Singing Jingle bells in December rain

The rain has not stopped in a month (I am taking a deep breath). A small river has formed at the back of our house and our clothes are starting to smell like blue cheese. Hopefully this will not put Santa off because he is highly expected, by Leila, at least. She actually has no doubt that he will come for we have a fireplace in the house. How he manages to come down such a narrow path has puzzled her in the past but seems to be of minor importance lately. I sewed some Christmas stockings for the family and hung them up in front of the fireplace only to remove them shortly after and start a fire. Well, I thought I was starting a fire but gave up after I found out that all our small wood, newspaper and matches (!) were too damp to light up. Cris got his way using alcohol (needless to say, dear South African friends, that even if we wanted to use some, firelighters are not an option here) and we gathered all our bedding to try and dry it up a bit. This is not my dream tropical Christmas or summer holiday. A lot of DVD-watching has been happening, generally to cool down the spirits that are missing some outdoors energy release. I am so grateful for our veranda, not just to dry the amazing collection of umbrellas (all of which were gifts from visiting friends / family / colleagues!) but for the bike-riding, valley watching and umbrella-house building that has been happening there in spite of torrential rains.

 

The girls have easily taken in the idea that although Santa brings some Christmas gifts, it is totally fine and necessary to count on the participation of all parents and community. They were pleased to deliver themselves some presents to the post office in Ouro Preto, which will deliver them to some children from around here who wrote a letter to Father Christmas. And then on Saturday, as we went to visit their cousins in Belo Horizonte we were invited to join Cristiano's cousin on his own initiative to deliver presents to children of the neighboring favelas. Some exciting times!

Who knows who will be dressed up as Santa next year...

Stripes // tights // something on her hair === fun

speckled vision of the end of year

Glitter season hit us rather early this year, at the end of November, just a few days after Cristiano's birthday. Since then we have been decorating Christmas tree drawings with glitter, wearing glitter and eating glitter. It generally starts early morning and by lunch time our table looks like a glitter fairy crime scene and when enough has been drawn, painted and glued the girls generally move on to the computer where their Edwardian advent calendar awaits them with a new activity every day (thank you granny and Jacquie Lawson!). As Coline gets frustrated she goes back to last year's Alpine calendar which they never stopped enjoying.

A glittery snowman

Our breakfast table

Coline and the advent calendar

Glitter just seems to be everywhere we look, and so is mold, for the weeks before Christmas are the wettest around here, and not so cold either. I am not a big fan of mold, I hate the smell of it on our clothes. I even think that I am allergic to it, and so I am in the process of trying to get our house rid of it. So far the more natural solutions have failed to remove mold from wooden furniture (lots of air, sodium bicarbonate and vinegar). Lysoform (ammonia based liquid) seems to work better but if you know a better way, please let me know!

Rosario church from our window, through the rain.

Last year's Christmas tree was a homemade recycled substitute, which I quite liked. This year I was keen to get a real live tree that we will plant on the property where we now live. I like it that there is a tree almost as old as me that grew from small to as big as the house where I spent all my childhood. I did originally look for a proper pine tree but eventually settled for one that cannot handle the weight of tinsel, but will hopefully look as beautiful and majestic as the full-grown neighbor's tree. This tree is called araucaria. I have admired how their outline is etched on the side of hills. They look like thousands of arms carrying pompoms towards the sky. They produce nuts that are about five centimeters long and although I do not enjoy their taste, I am sure that some bird or squirrel will benefit from it. In other words, I love our Christmas tree.

our baby araucaria

the neighbor's araucaria

I have being going through a knitting phase and discovered that I am more of a hat knitter than a jersey knitter, and so all of a sudden we all seem to be wearing more hats than ever. I love the fact that I can browse through thousands of free patterns on Ravelry and learn something new everytime. I may tell you more about the things I knit once I have given some away as Christmas presents, for I would not want to spoil the surprise. 

Until next time, I wish you a merry and glittery festive season!

Sundowners and a braai

Nothing reminds us more of South Africa than sundowners and a braai. Our previous house was down at the bottom of Ouro Preto and although the view on the churches was beautiful, we could not enjoy sunset much. The sun would just hide behind the mountains. As we now overlook the whole town from our terrace facing west, we have a perfect spot for watching sunset. And we have been as often as we could (I mean, rain season has hit us now and we sure would not have missed tonight's sunset after a whole week under the clouds). 

