here’s to remembering this and keeping on falling in love with people, places, the world. Here’s to jumping in, arms flailing, heart in your hands… into the free-fall of life.

Spring

Each year, without fail, I forget what a grumpy monster I turn into during the dark days of Winter. All I can say is thank the gods I don’t live in Europe with its way-too-long Winter, I might not have any friends at all if I did! Then, again without fail, Spring comes along and I feel the dark cloud lift and my personality starts wiggling around in the sun and I can feel the smile coming back.

This year is no exception. Our trip into the beautiful Karoo was the perfect celebration for the beginning of Spring – breathing fresh air, meeting new people, clearing the cobwebs from my head, opening me up to the newness of another Spring, all fresh and light-green-leaf-budded. Is there anything more beautiful than a tree in its new Spring dress?

And so, I’m welcoming it all, opening myself up to all that life can offer me, crawling out from the Winter darkness and blinking in the sunlight, its warmth on my face to the sky. I have had one of those weeks that have restored my faith in humankind. Despite having a momentary wobble (again) about privacy on this here blog, I reminded myself that it’s my stream of consciousness, be it egotistical, fantastical, or real, and I love it. I still claim my anonymity, even though it's not quite as anonymous as it used to be.

I’ve got back into watching movies, seen friends, met people, remembered my personality and (here I’m going to sound egotistical but I’m referring to the world, not my personality as such) it is good.

Happy Spring.

A Springtime letter

It was The Sweetest Day over the weekend. It’s a lovely thought, and non-commercialised and of quite large significance to me. It was a lovely day, too, in honour of it, sun-kissed and warm-aired. It’s always good to take a little step back and be grateful for those you love and those who love you.

Something, however, I am not loving at the moment is pollen. It has inspired another letter:

Dear little dustball-pollen-thingamies floating in the air,

While I am very appreciative, and quite aware of, your very important role in the whole pollination-reproduction-stamen stuff of plants and how much buzzing bees love rolling in you and covering their sticky little knees with you, could you please stop using my eyelashes as monkey bars? I am not a bee.

I wouldn’t mind so much if I weren’t allergic, but I am. And, honestly, the I’ve-Been-Sitting-on-the-Couch-Smoking-Weed-and-Playing-Playstation-for-Three-Solid-Weeks-Red-Eye look, is neither pretty nor professional. Neither is the incessant rubbing of my eyes to get you little buggers out and to stop the itching.

So, if you’d be so kind, please stick to the birds and the bees (snigger).

Love in the Springtime,
Shiny x

Backed in a corner

It’s October next week. No, I’m not lying… it really is. Can you believe? I know it becomes such a monotonous cry of ‘how time is flying’, over and over but, um, it’s just true. The older you get, the quicker it goes. Last October I did this little daily writing experiment thing (on another site) and I am going to try and be better with my writing this October. I feel like I’ve been ignoring myself and writing about other people. Okay, it’s not just a feeling, it’s a truth. I had a privacy panic. Perfectly normal Shiny behaviour really. There are things I just can’t won’t talk about here.

Spring is here and it’s new leaf time. I feel a little proud and very scared that I just sent a (very tentative, putting out feelers) e-mail to a place in The Big Smoke, asking about jobs there. I’ve been in my Real Job for 12 years and we are currently being under-appreciated so I’m thinking maybe it’s time I ruffle my feathers a bit. It’s very much tentative though, a move from The City Beneath the Mountain being a big thing. The twins (my lovely one-year old nephews) are there, though. Maybe I should make a Stay/Go list.

I am just feeling a little like a hissing kitten backed in a corner in oh-so-many facets of my life, like I need to flee. Hopefully it’s a fleeting feeling. Hopefully it’s just that time of year. Somehow, as the months creep (fly) toward December I tend to get it. Bleergh. Must remember: new leaf. Spring.

We all have them feelings, don’t we?

The Equinox Myth

It's The Equinox today. This means it is 'officially' spring. I decided (of course) that it warranted some Google research. Which brought up a whole lot of interesting facts. Well, I found them interesting, but then I'm a bit of a Geography nerd. I shan't bore you with them all, I'll just help dispel one myth, which I didn't, until today, know was a myth: the fact that it's the day when day and night are exactly equal. I thought that was the whole point! It's called the EQUInox for heaven's sake!

