Hopes & Dreams – Nyamazela

It’s all happening here

Posted on 31 Aug, 20211 Sep, 2021 by nyamazela

“For some time no one had heard our clock, any more than if it had not existed. But for these last few days the living-room was quiet, and then I heard that it was still ticking away. It never let itself get flurried. Slowly, slowly went the seconds in my grandfather’s timepiece, and said as of old: et-ERN-it-Y, et-ERN-it-Y. And if you listened hard enough you could make out the sort of singing note in its workings; and the clear silver bell struck. How good it was to hear once again the note of this clock in which there lived a strange creature! And to have been allowed to stay here in Brekkukot, in this little cottage which was the justification of all other houses on earth, in the house that gave other houses purpose.”

The Fish Can Sing by Halldór Laxness

Have you noticed how many people you speak to, have just, or are about to make, some big change in their lives? Continue reading It’s all happening here

Something New

Posted on 23 Mar, 202123 Mar, 2021 by nyamazela

“Maybe I ain’t too old to start over, I think and I laugh and cry at the same time at this. Cause just last night I thought I was finished with everything new.”

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

private terrace Last week I mentioned that our flat has had a makeover.

It’s looking gorgeous.

This week I’ll let you in on a new development – we are selling!

It’s just over a year since we disbanded our company office at Putney Bridge and retreated into our various cubby holes to try and do work, do life and stay safe. Continue reading Something New

Help me interpret my crazy dream

Posted on 15 Sep, 2020 by nyamazela

“The inescapable fact is that the brain is an unnerving place as well as a marvellous one. There seems to be an almost limitless number of curious or bizarre syndromes and conditions. Anton-Babinski syndrome, for instance, is a condition in which people are blind but refuse to believe it. Capgras syndrome is a condition in which sufferers become convinced that those they know well are imposters. Perhaps the most bizarre of all is Cotard delusion, in which the sufferer believes he is dead and cannot be convinced otherwise.”

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson

The body No, it’s not an ABBA song and no I’m not Martin Luther King Jr … still … I had a dream. How are you at dream interpretation?

One night in December 2019…

My dream started with me standing at one of 3 turnstiles in a dilapidated building.

People came and went through the turnstiles on either side of me. I watched as a woman walked up to the turnstile on my left, picked up a rock and used it to ‘buzz’ herself through. She replaced it neatly on the opposite side for someone, leaving the building, to use on their way out. Similarly, a man walked up to the turnstile on my right, picked up a slightly different object (a fossil or a large shell?) and did the same.

A few people passed in and out of the turnstiles in this way. So I did the same. Continue reading Help me interpret my crazy dream

Is 2020 trying to tell us something?

Posted on 6 Jun, 20206 Jun, 2020 by nyamazela

³⁷ When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

³⁸“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

³⁹Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

⁴⁰“I tell you,” Jesus replied, “if they keep quiet, the very rocks and stones will cry out.”

The Bible, Luke 19:37-40

Virus What if 2020 is not really the car crash it seems to be?

Just a thought …

Things really stopped and went quiet for a while, didn’t they?

And now the cries are loud and big and scary … and demand to be listened to!

What if 2020 is a cry for help, a call for change?
Continue reading Is 2020 trying to tell us something?

Something lacking

Posted on 12 May, 202013 May, 2020 by nyamazela

“Across the veld were those hills of the Klein Karoo, rolling up and dipping down like waves. On and on, like a still and stony sea. I picked up my melktert and bit off a mouthful. It was good, the vanilla, milk and cinnamon working together to make that perfect comforting taste.”

Recipes for Love and Murder: A Tannie Maria Mystery by Sally Andrew

tea and rusk Recipes. Hmmm.

I don’t fit into normal size clothes, I’m told by my Hubby that I ‘always’ make changes to an item I order on a menu. And though I can cook well (I’d say) and can improvise a pretty tasty meal out of random leftovers in the fridge, I’ve never been able to strictly follow a recipe, without some degree of substitution.

