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I think there should be a celebration for couples who have been together for 20 years.  It could be called a wedidit celebration.  A celebration of not giving up, of staying together through all the huge ups and downs of life, no matter what they are, like recovering from a miscarriage, suffering the death of someone close, the unbelievable miraculous experience of having a baby, sleepless nights after the birth of said baby, sexual inequities, illness, the deep connections of sensual ecstasy, money troubles, sharing the love of a growing family, affairs that break someone's heart, dealing with teachers at parent/teacher conferences, holidays, arguments, snot en trane, belly-laughs, little kindnesses, small cruelties, fulfillment of dreams, slashing of hopes. 

All their friends could put on their most outrageously colourful clothes, and come to the celebration bringing a bottle and a plate of food, a song or a dance or a work of art to give, and the couple could say a few words in public, a declaration of their love, of their independence and their dependence. And afterwards all the friends would clean the house for the wedidit couple, and in the morning they would get into their little car and go on a little trip for a few days, an "aftermoon".

Thinking that the spring was actually here, I took out the erythrina last weekend, and was going to take all the large trees out but got tired halfway through.  So my poor erythrina, which is now about 10 feet high, grown from a lucky bean I found in a bottle which came with our furniture all those years ago, has given up its ambitious verdant new-leafed appearance after the snow which fell overnight on Tuesday!

Lucky beans, which have blood-clotting properties.

I came out to find the poor plant, not only covered in snow, but also flat on the ground across the path, having been blown over by the frigid wind.  So I picked it up as tenderly as I could, with frozen hands, getting jabbed by the hooked prickles which grow on the trunk of the tree.  Ungratefully, it proceeded to shower me with all the snow collected in its still fluttering leaves!  Most of which went straight down the back of my unsuspecting neck and did not put me in a good frame of mind for the long day ahead of me.

Hooked thorns on the trunk of the erythrina lysistemon

But all is forgiven, because this is one of my babies, a little part of South Africa which has grown in a foreign country just as my boys did, into a tall young beautiful presence, with thorns to fend off evil and soft spots of gentleness. 

The little boys in South Africa with their friends Alex and Phillie!