Memorable moments: The German library incident

Most people consider French to be the undisputed language of romance, with Italian or Swedish trailing closely behind. German, by contrast, gets a rather harsh reputation—often branded as rigid, percussive, and entirely unsuited to whispered pillow talk.

Yet for me, nothing on earth sounds more intoxicating than a woman speaking German.

Whenever people express utter bewilderment at this unusual linguistic preference, I trace it directly back to an afternoon when I was fourteen years old, standing in my father’s backyard workshop.

The workshop was Dad’s ultimate sanctuary—a private domain where he built intricate model trains, operated metal lathes, and tinkered undisturbed for hours. I had ventured inside on a routine errand to hunt down a syringe. Because Dad was a dentist, industrial plastic syringes were a common household commodity. He brought them home to lubricate the fine gears of his machinery, though he was well aware that my sister and I routinely commandeered them for fierce, warm-weather water fights in the garden.

That afternoon, the syringes were nowhere near their usual shelf. Rummaging through the clutter, my hand brushed past a hidden nook, and my fingers landed on an unmarked, mysteriously tucked-away VHS cassette.

There was an unmistakable air of illicit secrecy about where it was stashed. My teenage curiosity was instantly hooked.

A few days later, with the house blissfully empty and the rest of the family out for the afternoon, I carefully retrieved the tape from the workshop, slid it into the living-room VCR, and held my breath.

The tracking lines sputtered across the television screen, settling into a slightly grainy picture that remains permanently burned into my memory.

The scene opened inside an old library. A striking young woman and a chap were conversing in low, deliberate German. After a moment, she began climbing a tall wooden rolling ladder to retrieve a book from an upper shelf. The camera slowly tilted up to follow her ascent—and to my absolute, jaw-dropping shock, she wasn't wearing any underwear.

I had glimpsed static photographs of women before in magazines, but I had never in my life seen a moving image. Before my adolescent brain could even register what was unfolding, the scene escalated into full-blown, passionate in flagrante delicto, the two of them whispering feverishly to each other in breathless German.

My fourteen-year-old mind was utterly blown into another dimension.

Naturally, that was not a one-time screening. I carefully returned the tape to its hiding spot among Dad’s tools and retrieved it for covert re-watches several times over the months that followed.

And ever since, while the rest of the English-speaking world hears harsh consonants and strict grammatical cases, I hear pure, unfiltered poetry.

Memorable moments: Dad's bed bug fiction

Dad and I shared a deep love for the open road. In my late teens, we set off on some unforgettable road trips together—meandering along the Garden Route to Knysna, winding through the sheer rock gorges of the Swartberg Pass, and journeying north into the game reserves of Zululand.

Those long drives were a golden chapter for father-and-son bonding, set to an eccentric soundtrack. We blasted the Hooked on Classics orchestral disco hits on repeat, followed by rousing renditions of Pomp and Circumstance. Dad had his heavy video camera primed on the dashboard to record the scenery, while I was glued to the window with my binoculars, thoroughly obsessed with my new passion for birding.

Yet for all that warmth, I held onto one affectionate grievance from those travels.

During an overnight stay in Knysna, I pulled back my bed covers and discovered a massive, dead insect lying flat on the sheet. Growing up in Cape Town, where cockroaches weren't an everyday household fixture, I didn't recognize it.

"Dad, what on earth is this?" I asked, pointing at the carcass.

Dad leaned over, inspected the beast, and looked at me with an unmistakable glint in his eye.

"Oh, that’s a bed bug," he said casually. "Don't worry, that one's dead. But you'd better watch out—they usually travel in packs."

I was utterly horrified. I had heard dark tales of blood-sucking parasites, and the terrifying prospect of a pack of these armored, palm-sized mini-monsters lurking in the folds of my duvet waiting to drain my veins kept me awake with my eyes bolted to the ceiling. It wasn't until much later that I learned what a cockroach actually was and realized I’d been royally wound up.

