Familywise, our eldest son (a mechanical engineer) got engaged and then married, later moving to the UK and having their first child - a boy. Our second son graduated from Stellenbosch University as a mechatronic engineer and also moved to London. Our daughter graduated with a BA from the University of Cape Town, after a gap year spent as a teacher's assistant at a private junior school in the UK and a junior executive in an advertising firm in London. She has had therapy - cognitive behavioural therapy - for ptsd after her burns (see earlier entries), and is soon joining us all in the UK.
Despite the bouts with the meningioma and moving to the UK, I have managed to do some writing - all of which has given me much pleasure.
I have written several short stories, one of which was entered into a South African fantasy and science fiction magazine (Nova) competition, where it was a runner-up. Sadly, the judge did not realise that the story was meant to be a coda to the Count Dracula story and so she criticised me for lack of originality in name choice. Oh well. I enjoyed writing the stories anyway.
I wrote a story per day, which was very satisfying as I never knew - starting out - what the story would be about.
I also wrote a series of fairytale retellings, in which I related the stories with appropriate emotional input (fairy tales tend to relate dreadful doings in a matter of fact way) but with the characters accepting the norms of the fairy tale world as simply everyday facts. I chose to tell the stories of Bluebeard, Catskin, Patient Griselda, The Blue Light (precursor to The Magic Tinder Box), The Frog Prince, The Juniper Tree, The King of Lakeland's Three Daughters, and King Thrushbeard. I adapted the stories where necessary but used the oldest versions of each (thus, for example, the maiden has to chop off the frog's head rather than kiss him. The latter version was a mawkish Victorian tale). I added to this collection over time, but was especially proud of my version of The Juniper Tree, which I wrote in one day while still sick and exhausted in bed during my radiotherapy in 2017.
I wrote one short story while in hospital in 2021, but no more. Part of the problem is that thanks to my shaky right hand, I now type only with my left hand, which slows everything down. A stroke rehab ward is also rather busy and not conducive to creative writing.
Over the next month or so, I intend finishing my retelling of the ballad of Tam Lyn. I made many notes in past years which will be of help. There have been a few prose versions of the story, as it is seen as a popular "girl rescues boy" story for modern girls, but the original story is far darker - as would be deduced from the older meanings of the words and phrases of the ballad. I think that although it was recorded in written form in the 1700s the ballad dates from 1100 if the wording is anything to go by. Accordingly, my version is medieval in its setting.
Other half-finished writing projects are retellings of the Trojan War, the theogony of the early Greek gods, and a "me too" story of women betraying each other by mate poaching. I have had several false starts though, since I prefer mythological and legendary tales. I thought that the Harpies (as originally envisaged) would be suitable subjects. Incidentally, the story of Pandora has been sadly distorted by a scurrilous retelling by Hesiod, who was clearly a misogynist. I will address the true Pandora story in my other blog, Umkhomo.
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