January 27, 2008

the herb gardens



the Kirstenbosch Herb Garden was probably not the size of Greenpark in the grownup world, but it was at the time, which was good for me as I had to wear this silly green dress all day, so that helped and didn't help in digging in sand, and I dont have time to explain, as it was South Africa in the 80's. It is good though, to find a useful and I could even say good memory of that time, which makes the green dress inconsequential now. sort of. something will now happen, surely. by.

January 26, 2008

I just also quickly wrote something else

some of us and how the names came about



this is a picture of me and Stewy and another one of us.
It goes like this
Stew, or Stewy, or more recently Stew Simpson (Stewart Andrew Simpson, perfectly very Scottish, the entire intention, and my mom said she got told that her first son would be called Stewart, because something to do with the Scottish clan. she said if she knew she was going to have so many sons she would have saved the name Andrew.)
then me. I am Maureen, but I have a nice second name it is the name of my Gran, Lucy. She is my favourite person in the whole world except she died, but no one else is called Lucy, only me. it would be nice if I could swap the order of my name, because Maureen was the sister of my father's friend.
Then Glenn John Simpson (Glenn with 2 n's is so that he is not like a Scottish Glen, because my paternal grandfather was scottish and apparently he thought that was important, all my brothers have Scottish names, and I dont know where John comes from, probably my father's side. Glenn has lots of nicknames. then he died but the scottish thing was intrenched)
then
Jummy (James George Simpson, George is i think my mom's grandfarther. Jum lives in Scotland. We gave him the name of Jum, because too many James's get called Jim and Jimbo and other boring names. Jum rocks, no one I have ever met is called Jum. Jum is also called Jameson Raid, after a South African historical event to do with England)
then
Dindsy (Belinda Vera Simpson, but she's called Belinda Vera Bouwer now. She is called Dindsy by most of us cos when she was small she couldn't say Belinda , she said Dinda, so she's called Dindsy. Brucey calls her Balla because when he was small he couldnt say Belinda he could say Balla, and we weren't all around for him to learn Dindsy, and little kids make their own minds up, so she has lots of names. Her second name is from our other gran, but still its a pretty name, and she was misunderstood, the gran that is, i think)
then there is Moose, Aka, Duke of Greenwich. (he is called Bruce Charles Simpson, and Bruce comes from my mom's uncle from Durban who was awesome, and Charles comes from my grandpa on my mom' side, he was called Charles Ross-Spencer, but he was known as Jack and no one knows why, his family was related to Princess Diana Spencer but somewhere along the line someone added Ross, because that was a great friend of someone, so it was an honour. it has stayed. he was born near the bells of bow apparently except i also heard from a certain cousin that he was born in Kensington, I prefer the bells of bow because that is near where i live. my favourite paint shop is across the road and there is a museum about the bells and its one of the only buildings that hasn't been turned into shared ownership) Bruce is also called BruceMoose, one word. the Moose idea comes from Canada, because Stewy's wife KateyKates is from Canada, and she has pictures of Moose's and when BruceMoose was small he liked the Mooses so we called him BruceMoose, and he is ok with that. he just got a very high mark in a law exam, he is only young and he is studying law and my big brother Stew is a famous lawyer in Dubai and maybe Moose will be too, or at least he will find something. He just left his IT job so I was very happy that he did because he is not naturally inclined towards Configuration Management.

In the picture it is iether Stew age 4 me age 2 and Glenn age 0, or it is Stew age 6 me age 4 and Jum age 0, but I dont know as I cant tell ages of children. It is at my grans house because i remember the chair in her lounge very much. She used to read us stories but not really, she just counted to 3 in Zulu over and over again, Gunye Gubile Gutatu... she didnt want to be a baby sitting Knitting Gran, she wanted to be her own way. that was ok for me, I didn't realise till someone explained. I had my gran, that was the important thing.

January 20, 2008

when our feet used to find the shade




just to say, we never shot the minor birds and we liked going to buy chesterfield plains on a Saturdays and we knew we had to jump to the shady bits, but we knew where the shade was, and on the way home from school we often managed to borrow Donky Kong games or we had books from the Rosebank Library covered in thick plastic to keep us occupied whilst walking through the cannels of venice