I’ve leave the baking to real experts – my sister-in-law, my mother, CharliesBird, la boulangerie, Phyls Kitchen rusks.

This is why I do not bake.

That is, until today… Continue reading Something lacking

Paperless, office-less business in a time of the Coronavirus

Posted on 1 Apr, 20204 Apr, 2020 by nyamazela

“The whole of life is just like watching a film. Only it’s as though you always get in ten minutes after the big picture has started, and no-one will tell you the plot, so you have to work it out all yourself from the clues.”

Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett

Kermit panics Who knew?

Who knew?

There I was waxing lyrical about 2020 and all its promise. It did hold promise. It did. Elections were over. New, interesting enquiries were coming in. We’d taken on a promising new trainee broker. We had travel plans. Some of Hubby’s more difficult deals looked like they were moving forward. It was an exciting time. Continue reading Paperless, office-less business in a time of the Coronavirus

How I fixed my sleep … without sheep

Posted on 22 Jan, 202022 Jan, 2020 by nyamazela

“Sleep is like a cat: It only comes to you if you ignore it. I drank more and continued my mantra. ‘Stop thinking’, swig, ’empty your head’, swig, ‘now, seriously empty your head’.”

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Larson cartoon animal humour Did you know?

The first reference to counting sheep is found in a twelfth-century Spanish book, Disciplina Clericalis by a lad called Petrus Alphonsi. It’s a collection of fables in which the author tells one humorous tale about a King and his Story-teller counting sheep. Apparently counting sheep was a widespread practice in early Twelfth century Islamic countries, which fascinated and influenced our dear Mr Alphonsi. No doubt a shepherd or five was known to fall asleep during this monotonous daily routine …

Et voila! The origins of a completely useless remedy for insomnia.

So you can’t sleep? Neither could I – on and off for almost 10 years!

Now I’m sleeping like a baby. Continue reading How I fixed my sleep … without sheep

Speak to me 2020

Posted on 15 Jan, 202022 Jan, 2020 by nyamazela

“I keep turning over new leaves, and spoiling them, as I used to spoil my copybooks; and I make so many beginnings there never will be an end. (Jo March)”

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

My Dad was desperate to retire. He wouldn’t admit it, but work was challenging and he wasn’t coping. He had many plans for his retirement years. But he was also anxious. After all, he’d worked since he was 16.

On his last day at work I gave him a card. “How exciting,” I’d written. “To be on the cusp of a new season, a new chapter in your life!”

For months, even years later, in deep thought, he’d often say to me, quite out of the blue, “I’ve thought a lot about what you wrote in my card. A new chapter … I’ve got to make the most of it.”

After he died I found that card with a few other precious things he’d kept in his bedside table. Continue reading Speak to me 2020

A funny old time

Posted on 26 Nov, 201927 Nov, 2019 by nyamazela

Mama in a huge plaster cast — Big foot and our new little cousin.

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”

The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

“Come home, Babes. All is forgiven.”

This is the WhatsApp message I received from Hubby about 10 days into my recent 2 week break in South Africa.

I didn’t go because South Africa won the Rugby World Cup, though they did. Nor because it’s dark and cold in the UK, which it is. I didn’t go to check on our house, although I did that. I went because Continue reading A funny old time

5 Weeks ‘Into Africa’

Posted on 23 Jul, 201926 Nov, 2020 by nyamazela

“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills. The Equator runs across the these highlands, a hundred miles to the north, and the farm lay at an altitude of over six thousand feet. In the day-time you felt that you had got high up, near to the sun, but the early mornings and evenings were limpid and restful, and the nights were cold.”

Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen (pen name of Karen Blixen)

Karen Blixen Out of Africa “We paid £3 for a haircut in South Africa,” we told our flamboyant, full-of-opinions, Irish hairdresser in London some years ago.