Second week

I ran just over a mile today (1.6km).  Still in the gym.  It was -19C when we got up and went out to our cars this morning! 

 "Children of my heart".  These are other people's children, but you have a hand in raising them, as they spend so much time at your house, usually because they are friends with your own sons and daughters.  And they become so dear to your heart, and you follow their lives with such loving interest.  My mother had several of these children, and I became one of these children within the large family of my best friend.  I have quite a few of these beloveds myself, children who I have disciplined and fed and kissed goodnight, have sung songs with, taught to swim, been angry with for eating all the cheese, have patched up when they fell out of the trees in my garden, having been persuaded up them, against their better judgement, by my biological children. 

There were mostly girls in the beginning, when my daughters were young, and then when my sons were young the friends were mostly boys.  And now this latest bunch are all grown young men, they all tower above me where I stand cooking in the kitchen.  They come frolicking in at the door and envelope me in great hugs.  We have interesting conversations, talk of the great problems of our time, of relationships, careers, books, movies.  They lollop around like young horses, by turns clumsy and gentle, competitive and loud.  At times their rooms reek of testosterone and sweat, and then again, when they go out and about they turn out quite handsome and nicely dressed, smelling pretty good. 

Two of the "children of my heart" I said goodbye to today.

 Houseplants are another favourite of mine.  In summer there are only a few inside the house, as they are all outside where they can happily feel rain dripping off their leaves, feel the sun hot and life-giving, even experience small birds flitting about them.  So in winter the dining room and kitchen area becomes a tropical forest as we bring in all these fragile plants. Only the rhododendron is tough enough for the snow, and laughs at the delicate green-leaved darlings being cosseted so.  

In South Africa we call plants in pots pot-plants, but we have experienced several very odd looks from Americans when using this term.  When Tim's company moved into a new building with a spacious lobby area filled with light,  he exclaimed loudly, "This section would be really beautiful with a bunch of pot-plants!"  In America they are "potted" plants, whereas a pot-plant is something completely different.  

I am very good at keeping plants alive, inherited from my dad, the big man whom plants loved.  I love to have the green of them all around me in the cold months, when all the flora in the woods and garden is ostensibly dead, at any rate, completely colourless.  Houseplants enhance the oxygen in your house.  Most plants also deal with formaldehyde and other poisons found in cleaners and carpets and furniture.  Our houses are full of seemingly harmless objects whose fundamental elements could kill you!

The jungle