Don't worry yourself

It snowed. 31 of March and it snowed.
The crocuses had bloomed. I had gone to sunnier places with just a thin leather jacket.
It had become seasonally warm (or what goes for warm in this cold place).
Now this. Still wearing your wintercoat in April is not ok. Really, I cannot handle this drabness much longer. Before, I had complained about the weather being too hot, about the sweat underneath my legs making them stick to leathery surfaces when sitting down, about fearing sunburn and being swallowed by the heat at all times. Now I long for any true heat, not this manufactured air coming from the heater under my window. I want to swelter.

In the meantime, a little Fink goes a long way.

Resolution (Kygo Edit)

I like preserving things for the future, whether they be photographs found at flea markets of people I don't know or the 3kg of plums I bought because the sign read "Aus Südafrika". The photos can be stored for whenever I know what I want to do with them, but the plums were already looking fragile after their long trip. Because I did not want to get spuitpoep (haha, diarrhea) from eating them all in a day or two I baked muffins for my class (adapting this plum, hazelnut and chocolate cake by substituting some of the flour for cocoa and adding almonds, not hazelnuts). However, it felt like a drop in the bucket because I still had 2.5 kg of plums. What to do? I still have plum jam, so no more of that.

The solution was plum chutney. My sister and I have an obsession with adding Mrs. Balls chutney to almost every meal, but it isn't readily available here. Therefore I thought the plum chutney could be a decent alternative (although nothing beats Mrs. Balls).

My mother has a little book called voedselpreservering which would have been greatly helpful since I was not sure of the amount of vinegar, sugar, etc. to add. In the end I combined these two recipes (Spicy plum & apple chutney and Richly spiced plum chutney) and phoned my grandmother for help. It turned out ok, but the consistency is too jam-like. Ah well, at least it is chutney. Nom nom nom.

Apples, onions, garlic, spices, cinnamon, star anise.

 

The finished product. In the end I had 8 or 9 jars :)

Memphis, Tennessee

I am wrapped in two blankets like a piece of chocolate inside a croissant. It is -1° outside. I can't remember the last time I saw, never mind felt, the sun. I intensely miss sunshine, not only for the warmth it brings but also for its ability to make people feel happier. Here we're all bulbs, hiding underneath layers of black cloth, waiting to bloom.

This lack of sunshine reminded me of a film a friend gave me a few years back, entitled That Evening Sun. Based on the short story I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down by William Gay, the imagery in the film reminds me of life at a slower pace, of cicadas, of sipping mojitos and not doing much because the heat is all-consuming. I'd like to be there, now, chilling with Abner Meecham on some porch and contemplating life in a strong southern accent.

According to the weather report, it is just going to get colder. Here's hoping that with the cold the wind stops, the rain becomes snow and the sun can finally peek from behind the clouds.

Snow ((Hey Oh))

Duft des Schnees

Das Fenster stand trotz winters offen, und ich roch, sobald ich in das Zimmer trat, den Schnee. 

Ich roch und erinnerte mich: das kannte ich, das würzig Kühle, das sanfte Duftgewölk von Milliarden winzigen Schneesternen; diesen Flockenduft, der hereinwirbelt, diesen Schneesternschauer. 

- Bruno Epple

For the first time in my lifetime, it snowed in Pretoria. Normally in winter, the sun continues to shine and the days are warm enough, just at night time your feet become like icicles and a heater/warm water bottle/ hot company is needed. But yesterday, everyone kept updating their FB statuses about the snow in Joburg and for the first time in recorded history, snow fell in all nine provinces. Hillary Clinton, here on some business/trade thing, was even named Nimkita, 'bringer of snow'. 

I looked out of my window and saw sunshine. What snow?! An hour later, things had changed, and rough snowflakes were falling on the washing outside. In honour of this, a few people came over for pancakes and Glühwein. No better reason than snow falling for the first time since the 1960s, hey. 

My friend Sliv's view from her office. 

via News24

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