Things to love about (a South African) Winter

Growing up in sunny KwaZulu Natal, I didn’t really know what winter was.  It gets cold there, but only cold enough for some decorative jerseys or scarves.  Grahamstown (and the wilds of Hosback) initiated me into real winter (as well as a first snow fall for the three of us (Yemu, Natasja and I) in this picture: ah, bliss!)  I have since come to love some things about winter.  So for those of you out there hankering for the summer months already, here are some things to savour:

    1.)    (this one is paradoxical) The sun

Winter sunlight does not scorch your insides or burn your skin.  It provides tempting nooks in your house for you to lie in, soaking it up reptile-style.  You will miss it when summer comes and every time you step out the house you have to smother yourself in layers of sunscreen (or avoid stepping outside altogether).

2.)    Hot water bottles

Getting into bed and curling your cold toes around something warm until your feet are toasty and then hugging that delicious warmth to your chest whilst reading a chapter of a book with only one hand out of the covers: it is the stuff of hallmark cards, I tell you.

3.)    Gluhwein

Spicy red wine served still steaming in a mug providing all the comfort of tea with a spicy alcoholic kick.  If you are in Grahamstown for the National Arts Festival, get yourself to Yellow House for a mug of authentic German stuff. Mmmmm.  Which reminds me...

4.)    TheNational Arts Festival

Yup, this happens in winter in miserable Grahamstown.  It just wouldn’t be the same in warm weather.  In some corner of my brain, winter means shrugging yourself into four layers and a heavy coat and walking briskly to the nearest theatre or hall that has been turned into a theatre and watching some AMAZ!NG.  Then it means ambling over the Village Green for some fantastic, nutritious Vegetarian food and wandering amongst the colourful stalls until it is time to start bar hopping until everything else but the Long Table has closed and you end up having thought-provoking conversations with people until four in the morning, when you finally shamble out into the cold and make your way home through the deserted streets of Grahamstown, only to start the whole process again the next morning.

5.)    Fingerless gloves

I love these things.  I can keep reading or writing without my fingers freezing off and I think they look rad.  I have a stripy pair and a grey pair that extend up to my elbows for extra warmth.

6.)    Spending more time on the internet

I recently blogged about my issues with the internet.  At the moment though, it is too darn cold to do much else in the evenings.  So I have been spending time finding some mighty interesting blogs out there.  More anon...

7.)    Tea

Oh wait. I’ve blogged about this already. Twice.  J

(ADDITION: I had some input and am remedying some omissions.  A warm thank-you to Yemu, Robyn and SJ.)

8.)    Soup

A bowl of soup is a beauty to behold.  I love the way the steam rises from the top and the way it is just packed full of hot, vegetable nutrients.  My favourite memory of soup is, once again at the festival, but this time working at Wordfest and enjoying cup after cup of pumpkin, chilli, orange and tomato soup from (the now sadly closed) Reddits.

9.)    Rusks

I have four words for you (or five words or three words and one hyphenated monster word, I guess): hot-cross bun flavoured rusks.  They taste exactly like hot cross buns, but they are rusks.  Best. Idea. Ever.  And soon, I will be attempting to bake health rusks.

10.)       Snuggling under the blankets by the fire and having good catch-up chats

Well, you need a fireplace for this, technically, which is in no short supply in Hogsback, I can tell you.  On the Opera Company camps, each cottage had its own woodstove (one of those old-pot-bellied stoves that they rescued from the scrap heap) that would belch smoke so we would smell like woodsmoke for the entire time we stayed there.  We would have to tend that fire as carefully as a baby.  But golly, it kept us warm and having brilliant, long conversations and storing up our strength for the summer.  I am not there this year, but that memory has a rosy glow around it, and somehow just remembering made me feel that little bit more restored.  

On Tea: A more personal note

When I was writing about all the different teas I have tucked away in my cupboard, I realised that part of the reason I particularly savour all the different flavours is that each one was introduced to me by a different person, and when I drink it, I am reminded of them.  Tea is the stuff of long conversations with friends around the kitchen table.  It is the stuff of family visits accompanied by milk tart or Assorted Bakers biscuits.  It is served at important functions, like graduation teas or weddings, or even funerals.  You could drink it on your work or tea break while you sit and have a gossip, or, like me in my solitary working state, I enjoy it as it helps the words come out better.