Decades later, I emigrated to Sydney. I quickly discovered that Australian cockroaches were a completely different breed: monstrously large, terrifyingly fast, and endowed with the deeply unsettling ability to fly straight at your head.

But Sydney also had the real thing waiting for me.

Ally and I had rented a lovely flat overlooking the water, with the white sails of the Sydney Opera House visible in the distance. Ally’s sister, Kerry, had stayed with us for several months, occupying our spare room before eventually moving out.

Shortly afterward, my mum and Mike flew in from South Africa for a visit. To accommodate everyone, we handed them our double bed, Ally camped out on a mattress, and I volunteered to take Kerry’s old single bed in the spare room.

The next morning, I woke up in absolute agony, covered from head to toe in furious, itchy red welts.

Mum took one look at my speckled skin and gasped: "Oh no... that looks like bed bugs."

We hauled the mattress up and flipped it over. The underside was an absolute horror show—a writhing colony of bed bugs, completely blackened by thousands of tiny parasites and their accumulated waste. While Dad had joked about a solitary giant in Knysna, here was the literal definition of a pack feasting on me uninterrupted all night long.

The most disturbing revelation was that the infestation hadn't appeared overnight. They had clearly been biting Kerry for months on end, but because her skin simply never developed an allergic reaction to the saliva, she had lived alongside the horde in blissful ignorance.

It took three separate visits from a heavy-duty exterminator with industrial chemicals to finally eradicate them.

Scrubbing the bite marks in the shower, I found myself thinking back to that hotel room in the Western Cape. In hindsight, I almost wished Dad’s Knysna bedtime story had been true—because fighting off a visible, heavy-footed cockroach would have been far easier than waging chemical warfare against an invisible army.

Memorable moments: A high-seas recalculation

In the late 1960s, my mum—a spirited, pretty twenty-year-old English lass—boarded an ocean liner in London bound for Cape Town. She was setting sail for the southern tip of Africa in search of adventure, independence, and the open sea.

Early on during the voyage, she met a chap who seemed to tick every single box. He was handsome, charming, outgoing, and easy to talk to. Mum was thoroughly smitten with him, admiring him from across the deck and happily imagining the possibilities.

Then came the sudden revelation: he was a priest.

Mum was not religious in the slightest. In an instant, every single enthusiastic tick on her mental checklist was unceremoniously wiped clean, replaced by a single, definitive cross. Any budding interest evaporated on the spot.

Sharing a cabin with the priest, however, was a very different kind of man: a balding, slightly built fellow of a far quieter disposition. He didn't command the spotlight, but he had a kind and gentle presence, striking green eyes, and a lovely, warm smile. He had been living and working in London and was on his way back home.

Ah, Mum thought, looking at him with fresh eyes. He’s not bad at all.

His name was Ivor.

Over the remainder of the long voyage across the Atlantic, Mum and Ivor began talking on deck, sharing unhurried conversations, and steadily falling for one another.

By the time the ship dropped anchor in Cape Town, the connection was undeniable. Once ashore, the relationship flourished into marriage, and on their honeymoon, I was conceived.

I’ve always loved reflecting on the razor-thin margins of my own existence. If that charming chap had been a banker or an engineer, my mother might never have glanced twice at the cabin mate. In a very literal sense, I owe my life to a clerical collar.

Memorable moments: The four-person conveyor belt

There are certain family rituals from childhood that carry a special kind of warmth—simple routines that, in retrospect, anchor an entire upbringing.

In our household, dinner itself was rarely a grand conversational affair. We were very much a family that ate from trays balanced on our laps in front of the television, eyes glued to the screen while silence reigned. The real connection, as it turned out, was scheduled for immediately afterward.

Once the credits rolled, the entire family decamped to the kitchen for a communal washing-up session. It was in that small, steamy space that the day was actually unpacked and the real conversations began.

We ran a remarkably intricate, four-person assembly line.

