Susan Roberts - Writer
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An Icy Break In The Berg

5/9/2013

11 Comments

 
I realised this week that far too many years have flown by since I last spent a holiday in the Drakensberg with friends. This started to dawn on me yesterday as we drove up to our rented cottage and I saw how many new things have sprung up along that once familiar road, and how many have been swept away and are no more.

Most of all, I realised just how cold it can be up here for a self-confessed Durban Girl.

When I woke up this morning, there was frost on the ground and it was 8 degrees in my bedroom. It is now 9. 9 degrees, not 9 o’clock. The time is 6.30 am. The sun has not yet risen above the gum trees that form a line down to the river, but I can see that it is trying. Maybe, like me, the sun finds it just too hard to get up when it is this cold. 

I am back in my bed now, wrapped up in gloves, my hooded dressing gown, a duvet and two blankets. I have re-heated (for 3 minutes instead of the usual one and a half) my bean bag which is shaped like a teddy bear. It’s probably burning the socks off my feet, but I can’t feel them yet, so I won’t worry about that for the moment.

Nestling at the foot of the gum trees is a brown thing that I am hoping is an eland because we saw their tracks yesterday on the way to the river. It hasn’t moved in half an hour, and I am starting to have a sneaking suspicion that eland are supposed to be grey, not brown. There’s no internet here so I can’t contact my old friend Google to check. Perhaps it is a cow. A frozen cow. But then, these farms don’t seem to have any cows; only guest cottages. Maybe guest cottages make more money than cows. I could ask my friend Trish who runs a cattle farm, but she doesn’t have any guest cottages – no time
for her to run those as well as a whole cattle farm.

Now that there is a little weak sunlight filtering through the gum trees, I suspect that my eland/cow might be a log.

As I stood in the kitchen this morning, having fired up the gas geyser but still waiting for the hot water to trickle through the pipes, I couldn’t help but wonder: is this what it’s like in Australia and New Zealand where most of my family now live? Shame. Or, as we say in South Africa: Ag, shame, hey?

When the kettle finally boiled for my tea, I swilled out the mug with boiling water and was tempted to empty it over my hands, just to check if I could actually feel anything, but at that moment the microwave pinged. My beanbag teddy bear had toasted to a lightly smoking mass, damp with condensation, so I slipped it under the layers of dressing gown and pyjamas, and hugged it against me instead while I finished making the tea. I will deal with the burnt, chapped skin on my stomach when I get back to Durban.

Even as I write this first draft of what might later become a blog, it is so cold that the ink in the ballpoint pen is reluctant to flow, and I have to keep rolling it between my gloved palms like a fire stick. I am tempted to dip it into my tea, but I fear that the cold plastic may lower the temperature of that trusty beverage even more. On the other hand, I may need to use the pen to crack the ice that seems to have formed like a skin across the top of my tea.

What does any of this have to do with writing, you may ask? Nothing, but even a writer needs a holiday. Or I could just tell you that I’m doing research for my next novel where two characters take a trip into the Berg.

Time for another cup of tea, methinks...
11 Comments
Sue
5/9/2013 02:56:06 am

Ooh that kind of weather calls for a lot of tea, and rusks, I hope you had rusks too. Perfect conditions for writing that masterpiece, I hope you had fun.

Reply
Susan link
5/9/2013 05:36:32 pm

We didn't have rusks, but we had hot cross buns. And chocolate. And gluhwein. And loads of other food too. Did I mention that we had chocolate...?

Reply
Penny
5/9/2013 04:22:22 am

Brrrrrr! You almost had me reaching for the hot water bottle. Just wonder why no laptop. Glad you didn't put the pen in your tea, at best you might have had black teeth, at worst poison in your system.

Reply
Susan link
5/9/2013 05:47:41 pm

My first writing of the day is usually the Morning Pages in my journal - thanks to Julia Cameron and The Artist's Way. This longhand habit has lasted for thirteen years now.

Sometimes MPs grow into an idea for a blog, but either way I can't write until the first cup of tea hits the spot. The laptop follows about the same time as the second cup of tea - especially if there is no internet to distract me!

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Gareth
5/9/2013 07:12:52 pm

Well, Ms Roberts, the eland / frozen cow / log certainly had us all very excited for a minute or two. What I did not mention to you on our last day was the beautiful and very inquisitive berg adder that I saw at the back of ye olde rented cottage. Now that was an interesting sighting! And something that was guaranteed to keep you in bed had you known about it ...

Reply
Susan link
5/9/2013 07:56:58 pm

Eek - and I went for little stroll there just the afternoon before! You're right - that might have kept me in bed.

Even so, it was a beautiful spot and I can't blame the snake for wanting to enjoy it too. Just glad I didn't see him - images like that tend to remain imprinted on my retinas, haunting me for ages afterwards.

Aren't berg adders supposed to be shy, not inquisitive?

Reply
Jackie
5/9/2013 11:33:22 pm

Gareth, fellow mountain bikers are not supposed to keep such vital snake information from one another - I am deeply disappointed..

Trish
5/10/2013 10:26:42 pm

I could probably comment on Elands, I could most definitely comment on cows but logs I would have to think about. Your biggest clue to what it was should have been that it hadn't moved for half an hour! Four footed friends move in cold weather a lot more than apparently you do. Frozen ones tend to be upside down with their feet in the air rather than on the ground. What has your blog got to do with writing? I'll tell you ... don't all you writers agree that it's much more fun to write scenes set in cold weather than in hot. Gluhwein versus iced tea. Chapped skin versus sun lotioned skin. Hot cross buns versus cucumber sandwiches. Winter is so much more descriptive. Like Sue I just don't want to have to endure it...out of bed that is.

Reply
Susan link
5/11/2013 12:18:12 am

I like the idea of writing scenes set in winter, but there is a discomfort level that I'm not sure I want to experience in order to be able to write about it. Maybe that's why all of my books take place in hot climates or in summer. Or maybe that's because I grew up on Enid Blyton books - they always seemed to be set in an endless summer. I'll have to think about that...

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David
5/15/2013 02:05:40 am

Having just returned from Dargle, let me tell you about the joys of Lemonwood Cottages. High on a hill, with indigenous forest as the background, the purpose-built cottages have that most blessed of mod cons: under floor heating. And the double bed? Electric blanket. While in the dayroom, one of those northern hemisphere fireplaces dedicated to ease of operation and massive radiant heat. Finally - a low-revving ceiling fan to circulate the warmth. It was very hard to get back into the aged Peugoet and head for home ...

Reply
Susan link
5/15/2013 05:35:34 pm

Yes, David - you are so right about Lemonwood Cottages! I spent a weekend there in January with a writing friend. Which of the three cottages did you stay in? We stayed in the smallest one, and that's where I finished the first draft of my current novel. Of course, it was summer then, and we had no need of the fireplace or underfloor heating, but it was just as cosy and welcoming.

I wrote at the glorious dining table with its picture window view of the side of the hill, and Trish wrote at the table on the patio, overlooking the valley. What a wonderful place to write! I will have to try it out in the winter too.

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