Same-same, but different

So you may have noticed that I've been absent from the blog-o-sphere for a while. I've been on scholarly pursuits at the university on the hill, as mentioned in previous blogs before academia swallowed me up. 

I managed to churn out almost 80 000 words of a thesis, with a little help from family and friends and a dollop of motivation from Idris Elba, who made me feel guilty every time I opened the fridge, where my daughter had stuck the following picture: 

image courtesy of Pinterest

Normally, yoga would have kept me sane, but I developed a "tennis elbow" as a result of sitting at a computer for hours on end – first world problems, my daughter called it. So, instead of downward-facing dog and sun salutes, I put on my walking shoes and walked.

Now that my life is taking on a semblance of normality again, I've decided to revive the blog. I have held on to the lavender, travel stamps and potjie but it’s been given a fresh look (perhaps more grown-up?) by my friend and fellow-student, Stephen Symons … same-same, but different, as we heard everywhere we went in Thailand when we visited years ago.  I'm sure I even saw T-shirts with that saying.

When I emerged from behind my desk, the real world had been carrying on without me: 
My nephew, born at 34 weeks, had turned into a robust toddler after his shaky start to life. (See blog)

The little preemie soon
after birth 

A year later presumably
on a diet of gravel

The Delft Big Band has played at Starlight Classics, released a CD and made a turn at the Cape Town International Jazz Festival. 

international delegates at WEF 2015

I gave the World Economic Forum a miss this year to complete and hand in the thesis but did manage to balance the last year with a trip to Paris with my daughter.

 

Attending the 2014 WCPRC awards ceremony provided the perfect excuse to take some time out to wrap up the thesis. 

Gripsholm Castle, Mariefred

And I was in False Bay Harbour to see my son and his team mates get rescued by the National Sea Rescue Institute during the Lipton Challenge Cup.

Hard to believe the storm 3 days later

In between, my daughter graduated and is on a gap year while my son is writing matric ... more news and snippets of writing in upcoming blogs!

420s and Spinnaker Poles

I was just getting my head around words like Hobie, Laser, Dabchick, Oppie and Dragoon, when suddenly I was on the phone trying to find a spinnaker pole. After a few calls (because everything shuts down in Cape Town early December) I finally managed to get hold of one. The woman on the other side of the phone was asking me how I would be collecting it. I opened and shut my mouth a few times not knowing what exactly she was asking me and then risked showing my ignorance by asking, “What exactly do you mean by that?” imagining having to hire a trailer to transport this pole.

All she meant was that she was in Zeekoevlei and that the pole was needed in Hermanus which was a good hour and a half away. That was the least of my worries. Talk about things we do for our kids? I was being “ground crew” to Angelique’s managing role. Our sons, after barely a few months of sailing (a 420), had decided to enter the SA Youth Nationals which was taking place over the first week of the holidays. 

Much to my dismay, I had discovered (via Angelique) that we were expected to accompany them. I had just about caught my breath after matric exams and was facing a very busy silly season week. The last thing I needed was to spend a week away from home. Luckily, Angelique was prepared to stay there with me coming and going when I could. We had realised that this would be a make or break week for them and sailing ...either they were going to be put off or this would be the start of a lifelong love affair.

It was not an easy week. There were two days of howling winds and one day of sailing had to be cancelled, but our sons battled on.  It was on one of those bad-weather days (when most competitors had opted out) that they had capsized the boat and lost the pole. At the end of the week, sporting sunburn and minor injuries, they came in 12^th out of 14 boats in their section. Tired, but proud, they declared: “At least we didn’t come last!” So it looks like we’ll soon be pencilling in the dates for next year’s race...

Chalk and Cheese

I find it fascinating how children who are birthed from the same parents, who grow up in the same house with the same circumstances turn out so differently. I guess when you throw two different adults together and make a baby; you take potluck with how they are likely to turn out.

Sailing and horse riding are sports with a certain genteelness that I certainly did not grow up with. My son is a fan of both and it matters little to him that no one in the family shares that passion. Similarly, he plays the clarinet. Although we all love music, none of us play an instrument. My daughter briefly played the recorder in grade one, as a requirement of the syllabus but dropped it with little further interest. She did not even try out for the school choir, dismissing it as being for children who needed to learn how to sing.

She sleeps like a log, since an early age has invited all she meets to come round and visit and leaves everything till the last minute because she “works best under pressure”. She's travelled like a dream since she was nine months old. My son on the other hand does not mind his own company (choosing solitary interests to occupy himself) sleeps like a flea and is more focused and conscientious about his work. If it wasn’t for the fact that he looks like me and shares other characteristics too, I would be inclined to believe my daughter’s assertion that he was swopped at birth.

I spent the first two and a half years of his life comparing him to his sister before I accepted that this little boy had his own agenda and was blazing his own trail. Now that adolescence has dawned I find myself comparing them again. My daughter breezed her way through but it seems like it may be pay-back time with my son. 

Both of them have enriched my life in so many ways, teaching me so much and often pushing me out of my comfort zone (like when I decided to take horse riding lessons). If sailing proves to be a lasting passion, I might have to take to the water soon.