Hubby – Page 4 – Nyamazela

A schvitzing summer

Posted on 11 Jul, 201711 Sep, 2018 by nyamazela

“As I sat in the bath tub, soaping a meditative foot and singing, if I remember correctly, ‘Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar,’ it would be deceiving my public to say that I was feeling boomps-a-daisy.”

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse

I love a good transferred epithet. I spent a restless night. I hauled my embarrassed bikini out of the cupboard. It’s happy hour.

They say a lot about my life.

Today this schvitzing summer was broken a little by a cool breeze and some welcome rain (did you see what I did there?). Many South Africans dub England ‘Mud Island’ and complain constantly about cold wet weather …

But Hubby will tell you that’s all lies and propaganda. Continue reading A schvitzing summer

Of birthdays, bouquets, blue skies and overtime

Posted on 5 Jul, 201712 Feb, 2020 by nyamazela

“And thus ever by day and night, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another, move all we restless travellers through the pilgrimage of life.”

Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

This is a story of blue nail polish. Not blue meaning sad. Not blue to keep with my blog title. Blue nail polish.

It was a sunny day in Pennington on the Natal South Coast. I was visiting my grandparents who live there. Later in the day we were planning to meet my aunt for a coffee and a slice of cheesecake. My aunt has appointed herself National Cheesecake Taster. Continue reading Of birthdays, bouquets, blue skies and overtime

Building Castles in the Sky

Posted on 20 Jun, 201730 Jan, 2018 by nyamazela

Chutzpa, chutspa, chutzpadik – Pronounced KHOOTS-PAH; rattle that kh around with fervour; rhymes with ‘Foot spa’. Do not pronounce the ch as in ‘choo-choo’ or ‘Chippewa’, but as the German ch in Ach! or the Scottish in ‘loch’. Hebrew: ‘insolence’, ‘audacity’. Gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible ‘guts’; presumption-plus-arrogance such as no other word, and no other language can do justice to.

The Joys of Yiddish By Leo Rosten

Seaside 'cottage' ideas On Sunday morning I lead prayers at church. It had been an emotionally charged week in London. I dreaded standing in front of the congregation. Over 70 people had recently died in the Grenfell Tower fire not far from where I live, fires raged in Portugal and the news was still full of recent terror attacks.

I now dread my 7am wake-up with BBC Radio 4.

In May I’d readily volunteered to do prayers, but as my turn drew near, I wondered if I really had it in me. What would I say? How would I create the right balance between silence and words? Continue reading Building Castles in the Sky

Finding answers

Posted on 6 Jun, 201721 Jun, 2017 by nyamazela

“Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also the being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.”

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl

Questions and answers I have always been a questioner.

On family road trips when I was small (smaller), I wrestled with a physics question. Why did the fly which had flown into the open window continue to buzz around against the back windscreen? Why hadn’t it, with the speed of the vehicle, found itself SPLAT on the glass? Kilometres were spent agonising over this problem. Continue reading Finding answers

Memories

Posted on 23 May, 20176 Feb, 2018 by nyamazela

“Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.”

Says Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde

My father-in-law is writing his memoirs and I can’t wait to read them!

“How do you remember all the places and names and details?” I asked him.

“You’d be surprised what comes to mind when you start digging around in the past. You open a drawer, look through a photo album, talk to an old friend, read a letter…” he replied.

Now I know what he means. Continue reading Memories

Springtime in Photos

Posted on 26 Apr, 20176 Jun, 2017 by nyamazela

“Spring drew on…and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.”

Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë

From indoors, yesterday was a beautiful day. The sun shone brightly and I hurried out to work. As I stepped onto the pavement a bracing wind caught my light leather jacket, tugged at my loosely-wrapped scarf and made my feet feel naked in my sockless pumps.

Some snippets of March and April (all photos are captioned if you click on them): Continue reading Springtime in Photos

Our short interlude into the lives of 12 walkers

Posted on 24 Jan, 201724 May, 2017 by nyamazela

“It is always hard to see the purpose in wilderness wanderings until after they are over.”

The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

wild coast By popular demand, I give you our 12 fellow travellers on our South African #roadtrip:

‘Petrol Man’: outside Bloemfontein:
We took a country road towards the Lesotho mountains. TomTom was not pleased. Petrol Man explained that his car had run out of petrol. In parts of the Free State you get the feeling that you’re driving from the middle of nowhere to the middle of nowhere. So we drove on. Eventually we came to a juncture. There was’t even a tiny pin-prick of a suggestion of a village, but with nothing else to suggest we turned down the dust track. What materialised eventually was a twilight-zone-like-derelict-one-stop-hamlet consisting of a road, 6 dwellings, a couple of people and a petrol station! Continue reading Our short interlude into the lives of 12 walkers

Eating with your fingers

Posted on 17 Jan, 201724 Jan, 2017 by nyamazela

“Natalie was nervous because I had explained that she would be treated differently because she was white, that she would have to work harder than other girls to gain my parents’ trust. And so they devised a plan: We agreed that on the first meeting my wife would not accept tea, she would instead make tea in the home of my parents. With that gesture, she showed that she did not have a superiority complex, that she was willing to make a gesture, however small, to gain acceptance.”

MMUSI MAIMANE Prophet or Puppet? by S’Thembiso Msomi

Ethiopian restaurant There is a story that I’ve not been able to verify unequivocally, but which seems to be accepted as a fact:

On a visit to America some time in the 1800’s, Queen Victoria changed etiquette rules forevermore, by picking up a chicken wing with her fingers and eating it thus. Whether she saw this as a more efficient way to handle a chicken wing, or that it was preferable in the name of diplomacy to do as the Americans did, we will never know. Continue reading Eating with your fingers

The Journey, not the Destination: Goats, Wine, Mountains and Mafia #SAroadtrip

Posted on 11 Jan, 201717 Jan, 2017 by nyamazela

“I am looking for someone to share in an adventure that I am arranging, and it’s very difficult to find anyone,” said Gandalf.
“I should think so — in these parts! We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can’t think what anybody sees in them,” said our Mr. Baggins.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

road trip south africa

We were about 60km outside Port Edward when we realised that we might actually be in real danger. Continue reading The Journey, not the Destination: Goats, Wine, Mountains and Mafia #SAroadtrip

St Paul’s bellringers, ancient societies, mysterious ringing and Harry Potter

Posted on 30 Nov, 20164 Jan, 2017 by nyamazela

Oranges and lemons, Say the bells of St. Clement’s.
You owe me five, Say the bells of St. Martin’s.
When will you pay me? Say the bells of Old Bailey.
When I grow rich, Say the bells of Shoreditch.
When will that be? Say the bells of Stepney.
I do not know, Says the great bell of Bow.
Here comes a candle to light you to bed, And here comes a chopper to chop off your head!