During one of my countless visits to Facebook today, I happened to come across a Ozzie video advert encouraging families eating around the same table. It was a really schmaltzy piece, and I shed a tear for the 5th time today (don’t ask). I am incredibly grateful that we have managed to achieve this in … More Gaenor And The Need To Write a Recipe (Book)
Hello to all my awesome friends! How are you all doing? It’s February already, and I can convincingly say that yet another month has passed me by in relative randomness. Yes, it’s been coldish enough to say that it’s winter, but truthfully, it hasn’t been unbearable, barre 10 days mid- January, when I actually wore more … More Gaenor and Chapter 76
Gone are the days of me thinking that the start of the year was the opportunity for fresh beginnings and habits. The same can be said of resolutions- resolutions in itself has become very untrendy, and a hashtag line by how not to approach the New Year. Given that I am really not prepared … More Gaenor and the Beginning of 2016
7pm on New Years Eve and I’m sitting in the passenger seat of our car. We are driving on German autobahn en route home after dropping Dad at the airport in Frankfurt. With the exception of Strasbourg highways and by-ways, I think that this route between Strasbourg and Frankfurt has been my most frequented … More … And it’s time to crack open the bubbles to bring in the new year.Â
Earlier last week, I took a ‘me’ day- I had intended to spend my morning helping a friend make cake pops, and the girls have been asking to take a cantine meal, so I decided on the ‘me’ day. It helped me even more that Tuesday is Alex’s long school day- she finishes at … More Merry Christmas to you all
Hello my dear lovely friends. This is well and truly similar to my letters to you in the ‘old days’, when you wouldn’t hear from me for ages, and then out of the blue, I would pop 16 pages of assorted thoughts, random scribblings, and way more idiotic frustrations than any 20-ish should have to listen to! I am looking … More No news is good news.Â
Week 3 of the school year, and it has at last rained for 3 consecutive days (with a splatter of brilliant blue skies in between the drenching rain), but here I am, sitting in my office with a cup of steaming grapefruit water and a box of tissues at my wrist, and a pot of … More The Summer That Was
August 30th, 2015 would have been a special day in the lives of my family. It would have been Mom and Dad’s Ruby Wedding Anniversary…40 years of marriage. Â I still remember my grandparents 40th wedding anniversary in 1986- me, my brother and my cousins were given a boarding school pass for the night to attend … More A Pilgrimage
I’ve spent the last few days reflecting on whether or not to tell you every noticeable detail of our holiday, or simply write up a natty piece of observations from the perspective of a family of 4, visiting Tuscany for the first time. However, how to be natty while trying to describe the sun-baked woman … More Bella Toscana II
Good Morning my friends! So here I am, fresh off the road travelled, and the printing press to ensure my thoughts are not forgotten…it’s just after 6am, and after a long day on the road yesterday, I fell asleep early last night, only to wake up before the Strasbourg pigeons this morning. A trip to Italy … More Bella Toscana
Hey All, No, it’s not your typical sense of déjà vu that you would expect if you’re a Matrix nutter like me…or perhaps it is, but the last week has set me back somewhat, and it took a bottle of Alsace bubbles with dear friends to claw my way out of my miz-mood. I’m not sure … More A Glitch In The Matrix
Growing up, strawberries would grow in abundance in our garden every October, and not one year would go by (that I can remember) that I would not have a Hot Milk Sponge Cake made by Mom, and it would be covered in garden-grown strawbs’s. Mom would always use a butter icing over it, and later … More Baking and Mom’s Sponge Cake
This weekend marks our two year anniversary of living in Strasbourg. Yes, somehow we managed to tie it close enough to Bastille Day, and the hottest time of the year. I can write that with conviction, because I have two very definitive memories of that weekend. We arrived on a Friday. I was wearing jeans, … More Two Years
Last week marked my two year anniversary of not working, and it’s raised the question “Do I still introduce myself as a chef (de cuisine) if people I meet ask me what I do”? Two years of not waking up at 5am, two years of not driving to work under the dawn light with music … More Recipe of the week
My dear friends, The last few weeks have been heavy reading, and I hope you’ll forgive me while I work through my emotions and grief. I can promise you, it won’t be the last you’ll hear from me, but life goes on, and I cannot allow myself to fall behind. Way back when, the main … More A Delayed Start to Summer
Mothers Day-10 May. 10pm. How many times today have I stopped to look at something and think of her? How many times have I felt her absence? A perfect bottle of nearly empty Coco Chanel. The shopping list and her familiar handwriting. Her specs lying near the basket of keys. The flowers that are beginning to … More My Broken Heart
This is the tribute my brave sister spoke at yesterdays service.  She spoke so beautifully. If the last thing I can do for you Mum is stand here and be brave for just long enough to share with everyone here what made you such a special mum and person to all of us – I … More Dear Mom, Love Pandy
All the words in the English language, the thousands of Afrikaans and the hundred of French that I know will not make writing this tribute any easier. Where to begin remains impossible to determine. How it will end, I know, will be something like this: “I will love you forever Mom” The very last journey … More Dear Mom
Day 5 of our <<vacances de printemps>> â‘ and we have woken to rain. I’ve been listening to it falling on the corrugated roof outside our bedroom since 6am, and have had the luxury of drifting in and out of sleep. Anton’s in Kuwait this week, and I have been very lazy, as you can … More Can we become tri-lingual?
Last week Alex went off on her much awaited grand school trip- 4 nights/5 days away from home, with her class, and teacher. What a big deal. Granted, I was quite chilled about my 7 year old being away from home for a week (that’s what boarding school does to you), and I figured that … More The Storyteller
Pinot, Bretzels, and Cathedrals 