In this way, knowing how someone takes their tea can sometimes be a measure of how well you know them, because if they have been invited into your home, there is a strong chance you will have made tea for them frequently.  Everyone has their own tea-drinking quirks. I drink all my tea black (after my mother) with the tea bag still in (at this, my mother thinks I am crazy) but Zwe and his sister take theirs with milk, sugar and not only the teabag still in, but the spoon as well.  My father has complicated routine that involved warming up the cup with some plain hot water first, and then using white sugar for tea and brown sugar for coffee (and never the twain shall meet).  I know I haven't speant much time with my school friends for a while because I have forgotten how they take their tea when I used to know.  This makes me a little sad.

I never used to be much of a tea drinker.  The only time I drank tea growing up was when I stayed with my grandmother. The taste of milky, sweet Earl Grey will forever remind me of her neat little cottage in Waterfall Retirement Village.  She no longer baked but always made sure there was something sweet for her first granddaughters to eat.

At school, I think the only tea I really took notice of was Paddock tea, mainly because my friend Carmen's father was a tea farmer and as a result, Paddock tea was held in wide esteem in my humble part of the world.  Sadly, no one in Paddock makes tea anymore, so if you come across any lingering boxes of the stuff, you should snap it up quickly.

Plain rooibos tea was my procrastination of choice when I was in residence at Rhodes University.  Breakfast or lunch or supper would be finished, but if you were still nursing a mug of rooibos from the dining hall stash, then you didn't have to go back to your room and get back to work.  Living in the annexe, I would drink the decadent Woolworths Green Tea (everything from Woolworths Food seems decadent if you live in a town without one.  Oh yes, Johannesburg readers, they do exist) one of my housemates would bring from Johannesburg, or I would make my own hot drink with honey and lemon.  Grahamstown is also bitterly cold in winter, and tea was always a sustaining cordial to get you through the winter (well, that and copious amounts of alcohol.  You would be amazed what you can get away with wearing out in winter when some alcohol has warmed you up first).

Twinings tea is all because of my mother and our English holiday at the end of 2009.  We shopped until my aunt was horrified that we had come all the way to London to shop (the horror! to be fair to us, I did arrive two days before Christmas and I hadn't done any of my Christmas shopping...)  England in winter is just so cold and dark that a flavoured tea can be the last thing between you and full-blown madness.

It is from 2010 onwards that my tea obsession has really taken a solid form.  Zwe's sister Zama introduced me to Buchu tea (on one of our annual Summer get-fit drives) and her friend Thabi stayed at the flat one night and brought her own tea (something every sensible tea lover should do).  That was when I discovered the marvel that is instant, extra-strong Honey and Ginger Tea.  I have sustained myself on that tea when it is late and everyone else is still partying and my alcohol jersey has worn off.

The Chai Tea is something that brings all sorts of people together.  Zwe's mother likes it, as does my sister who is my supplier of the delicious stuff.  (In some ways, she is my drug dealer, as sugar is my drug of choice any day)  She worked in a wonderful little health shop called "The Mustard Seed" in Grahamstown that is the only place I have ever found it that sells it.  She and I often let each other know when we are drinking it and it is definitely something us sisters share.  I also introduced it to my old friend Christy (we've been friends a whole decade now, whoopee!) the last time we had one of those delicious catch-ups, and she really enjoyed it too.

Some catch-ups in my world occur not in my home, but in the English Department.  My one-woman-wonder friend Eva who is currently completing her Phd (along with working three or four other jobs) invited me for tea in the Phd room when I was too broke to go out for some, and we sat and sipped our way through two cups of Laager Green Rooibos, Citrus and Ginger tea.  Ah bliss.

The Five Roses Orange and Lemon teas was also introduced to me by friends, Malcolm and his wife Jess when Gwynlyn (another school friend) and I were staying at their newly-wed home in Secunda.  It was a revitalising visit for both of us, we speant a lot of time sitting at their table or in their living room just chatting about everything under the sun (and by everything I mean everything, as these three are comprised of two engineers and a geologist) and down time with distant friends is better than a weekend at a spa.

