How do you cope with a death in this time of Covid-19? This is the first of a very painful type of story to have to share, and i am so grateful to Carolyn Blunden for being gracious enough to invite us into her story... My dad died last week, 09 January 2021 from Covid! When I looked at his last blood test results, his particulars were cited as 76, white, male but my [...]
How do you begin to get your head around all those who have faced death from Covid-19? As i start writing this intro to a new series, 2. 06 million people around the world have lost their lives to Covid-19, that we know of. In South Africa, the official number sits at 38 288. Each death from Covid-19 represents a family and very likely a wider community of friends, colleagues and neighbours that number [...]
Tomorrow is my birthday. The whole world, although counting down out loud to it for the past few days and weeks, seems to be a little distracted elsewhere. Which is quite alright, given the nature of the 12-month period we find ourselves in [which can no longer simply be blamed as 2020 as it turns out the sequel is pretty crap as well so far!] i was reminded by a message from an old [...]
What are you busy reading? Or what was the last book you read? And who was the author? These questions may seem quite innocuous and innocent, much like the unnecessary 'How are you?' we throw at someone we haven't seen for years when we bump into them in a supermarket [if we really cared how they were doing, the time since our last meeting might have been a lot shorter?]. But i want to [...]
How does one go about creating Eden? Especially when the story starts something like: Once upon a time there was a wasteland, a dry and barren verge of ugliness in a small corner of Diep River. Well, the first step is to have a dream and my wife Valerie [aka tbV or The Beautiful Val, to me!] and i had been wanting to do something creative and gardeny in our community since we moved [...]
Is it possible to argue with someone without attacking them as a person? This morning's case in point [on the Twitterer] followed the traditional rules: Person one responded to the president's announcement that prisoners would receive the vaccine before regular citizens with shock. Person two responded by humanising prisoners and introducing some context about their living conditions and need for the vaccine. Person one responded with a generalisation of 'stealing and murdering' prisoners vs [...]
Are we a World Covided? Yesterday my blog kinda exploded a little bit [in the very best of ways]. This week had seen me share 6 different stories of people who have faced and survived Covid-19. They all had decent engagement, but nothing special. Until story number 5: Enter Nicola Date, stage left. On the first day of her story it had just over 500 views, which is a good post on my blog. [...]
i am super grateful to my friend Nicola Date for sharing her story here. The first line of it is devastating enough, but i also know there was a cost to writing this piece for Nicola - physically, emotionally - she has really gone above and beyond to produce this account while still in the throes of a disease that is not done with her. Thank you, friend. i hope this story will inspire [...]
As we were getting ready for bed last night i was taking a look at the Twitterer and saw what was going down at the Capitol in America as white supremacists stormed the building where Congress was validating the election results. We spent the next hour or so glued to our phones as we tried to make sense of the chaos that was happening over there. i have some thoughts and opinions, but for me [...]
Another glimpse into the life of someone who has had Covid-19 and is on the mend. This time an email from an old friend of mine who is a teacher who had covid and asked to remain anonymous. i find that with each new story i am learning not only about the disease and how it seems to work differently in different people, but also about some of the wider issues [What do you [...]
