It could be identity theft, as a family member exclaimed, and it could be resource theft, designed to waste employees’ time and efforts. It may be my longest post ever but I say it’s important to find a bit of space in a busy day to have a bit of fun. It is too easy to try and prove that we are too busy to do these things – wow, what would people think if I sent this to them and they realised I had an hour in my day for total frivolity? Eish, don’t take life so seriously …

1. What time did you get up this morning?

7:30! It’s a miracle (not that I believe in those …) that my child woke up so late so, for that, I am thankful.

2. Diamonds or pearls?

Pearls make me feel old so I guess diamonds will have to do.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?

Wall-E – may have something to do with my environmental posts …

4. What is your favourite TV show?

Weeds currently but will always go back to Sex and the City and it irks me that they sold out to Hollywood.

5. What do you usually have for breakfast?

What’s that?

6. What is your middle name?

Should have been Jan

7. What food do you dislike?

Well, I was once served a bowl of soup in China - it was filled with an animal’s intestines. I disliked that! But, more generally speaking, brussels sprouts, aubergines, meat.

8. What is your favourite CD at moment?

Can I have two? David Jordan and Asha

9. What kind of car do you drive?

Beetle (LHD from Holland) … ten years old - it’s the love of my life and I would only replace it for a Beetle, circa 1970 … or the next fabulous hybrid if I manage to get the thing referred to in 52 below.

10. Favourite sandwich?

Crayfish and Rocket from Pret is still my favourite and cannot be replaced as such - EVER!

11. What characteristic do you despise?

Smugness

12. Favourite item of clothing?

Leopard print faux fur micro mini - with lace up knee-high boots. But when I’m feeling more generic … Earl Jeans and Hello Kitty t-shirt.

13. If you could go anywhere?

Anywhere!

14. Favourite brand of clothing?

Local is lekker - Joe Soap et al … but I crave a bit of High Street in the form of H&M, Whistles, Calvin Klein and Karen Millen. Anything else is out of my league and not even worth mentioning.

15. Where would you retire to?

It depends how old I am when I retire. In an ideal world, somewhere in the Med. but I have a feeling retirement will come with a yacht or a motorhome.

16. What was your most recent memorable birthday?

Definitely my 30th at the Astoria in St Petersburg, overlooking the dome of St Isaacs Cathedral. An operatic ballet (yes, I was also confused) followed by Beluga and Vodka.

17. Favourite sport to watch?

International rugby … but only if we win; limited-overs cricket; anything at Olympics time, especially winter Olympics.

18. Farthermost place you are sending this?

I never was very good at geography …

19. Person you expect to send it back first?

No one - this is spam to almost everyone I know.

20. When is your birthday?

I’m a Gemini.

21. Are you a morning person or a night person?

Mornings are a blur and so are the nights for that matter. I will be a night person again but I will never become a morning person.

22. What is your shoe size?

As long as the shoe fits … does it really matter?

23. Pets?

Well, most people think I have a ridgeback … but he’s actually my first-born.

24. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share?

My ridgeback (aka first-born) is going to be a daddy! My child has asked for a baby now that my husband has had the snip. I’m going on a poetry retreat next weekend. I’m running my first half-marathon in 4 years on 12 October.

25. What did you want to be when you were little?

I’m still little. And I still don’t know.

26. How are you today?

Fabulous after a shot of cortisone last night. So good in fact that we went for a picnic on the beach and had front row seats to a display of about a dozen whales no more than 50 meters from shore. Followed by a coffee at Olympia and a nap and now washing down gorgonzola on toast with a glass of my favourite chardonnay … well, the only way to make it better would be to be packing for Cambodia.

27. What is your favourite candy?

White Rabbit toffees.

28. What is your favourite flower?

Watsonias - in the garden, not a vase.

29. What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?

13 October (see 24 above!)

30. What is your full name?


Lady Penelope


31. What are you listening to right now?

The fluttering of the gas fire - but only with one ear as the other is full of puss.

32. What was the last thing you ate?

See 26 above.

33. Do you wish on stars?

I used to when I lived in London and the stars were rarely seen but in Hout Bay the sky looks like someone has spilt the silver glitter so I wouldn’t know where to begin.

34. If you were a crayon, what colour would you be?

Red, unless it’s an orange-red crayon - then I would have to choose electric blue.

35. How is the weather right now?

Tired of caring about the weather - it should be spring and … well, it’s not.

36. The first person you spoke to on the phone today?

I’m not even sure where the phone is today.

37. What is you favourite soft drink?

Soft? Does beer count?

