Ruth's Real Life

  Every Dream Has Its Brown Kitchen ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’ These words from my partner, on an ordinary weekday afternoon in January, started the journey towards a dream. Jules decided to take early retirement and suddenly our house was on the market, and we were looking for property in Plettenberg Bay. We had often thought about where we would like to be once we had both retired and had visited places along the Garden Route, finally settling on Plettenberg Bay as our destination. One day. Perhaps. It was nice to think about but seemed not much more than a dream. The ‘For Sale’ sign went up on the pavement. We had to find somewhere to live. My eldest brother has lived in Plett for 20 years and started the search for us. Eventually, he found a place that seemed ideal. We bought it   before our Johannesburg house had been sold. And before we had seen the property on which we had made an offer. One thing you should never trust are estate agent’s photographs. As a life c

  Parakeets, Rats and Budgies When you feed the birds, you feed the rats. My desk looks out onto a bird feeding station. Every morning, I put out a range of seed, rice, sunflower seeds, apples and sometimes, grapes. Within minutes, the tree is a feathered wonderland. Johannesburg is classified as an urban forest and the birds make the most of the trees in our garden. Frequent visitors to the feeders are the rose-ringed parakeets. Their bright green plumage and sassy character make them entertaining visitors. But they are also alien and feral. They dominate the food and chase the smaller birds away. Every now and again, a blue budgie flutters in to defy the bully birds, on the run/fly from his cage and looking for a meal.   I open my curtains to the noise and movement and the birds are my symphony as I work. He comes over the top of the wall. Down the tree, along a branch, fat and sleek and looking for apples and seeds. He is a brown abomination of fur with a tail as long as a