Saturday
Dear Elsie
Today was the winter solstice for 2025 – the shortest day of the year and the longest night. This was the sun coming up behind the clouds. It was going to be a sunny day.
And so we decided to go for a winter solstice swim. The beach was very quiet. The sea was very cold – today it felt like 12. I spent my 30 minutes dawdling out to the barrel and swimming back. The sea, while flat and the wind, while low, belied the strength of the waves and the power of the undercurrent. The tide was coming in, but whenever there is a weird kind of riptide, it’s best to swim parallel to the coast – along the line of the wave. Mike arrived from his run and came into the water for a few minutes. A massive wave came and we both got dunked. Usually diving beneath them is the safest option, but this one was big and strong and I didn’t dive deep enough so as it broke over my head, it swirled me around, making me disorientated for a moment before I came up and broke the surface of the water. I’ve always thought I have more to fear of the sea than of sharks. And Fish Hoek waters are generally tame. Despite being able to swim & confident in the sea, I am careful.
We came home and had breakfast and a rest before getting stuck into housework.
Today I told Mike, with work ramping up to new levels, it may be time to go back to having two monitors…a big one and my laptop. He jumped all over that idea and has gone off to make the purchase! I’ve taken the printer out my workspace as I wasn’t using it and I’m going to rearrange my desk area. I’m spending so much time there, I want it as comfortable and functional as possible. The reward for work is more work!
I’m off to get the washing off the line. I have a bad habit of not pegging the socks to the clothes horse but just hanging them over the washing basket. A gust of wind took some of them over the balcony and I needed to go retrieve them from 3 stories down. Two of them had landed on the ground and two on the laundry roof. The ones on the roof needed a stick and a stretch to hook em up. I announced out loud (to nobody) that I was quite proud of myself in being successful! Some family members accuse me of reducing the impact of excitement by being excited about everything. When pointed out to me, it did highlight the number of times a day I say, “I’m excited”. How can one be excited about being successful in retrieving socks from the laundry roof? I think it was because I didn’t break any bones in completing the task.
Today is Riana’s birthday!
The poignancy of Psalm 139 was before me this morning.
Psalm 139:1-2
O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
It’s not about now – we are only passing through.
Keep the smile going.
God bless you.
In His Grip,
Gran xx 🙂