38. Favourite restaurant?

Well, there is a hole-in-the-wall noodle bar in Xi’an, China, opposite the Xi’an Royal Hotel … but that was a lifetime ago. Minatos for sushi - it’s owned by the Japanese guy who did the ‘Where Dougras Gleen?’ advertising campaign. More upmarket: The Showroom for real celebrity chef showmanship. Then, of course, the Davidoff at the St Petersburg Astoria - it’s hard to get that one out of one’s head.

39. Real hair colour?

Hmm, blonde, bordering on a mousey winter brown.

40. What was your favourite toy as a child?

Mud.

41. Summer or winter?

Summer in Cape Town; winter in New York.

42. Hugs or kisses?

Depends from whom.

43. Chocolate or Vanilla?

Chocolate usually but then I can’t get out of my head a bowl of ice-cream made with real vanilla which I poured Illy espresso over.

44. Coffee or tea?

Tea … unless Illy is on offer.

45. Do you want your friends to email you back?

Duh!

46. When was the last time you cried?

Depends whether in desperation, sorrow, pain or frustration … I think the last time was when my child told me that I had broken the whole of his heart - it was tears without crying so does that count?

47. What is under your bed?

A built in storage box containing: snorkels, flippers and goggles from Australian campervan trip (will I ever use them again?), towels, bedlinen, clothes I will never wear again (I hope!), dust, lint.

48. What are you afraid of?

War and public speaking.

49. Salty or sweet?

Sweet seems like the obvious answer, but nothing beats a chunk of fresh white bread with a slice of butter and a layer of crystal salt. Oh yes, can’t forget the popcorn cooked in salt and then smothered in it too.

50. How many keys on your key ring?

One.

51. How many years at your current job?

Job?

52. Favourite day of the week?

Wednesday - just the morning - as it is the only time of the week that I can be at home totally alone to write.

53. How many towns have you lived in?

Depends how you define ‘lived in’ - but, I suppose, only 3 (Durban, Cape Town and London).

54. Do you make friends easily?

I must do as Mike regularly refers to ‘the strays’.

55. How many people will you send this to?

Definitely one but perhaps more if I can figure out how to get this past their spam filters.

56. How many will respond?

I doubt anyone will even read it.

If Al Gore had become president, he might have been too wrapped up to investigate and discuss climate change – global awareness was key to launching his ideas. I don’t mean to frighten anyone or set anyone up to fail by making them think they have to be that huge to be noticed or recognised as achieving … but, perhaps when things don’t go exactly according to plan, it’s because there is another plan that’s just out of the picture right now and you just need to pan around a bit to find it. There are different paths and we all have to find our own. Flexibility is something that is shut down in most of us because it allows freedom of spirit and in this day and age that is considered a dangerous quality as it means you will be unable to conform …

We’re so trapped by society that even if we know what the problems are, we get stuck anyway.

Everyone should watch Annie Leonard’s mini movie and look at her tips to find another way to exist on this finite planet. Sure, it’s hard to be a total convert, but we all have to start somewhere. Dieters who start their diets on Monday can continue to do so as long as their attitude to the environment doesn’t also spell procrastination. Everyone has to start today to do his or her bit and no one is going to mind if it’s just a small bit … as long as it’s something.

To give you a kick in the right direction, try Wiser earth to get involved with the greater good. And speaking of the greater good, have a look at Greater Good. There is a South African equivalent which has less to do with the environment and more to do with … well … the greater good:

Enjoy the march. Besides anything else, marching beats dieting.

But this is the week for sharing web links so I will focus in on a South African green (and gold), one of the champions of the planet. She’s not a banker, a broker, an economist or a tout for driving the economy while tens of millions starve. She is a new kid on the block starting out with huge heart and soul to change our mindsets to convert our offices, gardens and even the film industry to eco. Her website is www.greenshift.com and it has all her details if you want help making your future sustainable. By supporting her, you too become one of the pioneers.

After all, our kids are our future so we have a responsibility to ensure they get one.

The long and short is that even when we are doing our best – breastfeeding, buying best quality products and using what are advertised as baby-safe products – we are poisoning our children from day one. Our breast milk is toxic because of all the toxins we unwittingly put into our own bodies; the bottles we then use, once the breast milk has dried up, are made of plastics that leach chemicals into the formula milk; and the wonderful top-quality baby products seem to be a marketing scam as they too are hazardous to both baby and the environment. You just have to do a search on the cosmetics database (see above) to see that even kid’s toothpastes are more hazardous than the adult variety. And it seems that the harmful effect of the sun on our children’s skin is way less when weighed up against the toxins that are put into the sun creams we slather all over our children’s faces and bodies before we let them out of the house.

