Mac Moments

The decision to have another little person was a contentious issue between us. Steve was happy with just one, I wanted a second. Two reasons. Firstly, I think being an only child can be very lonely when you are young and as you grow older. Secondly, a palm reader had told me I would only have one child and that I would have two husbands. I did not like those odds, so I decided to change them. Our second little person came a lot sooner than we had anticipated. Sean had taken two years to conceive, we figured it would take as long, if not longer for a second little bundle to arrive. One month after deciding to begin the new adventure, I was pregnant. We were in SHOCK. 22 months between them was not what we had counted on. By the time I was ten days overdue, I was ready to take her out myself. Being induced was not fun and after initially rejecting the epidural, 6 hours later I was demanding the anesthetist's attention. As the hours passed, the Gynae insisted I have a C-sect...

I was certainly not ready for Father's Day this year. I thought it was on the 20th, which does not make sense, I promise I saw it written somewhere! By the time I realized that it was upon us already, City Center and Villagio were now shut down (due to the awful Fire tragedy) and Landmark was just a nightmare between parking and shoppers. I did not make it to buying anything, until the day of, knowing I could get in before the masses arrived.... With a bit of prompting the kids made cards, while in the morning I dashed downstairs and made Steve a cooked breakfast - he was surprised and loved the gesture, thank goodness. Dinner was a similar affair, with a beautifully laid table, fabulous food, dessert and company. It is the first year I feel like a really awful Mother/Wife for being so slack!! Father's Day is also Steve's Dads Birthday. It is a day of remembrance and reflection for him.  It is a day of mixed emotions.  It is now the first Father's Day that my Dad...

I had volunteered to run in a relay for our Running Club alongside my sisters. This is where I met him. He intrigued me. He was running in a group of 4, I was in a group of 8. He was much faster than me and although he had to run more often, he kept coming back to chat to me. I had hoped he would. We chatted the whole afternoon. There was definitely something there. Something clicked. It felt right. I had just returned from my first year of Uni and decided to continue studying at home. I hated Durban. I had left my friends, a flat and my boyfriend behind. It was not the happiest of times. Steve had just joined Anglo American as an HR Management Trainee, he had just left Durban too. We had both been there over January, cycled down to the beachfront each day and never met. The following week we were back at the Running club, time trials were over and we were enjoying a quietly rowdy drink. I saw him. Plopped myself down amongst his friends ...

"Did my heart love till now? Foreswear its sight. For I never saw true beauty 'til this night." "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?" "It is the east, and Juliet is the sun" And so their love is sworn. No kisses crossed their lips last night, that would have been far too vivid to include into one of the greatest love stories of all time.  The evening was filled with song and dance and a few of Shakespeare's original lines thrown in, with the most dramatic scene playing out to the consternation of the kids in the audience. Death, that hath sucked the honey of they breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty. Romeo finds his beloved dead in the Capulet tomb, their love forsaken and without the Friar's message reaching him Romeo lifts the poison to his lips and drinks to lay down next to his Juliet and die. Heartbroken.  A gasp escapes the lips of the young audience (this is Romeo and Juliet 4 Kids) and a li...

I have an odd relationship with moving in general, it is one of those love - hate relationships, the excitement of new, of change, of decorating and painting and renovating has always filled me with excitement and anticipation of what I can create out of what we have bought. I have been in love with many things throughout my life, from sweets to jobs to houses to men to moving, but I am getting to the stage where the love of moving is starting to wane. A standard joke with one of my best friends (who has known me since I was 6 years old), is that on the purchase of a house we time it to between 18 months to 2 yrs before we move on.  She finds the situation of our moving habits hysterical, especially when I adamantly state that this will be our last move, her laugh reverberates echoing through my head like an empty drum. Steve and I started off our lives together in Mmabatho / Mafikeng over 22 years ago, we moved to 2 different houses in the space of 2 1/2 years. ...

Someone very special passed this on to me and I wanted to share it with you. I have just spent time with my own parents, and it brought home to me how we are all going to get old. That one day we may also be sick and in need of extra care and love to see us through. That we will also need the extra hugs and touches to remember. I saw many retired men and women who are on their own, their partners now gone forever, who needed that extra chat from a kind passerby or a hug from their children or grandchildren. Those touches we know so well from our own partners and children are no longer their and that extra bonus of being hugged livens their faces with love and memories. I hope that when I am old that my children, grandchildren, family, friends and even strangers give me the love, hugs and curtesy we all deserve as we age. Enjoy the read: A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and four-year - old grandson.   The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight...