
This blog post was supposed to be about celebrating micro wins. I read about this on LinkedIn in a blogpost written by the utterly fab Lori Milner and it made soooooooo much sense. I was going to talk about how I had been doing intermittent fasting during lockdown and lost a kilo a month and now I am eight kilos down. How we’ve been walking every day and now get up at 5.30 to walk and go grab a coffee at our stunning local coffee shop Croft & Co. I was also going to mention all the writing I did, how we wrote a novel – me and the rest of the fab four – during lockdown, how I wrote and edited a gazillion scripts. Blah blah blah BOLLOCKS because I don’t give a shit about any of it, I want my damn vaccine!
Yes, I have vaccine envy.

This is a real condition where you watch friends, family and even complete strangers celebrating getting their vaccines around the world and you congratulate them with a really fake smile on your face (or even a really fake happy emoji that you do not mean) and you hope that maybe you’ll get a vaccine sometime in the next 18 years before the next pandemic hits.
And you start being thankful that you were so damn sick with Auntie Rona in the faint hope that you have a bit of immunity from it.
Actually, let me not be completely dramatic, a FB friend got her vaccine this week. Yes, here in the big smoke. No. I couldn’t believe it either but it was on Facebook so it must be true (she really did get her vaccine and I shed a tear reading about it).
I do have to say that I couldn’t help feeling a teensiest bit pissed off when I heard that the whole of Victoria Falls were going to get jabbed before us.
Hahahahaha for South African exceptionalism.

I chatted to a couple of family members who were lucky enough to be jabbed in the UK and in the States. One described her arm as being a bit sore after the first one, the other said that they had chills the day after – obvs one always has chills in the UK because it’s so damn cold, but he said it had nothing to do with the weather, it was definitely a reaction to the vaccine.
Let me point out at this juncture that I HATE injections, they are definitely not on my list of favourite things to do. But for the covid one, I will be dressing up, singing and dancing and possibly even doing slam poetry while I crack open the prosecco. I have even chosen an outfit for my vaccination and have been practicing holding out my arm.
Please Oom Cyril, let us be jabbed.

Film/TV recommendations: This is a real marmite film, which I think has to do with the fact that she’s so unlikeable in it and God knows women need to be likeable, but I LOVED I Care A Lot with Rosamund Pike. It’s irreverent, hilarious and also chilling because it’s based on a true story.
Yes, in the US, someone can just decide that you’re old and doddery and have lost your marbles and need to be taken care of and that’s it. Scary shit. Catch it on Netflix.

We also watched Allen Vs Farrow on Showmax. Harrowing and comes with a trigger warning for sexual abuse survivors but I found it compelling and utterly believable. I BELIEVE YOU, DYLAN!
Of course, I was never a major Woody fan so I didn’t find myself facing that tortured debate about whether he did it or not and whether I should still watch his movies. Frankly, I didn’t need to. Anyone who slopes off with their partner’s daughter who is barely out of her teens is revolting enough in my book without adding Dylan’s accusations into the mix.
PSA: predators and paedophiles are exceptionally charming. That’s how they get to groom their victims and their victims’ parents. They can be clever and goodlooking and charming and talented and very, very persuasive. But they are still predators.
Which brings me to…
Another PSA: two things can be true at once. Someone can be a paedophile and still be exceptionally talented. They are not mutually exclusive. I am getting rather tired of the very binary discussions on social media (looking at you here, Twitter fam). For eg:
- Apartheid was bad, therefore corruption is okay.
- Corruption is bad, therefore apartheid was okay.
Um, no. Both are bad, end of.

But I’m getting off the point, let me get back to films and TV. We are also busy watching The One on Netflix. It’s a thriller, set in the UK and a tiny bit in Tenerife (where the husband and I sold timeshare once upon a time) and it’s based on the book by John Marrs.
It deals with the idea of a company that’s able to find your one, true love through DNA matching, I’m enjoying it enormously.
Book recommendations:

During a bout of insomnia over the weekend I started reading The History of Man by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu. Set in SA and Zim, although they are never named, her writing is gorgeous and evocative and no, the book did not help my insomnia as I then had to stay up finding out what happened to Emil. Thank you, Kate Rogan and Sue Nyathi who both recommended it to me. I bought my copy from Love Books.
The Push by Ashley Audrain. Definite We Need To Talk About Kevin vibes, but this is better. Great suspense but also loved the way she gets to grips with how trauma is passed down and her descriptions of those first few weeks of motherhood…wow. Available at Exclusive Books.

Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow. Obvs after I had finished watching Allen Vs Farrow, I then had to go and read everything I could lay my hands on by the Farrows, so I started with this. Structured like a thriller, it’s the story of how Ronan brought down convicted rapist, Harvey Weinstein.
The story is UNBELIEVABLE and I enjoyed Ronan’s writing very much, he has a dry sense of humour and is self-deprecating and funny and also not afraid to show his vulnerability.
This is a grumpy blogpost because I have had gastritis this week and have not been able to drink coffee. Yes. I’ve had NO BLOODY COFFEE this *whole week or chocolate or red wine or any of the things I love.
I then got a rebound headache from not drinking coffee but couldn’t take painkillers because of my damn stomach.
My stomach is probably shot from all the antib’s and dispirin and other crap I had to take while I had Covid.
JUST GIVE ME MY JAB, ALREADY!!
May we all be jabbed soon. Happy reading xxx
*for two days.