Not so. Here I quote:

It is important to note that day and night during the September equinox is not exactly equal length. During the time of the September and March equinoxes many regions around the equator have a daylight length of about 12 hours and six-and-a-half minutes. Moreover, the day is slightly longer in places that are further away from the equator and the sun takes longer to rise and set in these locations.

Well, knock me down with a feather! It's not twelve hours after all but twelve hours and six-and-a-half minutes. Who'd have thought?

Experiments and Spring springing

I had a fabulous weekend. Spring is in the air, and I am always surprised when it arrives and my mood lifts and I remember that I'm not actually the grumpy bitch I am all winter - I do actually have a personality.

On Friday I had strawberry daquiris with The BFF. It was an especially good afternoon I thought. I haven't seen him for ages because he's been useless, basically, and tends to get caught up in his own misery, to the point that he forgets to look around and see all the good stuff he has, right here and now. We had a good catch-up, though, and I hope he remembers the resounding theme of it all - that he does actually deserve to be happy.

During the course of our cocktail session he brought up the programme Mythbusters, and was telling me about one they did to show that if you drop a Mentos in a coke bottle, it explodes. Of course I spent the rest of the time gently coaxing him (i.e. vociferously persuading him) that we must try this theory out. He kept telling me he had no desire to blow off one of his arms just to satisfy my lust for dangerous experiments.

Needless to say, we stopped in at the 7-eleven (I needed bread!) on our way home, and using my winning smile and never-ending charm, I persuaded The BFF to buy Coke and a roll of Mentos - it was a sign, the Mentos were in the passage on the way to the till! In a quiet cul-de-sac, our adrenaline pumping in anticipation, with me nice and far away from the test site (I don't want to lose an arm) The BFF bravely placed the bottle of Coke in the middle of the road, dropped a Mentos in and rushed back to me. I'd like to say he rushed back to protect me, but his standing behind me would negate that idea completely.

We waited with bated breath. The Coke fizzed, bubbling over disconsolately onto the tar, and stopped. We looked. And waited same more. Nada. A Coke bottle surrounded by a small puddle of Coke. Some experiment that was. The adrenaline popped, causing uncontrollable giggling, despite the disappointment of it all. Subsequent reasearch has brought to light that one needs to put the lid back on to cause a build up of pressure. It's probably lucky that we were not bright enough to realise this (really rather obvious) point as I might instead be writing about how to remove Coke bottle shrapnel from your shins...

The rest of the weekend was filled with lovely people and lovely things including Lindt hot chocolate, a drink straight from a natural spring, a long drive, two princesses-who-became-sleeping-beauties-who-became-nudists all in the space of Sunday lunch and the overwhelming feeling of the promise of new things with Spring.

Who doesn't feel like skipping about singing with the first whiff of Spring?

Baby skin, flocks of birds, and baby skin

It's their skin that is so incredible. And their little baby grunts and noises. And the peacefulness that fills the room when they're sleeping. And their skin. And the wonder that surrounds them when they look around. And the way they stare at things we can't (or just won't?) see. And their soft-soft skin. And the way their mothers are just completely and utterly besotted. And their tiny, perfect, fingers and toes and neat little ears and... and... did I mention their skin?

They are beautiful and I was amazed and enthralled by the calm glow my sister has. Some people are just natural mothers and she is it. And it's not just me who sees it, I'm not being biased, other people we saw over the weekend commented on it too. Her and N have taken to it like ducks to water and I'm so very, very pleased.

It was a lovely weekend, filled with baby-feeding, baby-oohing-and-ahing and, generally, just me looking at them wonderously. In-between, met up with friends for some lunch and caught up with T & G and their son, J, who is three and fabulous. He taught me how to brush my teeth on Saturday morning. He informed me very seriously that I needed to keep my head still while brushing, then demonstrated with his finger where I should brush, before running to get his (Winnie-the-Pooh) toothbrush and (Shrek) toothpaste to demonstrate the real thing. Thank god, finally, after 34 years I now know the true art of toothbrushing.

And then there were some moments of sudden overwhelmedness at the enormity of it all and, well, other moments, things about which I need to think and hopefully formulate into something I can write about and, maybe, purge, and feel good about, rather than feel a gaping hole with wind whistling through it. Again, vague, but not ready yet.

And now I'm back in the City beneath the mountain, feeling a little all-over-the-place and missing them all, but there is a twinge of Spring in the air and four (yes, four!) flocks of birds flew over me in the Spring-ley sky on my way to work this morning so it feels okay.

I wonder when my next surprise will be?