At first it was only Coline and I, until the end of September, while waiting for Cris and Leila to come back from work and school. And then the days got longer, and Leila came home before the sun was gone, and then we switched to summer time and we have been able to even have and early diner outside, or a braai, as it happened on that fine evening with some friends. 

Old house and new house have been busy this year, for this year has been a year of hosting. Family, friends and colleagues. Cristiano seems to have found a  pathway to Ouro Preto that has been allowing geologists from Italy, France, South Africa, Australia and lately England to visit us. The girls and I have been enjoying the company and the diversity of accents (my favorite: the English imitating the Australian) and given that most of our visitors have come via South African connections, we have shared many memories and also gotten some updates from there. One day, perhaps, we will go back and check for ourselves. I hope so.

I have been preparing another post, where I was telling the story of how Cris had a tarantula crawling up and down his leg while getting dressed one fine morning (ironically one where I had started with another one of our weekly spring cleanings), but then one of my friends pointed out that she was not coming to visit us unless we got a solution for the spiders. And so, enough about our spooky 8-legged housemates. Today, I present you the tatu-bola aka the girls' favorite pets!

Oh well, just one for the road.

A beautiful week-end

On this beautiful week-end we had a go at making our own natural lip-balm. The recipe is from the blog of a very inspiring mum and can be found here. It uses beeswax, coconut oil, honey and peppermint essential oil. It is so yummy we could eat it, and actually we could eat it. I am so glad we did this because we finished our last mg of imported south african beeswax lip balm and natural cosmetics are not a reality in this little corner of the world yet.

There was some knitting on a new project for someone's Christmas gift. Two rows only. It is just a beginning. And some painting for the girls, which brought some joy to the three of us and frustration to Leila and a great mess which I ended up cleaning by myself. Days do not always run that smoothly, but there always seem to be moments to savor and remember, in particular on a sunny week-end at home.
  

It has been such a long time since my last entry on this blog that I do not know where to start. And so I'll just start with the weather. Cold and dry, like nowhere else in this little corner of the world. We now live higher than praca Tiradentes, higher than the flight of vultures, and do not be fouled by topless Coline, she has been enjoying a fire in the late afternoons, and was even caught wearing slippers on a few occasions. Oh and so did she start wearing her hand-knit blue dress once it had been customized by her - see those pink flower-shaped buttons? They made the whole difference. Dry means that fires were a daily occurrence and not only in our fireplace. Most hills around Ouro Preto have had a fire in September, and this reminded me of the winelands near Stellenbosch in February.

Sunny days meant much play outside the house. Leila and Coline have been parent and daughters to each other, to their dolls and the animals around. Leila's school program currently focuses on insects (on which occasion Silvia and I learnt that spiders are not insects) and Coline has declared that she loves spiders. I am not looking forward to seeing her holding them in her hand like they do with Tatu-bolas (three-banded armadillo) because we have some out-of-proportion specimen around here that do not run away when they see us.

I had some attempts at garden-keeping, rather than gardening, with the help of Thembile. She and Scratchy follow me everywhere and she generally shows me how much better and faster she is at digging than I am. I really do not know what I am doing, but I did clean up the banana-trees (while ignoring the above-mentioned and shown below spiders), set-up the compost pile and clear a small area which I then covered with bits of wood collected on the ground on one end and horse dung on the other end after a horse spent the night on the lawn below our house. I did leave a good-looking weed in the middle because it seemed to be loved by the indigenous stingless bees that I am hoping to breed one day for honey. Well, that will be after I get us some chickens to hopefully take care of the spiders and scorpions. It turns out that the "weed" is used as a remedy against indigestion. I am planning to plant some non-GMO corn to feed the chickens.

In late September we had a feast with mulberries.

 Right after that came the first rain of the season, along with coughing children and tummy-bugs and more fires in the fireplace and herbal tea to fight the humid 13 degrees indoors.

Now is October already. Warmer days have arrived, although I am not yet letting go of my knitting needles.