It's cold out there, but I'm warm in here

The lovely balmy Winter weather we've been enjoying over the past two weeks has broken, last night the temperature began to drop and an icy wind started to howl around the house. Today dawned cold and grey and dreary. It's unusual for it to rain this late in the year because Johannesburg is a Summer rainfall region.




Fortunately I work from home, so I'm cozy and warm inside with the gas heater blaring away, and a hot cup of coffee steaming at my elbow.

Home is where the heart is

And introducing.....my dear old doggie aka the love sponge.....as in all I ever want from life are pats and lots of them...like ALL the time.
I've been feeling a bit down lately about having to sell our house, wondering if we are doing the right thing, and then yesterday I was rudely reminded of the reasons for wanting to leave. The suburb I live in is close to Johannesburg's second largest university, and even closer to the city's largest university. Over the past two years, more and more students have begun moving into the area as unscrupulous landlords buy up houses and turn them into overcrowded student communes. We became mildly concerned but hoped that it wouldn't affect property values and neighbourhood standards too badly, and for a while everything seemed to be okay. That is until students moved in next door and across the road. And with students comes student noise. It is such fun to be woken up at 4.00am by car doors slamming, stereos blaring and loud drunken voices. That was from the people across the road, and it happened once a week, or once every two weeks, sort of bearable. Then students moved in next door, and the fun really began.

They seem to live by the following rules:
1. Don't hold a conversation unless you can talk at the top of your voice. Make sure you do this outside so the neighbours can be sure to hear you.
2. Always play the radio at full blast.
3. Have wild parties, but make sure you do so outside in the road so your friends can blast their car stereos. Make sure you leave lots of empty beer bottles, broken glass and food wrappers on the pavement - and for god's sake whatever happens, DON'T clean up the mess.
4. If you are female, make sure you giggle loudly, shriek and scream as soon as the smallest opportunity for doing so presents itself.

When they are outside on their front porch, it sounds like they are sitting right with me inside my study/art room. One guy in particular has this incredibly loud, deep booming voice with a laugh that would put your average chainsaw or angle grinder to shame. Now, they can go for two weeks and you won't hear a peep out of them, that's when you start getting sucked into a false sense of thinking that maybe things aren't so bad after all, and maybe you're being a bit drastic by deciding to move. And then they. come. back. to make your life a misery. And for three days it's wall to wall noise.

Yesterday they started up around mid day and only stopped after my husband asked them to keep it down at 6.30pm. Of course that won't stop them from starting up again as soon as they feel like it. When they start making noise I feel like my sanity, my home, my privacy, my sanctuary from the mad world out there is being invaded and destroyed. My heart rate literally goes up. I get stressed out and become anxious and agitated. I feel so angry at their selfish lack of consideration. I burn with anger and resentment. I start planning nasty schemes in my mind to get back at them....like finding out when they write exams and blasting the loudest, nastiest heavy metal music I can find at the most inconvenient times of the day. I don't like how they make feel and how they make me want to behave.

So, in a way I'm glad they made noise yesterday again after being quite for almost two weeks. It reminded me that we are DEFINITELY doing the right thing by selling up and moving. It sucks but that's the way it is. It'll be a complete mission but that's what happens when you move. Home is where my husband and my pets are. And we'll make a lovely new home somewhere else. I have to say though, it is sooooo damn tempting to exact some revenge on them before we leave, but hopefully I won't stoop to that level!

Money for jam

Today is another pure blue sky warm Winter day....lovely. My lemon tree is just bursting with it's bright yellow fruit at the moment, so I decided to make some lemon chili marmalade. I looked up a couple of recipe's on the internet to get the general idea of what was involved, and went off to make up my experimental brew. I think the jam turned out quite well. It's very bitter and very sweet at the same time, and the bits of lemon peel are amazingly tangy and fragrant tasting. I used a bit too much chili, it's slightly overpowering, so if I decide to make another batch I'll definitely use less chili.



We got an offer on the house last night - but it was much too low. The realtor will go back to the prospective buyers and see if he can get them to go higher. I also still definitely want to have another show day which is scheduled for the 14th of June. I will be so sad to leave this place, I love my house, but unfortunately there are problems in the area that we are not happy about, so move we must. I just wish I could conjour up a magic spell and move the house somewhere else.

Home sweet home

Some corners of my home:

The spare room

Millie and Amelia


I got this Japanese doll on my last trip to Australia, I know there's a particular name for these dolls but I can't for the life of me think what it is at the moment.

I love this colourful embroidered doll from an amazing market called the Old Biscuit Mill in Cape Town when I was there on holiday earlier this year.
I have had this awful strain of flu that's been going around at the moment and spent the last week trying to rest in between madly getting my house ready for it's first show day on Sunday this past weekend. In the end the house really looked lovely if I do say so myself. Looking around my house with everything spic and span, I tried to come up with a description of my very eclectic decorating style, and the best I could come up with was "Eclectic African retro with a smidgen of kitch and a dash of Scandinavian country". It sounds pretty horrible, but in some weird way it works. I'll take some more pictures to post.

The first show day went fairly well, I think. The housing market is obviously depressed at the moment, but the realtor said that he reckons the house will sell faster than we thought, and that we'll get close to our desired price. The good thing is that we are not in a position where we are in a hurry to sell. Our next show day is in two weeks time, but the realtor is also bringing people round by appointment in between. So we'll see what happens!