Mum took the helm at the sink, washing each item down in a sink of hot, sudsy water. I stood beside her armed with a tea towel, drying each dripping plate as it emerged from the bubbles. Once dry, I would pass the plate to Dad. Dad would then turn slightly and hand the plate to Jo. And Jo would finally place it onto the shelf in the cupboard.

Dad, quite clearly, had negotiated the easiest job on the planet—a human relay baton whose sole duty was transferring ceramic goods across an eighteen-inch gap of linoleum. But nobody ever resented it. It was never about industrial efficiency; it was about the easy, rhythmic rhythm of all four of us working side-by-side in harmony.

That childhood assembly line left an indelible mark on me. To this day, I have an enduring, genuine love for washing dishes.

Whenever I’m on a weekend getaway with a group of friends, I am always the first to volunteer for sink duty. I love the simple, tactile satisfaction of it—the warmth of the water, the clean scent of the soap, and the quiet joy of watching grease and chaos turn into sparkling order. But more than anything, I love the kitchen companionship: the unhurried, companionable banter between the washer, the drier, and the designated putter-awayer.

Sandy Bay Cafe and Clontarf Reserve with Xenia

It was a beautiful, sunny day for a lovely outing to Clontarf. I love this beautiful spot. I forgot my swimmers, otherwise I would have had a dip! 

A lovely photo of mum taken by Jo

 Mum had just had her hair done and looked amazing.

Family spend a few days in Hermanus

Mum, Mike, Jo, Antony and Matt rented a house in Hermanus for a few days. The whales did a spectacular display!

 

Rainy walk at Dee Why with Sharon and Lydia

We met up in Dee Why, intending to walk to Manly, but it was raining quite hard. We chilled out at Girlders Cafe, which does very nice smoothies and food, before venturing for a short local walk.  We had a rather memorable interlude with an incapacitated sea gull.

Memorable moments: Problem solved

Sharon, Lydia, and I met up in Dee Why for what was meant to be a brisk coastal walk. The weather, however, had other ideas, so we spent the first part of the morning sheltering from the rain over warm drinks and long chats at Girdler's Cafe.

Eventually, the downpour eased enough for us to venture out along the lagoon. We hadn't walked far when we spotted a lone, incapacitated seagull lying flat on the wet sand.

Lydia, practical and eager to keep moving, was keen to press on. Sharon and I, however, couldn't bear the thought of leaving the poor creature there to suffer in the cold. We pulled out a phone and rang WIRES to report the distressed bird.

Instead of dispatching an immediate rescue crew, WIRES escalated the call straight to the Department of Primary Industries’ Animal Diseases division, suspecting it might be carrying avian flu. The operator gave us strict instructions: under no circumstances touch the bird, leave it precisely where it lay, and immediately complete a detailed biosecurity form they would text to my phone.

We turned back to continue our loop, but moments later, a follow-up message arrived requesting an urgent photograph of the suspect specimen.

Lydia and I picked up the pace to head back to the spot, while Sharon strolled along a little behind us. When Lydia and I reached the site on the sandbank, government protocols were rendered instantly obsolete. Two large crows were perched directly on top of the seagull, methodically ripping into it. The bird was already half-eaten.

We turned around and walked back toward Sharon, who was just catching up.

"The problem is solved!" I announced with genuine, unbridled relief.

Sharon’s face lit up with wide-eyed, delighted amazement. "It’s okay?! It flew away?!"

"No," I replied cheerily. "It’s been eaten by crows."

To my mind, it was a total victory: the seagull’s suffering was officially over, and nature had dealt with the backlog far quicker than any government agency ever could. Sharon, on the other hand, stood there looking utterly horrified, staring at me as though I had personally invited the crows to lunch.

Balmoral to Spit Bridge along the water

After my birthday lunch at Frenchy's, I walked to Balmoral. On a whim I kept walking towards Spit Bridge and was amazed that I was able to get all the way there entirely along the water's edge. It involved a bit of clambering here and there, all part of the adventure, and the rocks were spectacular. There were also some stunning houses. Sydney continually delights me with all its hidden facets. This is a walk I will definitely do again.