This guy

Look, let’s be honest here. He started the year off badly – with the potential to be terribly damaged by not one, but two fathers (biological and self-proclaimed) who, within the space of four months, walked away without so much as a phone call or a backward glance.

But this.

This is the face of a survivor.

This kid is nothing if not resilient.

And so, with the help of his mama…and nana…and auntie…and uncle, he started on a journey away from mania and from darkness and from people who, although he didn’t know it at the time, were never going to be any good for him.

And this journey has taken him to places that, back at the beginning of the year, no one would have believed.

To an entire maths workbook without one wrong answer, to six months of spelling tests where the lowest mark he’s got was 19 out of 20.

To chilled, relaxed, cool, fun friends.

To good manners and great jokes.

To being a really happy little seven-year-old boy.

Higgins hair

When I picture in my head how I want Jackson’s hair to be, I think of John Higgins from that 80s tv classic, Magnum PI.

I can’t help it, I can’t even explain it.

But I’m pleased to say that we are almost there.

Hallwilersee 10kms

Yesterday we ran a 10km race around a lake in Hallwilersee, about an hour outside Zurich.

I cannot lie, I have been terrified about this race all week. I haven’t ran a 10 kay in more than a year and I was pretty sure I was maximum 5km fit.

The last time I ran a race (7km) was just after The Very Bad Thing that happened to me in the beginning of the year and as I hadn’t eaten in about a month I was, literally, running on empty. It was horrible.

But something – the fresh air, the beauty of it all, muscle memory, the French food, the Swiss fondue, all of the above – kicked in and I not only completed it, but I totally enjoyed it too.

And even though I felt like I had been running for hours, my official time was 64 mins, which has to be right, right?

Because, you know, the Swiss do time pretty well.

The Limmat

You can swim in the Limmat in summer.

Not today. Today is most definitely not summer in Zurich.

What did you do today?

Me…? Oh, thanks for asking.

Well, I went to a thermal bath on the top of a building overlooking the whole of Zurich with my best friend.

And then we ate our body weight in cheese fondue.

I think I probably win.
*I borrowed this image from someone and I’m posting from my phone so I can’t find who. Sorry, person I borrowed this from.

The Alps through the clouds from my plane window

Self explanatory title really.

Art

We had Lily staying with us this weekend. She is a little piece of rainbow joy that Jackson and I love very much.

I was going to take her and Jackson to the Johannesburg Art Fair – for culture and whatnot. But then I read about Ayanda Mabulu and I felt morally obliged not to go.

Then I read about David Goldblatt (my most favorite photographer of all time – I was lucky enough to work on an exhibition of his back in 1999) pulling his work from the fair in solidarity and there seemed very little point in going at all.

So instead, Lily and I hung our own art on Saturday night.

Tout et de rien et tout le reste – trois

This time next week, I’ll be in Paris with these idiots.

Minus the kid.

I am très excited. 1. to see my friends and 2. to go back to France.

While writing this, I tried to count how many times I have been to France in my life, but I couldn’t. When I lived in London, I had a boyfriend who lived in Paris for a couple of years and we would commute each weekend – either him to me or me to him – so it’s been a fair few.

The first time I ever went though, was on the ferry to Calais for the day with my father for my 8th birthday. I clearly remember that he bought me red clogs (so glam, so grown up) and we gorged on garlic snails straight out the shell and freakishly large, crimson strawberries.

And the last time I was there I waddled around Paris eight months pregnant with Jackson. I went for the weekend with Bob (middle pic), we stayed in a bon marché hotel where I had to climb about 63 steps to get to our room.

Being pregnant and hormonal, I remember being profoundly affected by a mother and her son discussing the paintings in the Picasso museum, and I swore that one day I would take  Jackson to Paris and re-enact that scene.

And one day I will. But not this time.

This time Jackson has to stay at home and go to school, you know…get an education so that when he’s older he can travel the world and hold long, desperately interesting conversations about the scientific theory behind democracy with a prom queen from Texas – or something like that.

It gets harder to leave him as he gets older. He notices the time more now, so he (we) made a How Many Sleeps Left Till Mommy Comes Home countdown chart so he can pull off the flags of the countries where am each day. Man, I wanted to rip those little flags away from him and cut them out straight, but, well…I sat on my hands instead.These people, that he drew along the bottom, are our family. We’re a happy bunch, with cool hair.

So there you have it, my one enormously long blog post spread out into three. Not saying much in any of them – but that’s the whole point, right?

Tout et de rien et tout le reste – deux

If I had a choice of looking like anyone else in the world, these women would be in my top three:

Stevie Nicks

Deborah Harry

Edie Sedgwick

My god, I totally have a type, right? Looking at them now all together like this – they’re pretty much identical.

And, of course, the one other that thing they all have in common is that they look absolutely nothing like me.

But you know, still to this day, women from the 70s epitomise glamour to me. And it’s not difficult to understand why.

Let’s just compare them to what I looked like in the 70s, shall we?

Jackson, what you doing in a sailor suit?

I loved those women, I loved them all, but more than anything I loved Stevie Nicks.

I cannot think about childhood car journeys without thinking about listening to the album Rumours. I used to sit in the back seat, staring out the window pretending I was Stevie with her long blond hair and swishy skirts and her voice that sounded like heartbreak.

In fact, if I’d ever had a little girl, she’d have been called Stevie.

Stevie Deborah Edie. Fact.

Anyway, what’s all this about?

Well, actually it’s just a really long winded way of saying:

I AM SEEING FLEETWOOD MAC LIVE IN CONCERT IN ZURICH ON 13 OCTOBER WITH MY BESTIE.

And I’m pretty sure I can die happy now.

Genetics

Jackson’s father. I’m pretty sure the year was 1994.

We were both very young, I’m certain of that.

It’s curious, don’t you think – the big messy gene pool that goes into making a human.

And that’s about as deep as it’s ever gonna get on here.

So…

…let’s talk about big nose fetishes, shall we?