My next tea adventure (I think) will be into leaf tea.  I have a teapot and a strainer, and the redoubtable Mrs. Spiller gave me leaf tea for Christmas in two gorgeous boxes: Assam tea and Caramel Rooibos.  Perhaps, like my adopted grandmother, Granny Pam, I will learn to tell fortunes in the tea leaves...

the bus: seat mates

Next time you are looking for an interesting place to go, get on a bus. It doesn't matter where you are going or which bus service you use, it is the bus trip itself that is so interesting. I travel on the Wits bus sometimes, and it is usually crowded. It was unsurprising that today there was only standing room for me. As the bus took off (like a space shuttle! I wish...) I happened to look down at an Indian girl typing an sms. She was a little round, but prettily so, with long dark hair falling thickly over her shoulders and dull-gold eyeshadow accentuating the slanting shape of her eyes. What caught me however was her rapidly changing facial expressions as she typed the sms. Her face was flirting. She gave little half-smiles and her lips formed words sometimes. Her fingers moved rapidly across the keys, and the clear pleasure at saying something clever and attractive and a little naughty was so plainly written on her face I couldn't help but be fascinated by this intensely personal exchange that was happening - strictly speaking - with the cellphone clutched between her fingers. People - for me - are always interesting, even if I never exchange a word with them. Admittedly, seat mates are not always pleasantly interesting. I sat next to a man once who carefully decanted brandy and coke into one glass after another as he steadily became more talkative and intrusive. Even in sleep he intruded on my space as his body sprawled outwards onto my seat, pushing me into the aisle. I spent the night fitfully, eventually pushing his partly comatose form back onto his side. The most important etiquette on a long bus trip is to give the person next to you their space. Unless it is impossible, as happened on a Cityliner bus trip I was on once during the Translux strike. The seats were so small and the bus so packed that the black woman sitting on the aisle seat had to strap herself into keep from falling off. It was so uncomfortable, we could do little more than dose, and woke frequently in the night to have long conversations I don't remember now. Not all intrusions are an affront. A blonde, handsome teenager sat next to me on his first bus trip and after asking me what grade I was in (not the best start) turned out to be really friendly and a biltong-maker. After a long chat (and an attempt to buy me some food from one of the garage stops) he said he was going to sleep and promptly settled himself on my shoulder. He clearly had no idea one doesn't sleep on strangers' shoulders in buses. I felt strangely protective of this naive boy who happily placed his sleep (such a vulnerable activity in a public space) in my hands. Foreigners (I've discovered) love to act with chivalry (or something) and often buy me food despite my numerous and vehement protestations. A sweet, silent Mozambican returned from the garage once with a coke for me without us having exchanged more than a few sentences. Another foreigner (I think he was Nigerian) bought me a jar of Lays Stax and offered me a job working in one of his uncle's clothing shops after a lengthy conversation about the nature of business in South Africa. There was another girl - friendly and self-assured - who spent most of the bus trip telling me how wonderful being a Jehovah's Witness was, and probably trying to convert me. We got on so well (chatting over her well-thumbed bible) that we even exchanged numbers but neither of us ever kept in touch. Some passengers want your number for no good reason. There was a large black man from Durban who I spotted talking to the only other white girl on the bus when we stopped for a midnight break at a garage. She left, and he then started talking to me. Quite early on in the conversation he asked for my number because he said he wanted to be my friend. I managed to convince him that although he looked like a friendly person, I am not in the habit of giving out my number. He finally gave a great laugh and said that he would ask me again when he got off the bus in Durban. I half expected him to follow through, but thankfully he left without a murmur in my direction at Durban Station. There was also an over-confident, thin white boy from Grahamstown who tried to get my number and get me to commit to going out with him after we got there. His pick-up line logic needed a little work. He began by telling me that he believed beauty was on the inside (no really, he did believe it). Only a little later (after he discovered I have a boyfriend) he said sadly, "All the pretty girls are always taken". I was flattered but almost disappointed at the ease with which his lines were shown up. I've had to entertain a little red-headed eleven-year old (thank-goodness I've seen the Twilight movies or I would have been in trouble) for a whole day while her mother kept her satisfied with one snack after another packed with refined sugar; I listened to a mentally slow white racist rant halfway from Maritzburg; and listened to another white, sporty teenager tell us (a group of us sitting near the front of the bus) her entire life story, including the intimate details of her mother and sister's sex lives. Perhaps the most interesting conversation happened in the throes of Joburg traffic. I was talking to a Nigerian Cage Fighter about religion and anger management. He was suffering the most excruciating head pains from being on the bus for too long, and I was trying to keep him distracted by chatting. He said that he was a religious man, but also a hard-core cage fighter, and that he had issues with road rage. He said he actually got so far as to get out of his car once to remonstrate with someone but stopped himself before it was too late as he said he didn't want to cause any damage. Towards the end of our conversation, he smiled at me and said I was a good person. Sometimes truth really is stranger (and more fun) than fiction. P.S.- for some reason, my "enter" button refuses on register on the Wits server. Apologies for the whack layout.