Rambles from World's End

So it suddenly dawns on me that I’m not going to get away with not baking cakes and other tasty morsels for long. I have rather a lot of children’s birthdays ahead of me and the Mauritian made a comment that he wouldn’t get away with not taking eats for his birthday again. So I finally face the reality that as a “Stay at Home Mum” or “SAHM” for short I really had no excuse not to at least attempt to bake. So I whipped out my recipe books- yes I actually do own a few and I have used them on occasion stop laughing- and looked for some easy basic recipes, bought the ingredients and so began my foray into baking. Oh me oh my we had some very yummy successes and some rather hysterical failures. The worst was the baking powder fiasco! With all due respect to my “Kiwi” readers, kiwi baking powder does not work in SA recipes. I tell you no lies, I tried three different cupcake recipes and two different cake recipes and though they cooked properly and tasted gorgeous they did not rise in ...

Like any Parent I always feel peacock proud when someone compliments my Butterfly's character. Often when I collect her from “Kindy” I am told by one of the teachers what a great help she is at “clean-up time.” A lot of the parents comment on how well mannered she is and seem genuinely impressed that she holds the kindy gate open for me while I negotiate my way through with the perambulator or that she carries her own backpack and anything else she brings home. Some people are amazed that she makes her bed every morning, I’m not she gets paid $2 a week to do that! She greets everyone we pass on our way to and from school and is well known to the employees of our local grocery store and “get anything” shop. I was gob smacked when standing in a queue at the check out the cashier said: “You’re Sarah-Marie’s mum!” Apparently on one of our trips to school we past her on the street and the Butterfly stopped in front of her and said “Hello I’m Sarah-Marie what’s your name?” I have absolut...

So it’s Thursday afternoon and despite the howling wind and low grey clouds I took the girls out for a walk to the “Wind Wand” to banish the cabin fever that was causing havoc. We ended up sitting at a Cafe’ sipping on a milkshake and a coffee while the littlest sucked on some formula. Behind us was seated a couple who had obviously had a bad day. The guy, openly gay and obviously comfortable with his sexuality was bitching about someone who had offended him in some way. The lady, whose name I assume was “Delta” was very sympathetic and making all the right noises. It was extremely uncomfortable! The Butterfly was fascinated by this very flamboyant man sitting behind me gestating wildly in fury, stopping now and then to sip on his “low fat vanilla latte hold the foam.” It’s very difficult to distract a four year old or not listen when someone is not being discreet or trying to maintain some kind of privacy in a public place. So I drank as quickly as a hot cup of coffee allowed me and...