The Curly Pyjama Letters - an excerpt

A few weeks ago a friend lent me a charming little book titled The Curly Pyjama Letters written and illustrated by Michael Leunig. It is a collection of letters exchanged between lone voyager Vasco Pyjama and his friend Mr Curly of Curly Flat. The letters are full of their whimsical and humourous insights on life. Here is one of my favourites:

'Dear Vasco,
Spring has come once more to Curly Flat and the roses are starting to bloom. How contented I feel as I contemplate the roses. How complete life seems in the presence of these ancient perfumes and petals. How liberated from the desire to "better" myself and how sweetly intoxicated I am by these dear, precious moments of self-acceptance given to me, so generously, by the rose. Around me, in the morning sunshine, the bees hum and various unseen fowls warble old songs concerning the arrival of good, blue eggs. Along the shores of Lake Lacuna, over the water and from the small valleys around Curly Flat I hear the occasional pealing of the life-goes-on bells - simple declarations from the distance that life is worth living - a domestic prayer from an unknown household, rung out in thanksgiving for the morning now passing and announcing that the afternoon and its pleasures and duties are soon to begin - or perhaps a chimed observance that sadness has passed in a particular home and that relief and gratitude have begun - any of life's ordinary precious moments being honoured as they come and go by whoever is taken by the impulse to do so. How brave and reassuring are the bells of Curly Flat - bells of spontaneity; bells of acceptance; bells of joy and simply duty: life-goes-on bells! Perhaps you still hear them Vasco, ringing in your dreams; I hope so.
The sound of a bell and the perfume of a rose: these things cannot be improved - they are perfectly complete.
Warmest spring wishes
Go Well Vasco
and ding dong!
with love,
Mr Curly'


Think I'll go out and buy myself some of those life-goes-on bells! Ding dong!

banana chocolate chip ring cake

A year or so ago I decided to start a food blog. It was called 'from scratch' and I had big plans to write about all the wonderful things I rustle up in my kitchen, all the delicious nutritious meals prepared from seasonal locally grown produce! I got as a far as one post - a recipe for our (still favourite) chocolate coconut brownies (of which very few of the ingredients are very nutritious or locally grown!) .

Somehow I never quite got into the swing of taking photographs while preparing food and then blogging about it afterwards... and there are soooo many people out there who do the whole food blogging so incredibly well (The Wednesday Chef, 101 cookbooks and Orangette being my absolute favourites!) that I decided to abandon any hopes of following in their footsteps!

I do still love to cook.

So I thought, since I'm still battling my way through my blogging block I would attempt to break it with a little soulsisters food post:

I buy a lot of bananas. Mostly I throw them into smoothies for breakfast, or into lunch boxes for a mid day energy boost. Usually we run out before I get a chance to buy another bunch but sometimes I overestimate our needs and we end up with a bowl overflowing with bright yellow fruit. And then within a day or two, they start to go black and sad - still good for smoothies but not so good for lunch boxes. So then I whip up a batch of ABC muffins (Apple Banana and Chocolatechip) - which are delicious and disappear alarmingly fast.

Anyhow, on Saturday I had 4 extremely black and sad looking bananas - enough for 2 batches of ABC muffins. Instead I opted to make a Banana Cake. I chose the recipe from the Edmonds Cookbook (a New Zealand treasury of recipes which has been around for eons and reprinted in multiple versions). And because I've got into the habit lately of adding a new twist to old recipes I decided that instead of icing the cake I'd toss some Chocolate Chips into the mixture, and instead of using a round cake tin I'd cook it in a ring. And so my Banana Chocolate Chip Ring Cake was born.

The result was delicious, very bananary and moist. Talya said she still prefers the chocolate on top of the cake in the form of icing rather than inside it in chip form. You decide. Here's the recipe:

125g butter softened

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups mashed ripe bananas

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons hot milk

2 cups standard plain flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add mashed banana and mix thoroughly. Stir soda into hot milk and add to creamed mixture. Sift flour and baking powder, then fold into the mixture along with the chocolate chips. Turn into a greased ring cake tin and bake at 180deg C for 45-50 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Leave in tin for 10 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

When life blackens your bananas, make cake!

happy mother's day

To my darling Mother

I love you more than words can say.

My gratitude is deep and wide and everlasting.

Thank you, most of all, for being you,
and for seeing me for who I am.