A woman once told me that if I use a certain brand of shampoo, I should only use the same brand conditioner as they have been specifically designed to work together. This might have been something she learned at beauty school or just plain common sense, but the implications are only now becoming clear. If you use two different brands and each brand has a toxic chemical in it, there is no telling how those chemicals will react together. Scary stuff, huh?

Call me paranoid, but I’m beginning to feel surrounded by poisons. I even read about a court case lodged by an employee at L’Oreal accusing the brand of using carcinogenic chemicals in products they slap that pink ribbon on. They almost got away with it too!

I revert to an earlier post where I wrote about massaging my baby with organic sesame oil from head to toe for the first months of his life instead of bathing him and exposing him to harsh bath products. I didn’t know it then, but my maternal instinct (the one I thought had totally escaped me) was already seeping into me. I use an organic product on his skin and I use the same brand of household cleaners to avoid the chemicals in the home, which find their way into our bodies. The product name is Enchantrix – it is a South African product but there is an equivalent in Europe called Ecover. There are good products out there but you have to be vigilant and not accept what you’re told until you do the research. Just when we thought the tough part was over … we need to work harder. We just do.

With Halloween just around the corner, the first link to post would have to be the one that claims: A green Halloween is very eek-o chic.

Look at … and read (obviously) the article in the Seattle Times. It’s full of handy tips to reduce your ghoulish impact on the environment.

Before I was married – ‘When God was a child’, a friend of mine would quip – and, therefore, before the baby; who stoked the insanity that created this blog; was even a tick on my biological clock, I bought this painting. It has followed me from Observatory to Chiswick to Barnes to Vredehoek to Hout Bay where it is the first thing I see each morning and the last thing I see at night: it hangs on a patch of pink I painted on my bedroom wall for it.

The artist, Wenkidu, sold it to me at cut price; much to the furious mutterings of his no doubt more financially savvy wife; and I am so grateful to him that, each time I look at his artwork, I imagine that he has made it big and is living it large on the islands.

I am beginning only now to realise why he did it … practically gave his art to me. He wanted to know that his art was out there rather than stacked against his studio wall imploding on its own creative energy. He wanted to release it and know that it was being admired, appreciated … and, even if hated, having an impact on the universe.

And this is a lesson on how we all should be. The world only learns from those who are willing to put themselves and their stuff ‘out there’. Sure, you’re likely to get the crap kicked out of your ego every once in a while … but that’s the price of ego, I suppose.

The school concert!

My child, when asked what he would like to be in the school concert, has chosen to be a teapot. This would be fine – he, after all, knows the little teapot song and dance – if it weren’t for the (for me) massive hurdle preparing a convincing costume for his act.

Bring on drug counselling and sex education … they’ve got to be easier than this.

He gives me a hug and a kiss and asks me if I am happy. This is after telling me not to shout and reassuring me that he knows that I love him even though I am cross.

Or does he?

As I sit here in my grand home letting the cleaner clean and the gardener garden, I am more than aware that my small attempts to alleviate poverty are nothing of the sort. But an attempt is an attempt and I can only speak from the perspective that is my own.

When I fell pregnant I vowed to give up Christmas … well, not totally give it up but give it up in the sense that it is all about overindulging and overconsuming – polluting the environment, our bodies and our karma. From that very first Christmas, my husband and I calculated what a regular Christmas with food and gifts would cost, we took that money and went on a shopping spree at Makro (for those outside South Africa, this is a big ‘buy-bulk-and-save’ superstore) for party hats, crackers, snacks, sweets, cigarettes and liquor. We packed up 120 parcels of goods and early on Christmas morning drove around Cape Town handing out parcels to the homeless. This Christmas will be our 5th … and the 4th with our child.

Although children are young, they are impressionable and they take in everything in their environment (I know this mainly because of bugger being my child’s first word, followed by something along the lines of edible … and more recently a word that would prevent most people being able to launch this site at work) so I hope that this small act will have a huge impact on my child’s dealings with poverty in the future. We maintain the ‘lesson’ by buying footballs every month and he drives around with us while we hand them out to underprivileged children.

Everyone has a right to celebrate Christmas and every kid should have a ball.

If you want to teach your child the art of giving but you don’t have the time or inclination to do the above … because, let’s face it, not many people do (and that comes with no judgement) then there is a fabulous NPO I have just found out about called Kidz2Kidz. Getting involved requires a small effort and a lot of heart so please check out the website www.kidz2kidz.co.za pack your santa box and pass the info on to everyone you know who may have a little giving left over at Christmas time.

Email Irenè Pieters for further info.