Slow, On Purpose
On coming back from Kruger, and trying to live like we’re still there
We’ve just come back from Kruger, and I am still carrying it with me — that particular quiet that only seems to arrive once you’ve driven far enough away from everything. De Wet started walking like he has been walking forever on the second day, Basson named every animal, and for the first time in longer than I’d like to admit, I wasn’t thinking about anything except what was right in front of me.
Holidays are different once you have children. Relaxing is different. It isn’t about doing less — it’s about not having to hold every other thing in your head at once. Just this. Just now. The boys, the bush, the sound of nothing.
And of course, driving home, I found myself thinking: why does it take a holiday for us to live like this? Why isn’t this simply how we live?
I’ll be honest with you — I am not good at it. My mind doesn’t switch off easily. I’m forever collecting new ideas, most of them harmless, some of them ridiculous — visit every national park in the country, repaint the walls in the Manor House kitchen in a happy yellow, learn to embroider. And in all that collecting, I miss things. I miss the actual moment, because I’m three moments ahead of it, already planning the next one.
I recently finished Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing, and something in it settled a question I’d been circling for a while. Most of us know, somewhere, that our attention is being taken from us in small pieces every day. But going fully analogue, disappearing off the grid entirely, isn’t realistic for most of us.
So instead I’ve been finding smaller ways in. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that will change your life by Tuesday. Just an ordinary, imperfect list of things I’m trying:
I took up birdwatching again — my favourite hobby as a child, and one I’d quietly let go of for twenty years. I play with the boys in the forest every afternoon with no phone on me at all. I’ve started recording some of the conversations Basson and I have, just on a voice memo, no reason, just so they exist somewhere other than my memory. I film our family without any thought of posting it — not wondering if it’s pretty enough or whether anyone else would like it, simply recording it because it happened and it was ours.
I dug out the old Polaroid. I’m trying, quite desperately, to read again the way I used to before my attention span thinned out. I’m working on Renier, slowly, to give me Sundays at home doing absolutely nothing together. I’ve set up a proper office, computer and all, and deleted every productivity app from my phone. We built a little charging station inside a cupboard by the front door, so the phones go in when we come home and mostly stay there.
And the television left our house months ago now. We haven’t missed it once. The record player has taken its place, and when the house is loud with two small boys and general chaos, it’s usually Enya who brings us back down to earth.
There is so much more I want to try. I’ll keep you posted, badly and honestly, as I go.
Animal Updates
Saartjie, our bottle-fed lamb, had her twins while we were away. The rest of the ewes are due any day now, so the farm is about to get considerably noisier and considerably more delightful.
We’ve also welcomed four crested ducks to the flock, a small dream I’ve been carrying for years finally waddling around.
From the Kitchen
Renier came back from Kruger completely taken with roosterkoek — the kind eaten warm off the coals, apricot jam melting into whipped Jersey cream and cheese. It’s a small, perfect thing, and he has been making these for all the check-ins since we came back.
What We’re Working On
Wisteria Cottage’s bathrooms are being redone as we speak. And in what feels like a genuine milestone of adulthood, we are finally installing proper made curtains in every room — no more temporary fixes, no more make-do.
What We’re Looking Forward to in August
More lambs, with any luck. A new mini donkey foal, too — Nonna is close now, and it could happen any day.
Our Stay a Little Longer package is still running until the end of August, for anyone who’s been thinking about coming back to us — three nights, paying for two.
And if you’ve been looking for a reason to get away for one night, our Supper Stay remains, in my entirely biased opinion, the best there is: a three-course dinner in our kitchen, a night’s stay, and breakfast the next morning. Why pay the same at a fancy restaurant when you could come and have an absolute ball with us instead, and a meal you’ll actually remember?
Lots and lots of love,
Shanè and the boys (Renier is a boy too)