Kath


photo: 4 November 2005, Anika and Granny. Pure Love.

my beautiful week 17

This beautiful week has gone in a blur and I feel like I am chasing my tail!

In lieu of my 'three beautiful things' this week I am posting this beautiful poem, found on Patti Digh's 37 days blog.

It Felt Love

How

Did the rose

Ever open its heart

And give to this world

All its

Beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light

Against its

Being,

Otherwise,

We all remain

Too

Frightened.

-Hafiz

Sending you light and love!

my beautiful week 16

- I plunge Max's tail into a bucket of soapy water then gently work the lather through the coarse chestnut hair. It feels quite different to washing the girls' hair (Max doesn't moan one bit as I comb the tangles out) but the end result is no less satisfying.

- Talya rides with such confidence and ease; her entire being radiates joy. It seems to me that at the age of 7 she has already discovered her bliss.

- For a split second I find my point of balance and feel the sense of lightness that comes with achieving Bhujapidasana. Perhaps one day I will master this pose but for now I am content with a brief moment of poise.

my beautiful week 15

It's been a busy back-to-school week. On Wednesday I started writing an inspired 'bloggers block breaking post'. And then on Thursday when I returned to finish it, it was gone! Vanished into the blue! Swallowed up by blogspot. Darn!

I'm way overdue on 'my beautiful week 15' but here I go - and hopefully I'll hit Publish Post before the banshees get it.

On Sunday I turned 43. Forty. Three. (I still have a little trouble saying it out loud).
I don't feel 43!
And I could swear yesterday I was 25. Where did 18 years go?
If I'm not careful tomorrow I'll wake up and be 61!

But Daniel Francois Esprit Auber wisely said 'Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life'.

Having longevity in my genes I fully expect and intend to be around for at least another 43 years. I just want to make sure that I make the most of every one of them and I don't turn 86 thinking 'where did the last 43 go?'
So that is why I will continue to write.
Writing compels me to pay attention, to notice my life as it unfolds each day and to find the beauty which is here right now.
I will write to record, to remember, to communicate and to explore.
I will write as long as I can breathe.
As long as I can see, smell, touch, taste and hear.
As long as I can string a coherent sentence together at the end of each day.

It has been a beautiful week. This is what I saw:

- A large soft brownpaper-wrapped parcel is waiting at the post office. It has travelled all the way from Cape Town to Auckland and arrived two days ahead of my birthday. I hug it too my chest and it hugs me back.

- An envelope addressed to me, bearing 6 stamps depicting 4 Lilacbreasted Rollers and 2 Whitefronted Bee-eaters arrives in the mail. I love birthday snail mail.

- I receive a signed copy of Karen Maezen Miller's latest book 'Hand Wash Cold' which I had ordered off her website. Inside the front cover she has written 'Dear Kathleen, Attention is Love. Karen Maezen Miller'

What have you noticed this week?

happy blog first birthday!

In the midst of my blogger's block I managed to completely miss my blog's first birthday on 1 April!

So apologies dear blog and may the new year be filled with many more posts and growing blog friendships :-)

I started this blog last year as a way of sharing ideas, inspiration and photographs with my sister in Cape Town. It's developed into a place where I practice stringing words together and hope that what results will make sense, if not to anyone else, then at least to me.

And I've discovered that the more I write, the more I realise how much I need to write. I spent many years wanting to write but feeling I simply wasn't good enough at writing to even know where to start. Every now and then I'd have an attack of inspiration and I'd sit down and write something that seemed to come from some place buried deep down inside me and I'd be surprised and delighted by what came up on the page. But then I'd get bogged down with life again and I'd lose touch with that place. But blogging has given me a place to begin. At the moment it still feels very much like I have barely left the starting blocks but it doesn't matter because every time I write I feel better. Even when what comes up on the page/screen seems dull and boring and stupid.

Because always after I've scratched through the surface and dug through all the dirt, I discover some little shining nugget of truth that makes my life more meaningful and helps me make sense of the world.

So my hope for the coming year is that I will continue to write even when I feel blocked and stuck and crazy. (Hang on make that, especially when I feel blocked and stuck and crazy!) And that my writing will help me continue to make sense of the world and how I fit into it.

If along the way, what I write helps someone else make sense of the world then so much the better!

(One of the wonderful spin-offs of blogging has been meeting other bloggers and making new friends - so a big thank you to all of you for your comments and encouragement, and the daily inspiration you share in your blogs).

xox