Happy Valentine's Day, Sister Ethel!

Love makes the world go round, and Sister Ethel Normoyle of Missionvale Care Centre spreads it far and wide. She will be on my own little love list tomorrow because I am definitely going to send her a Valentine's Day greeting.

A love letter to a celibate Irish nun in her 60s? That's not as odd as it sounds because Sister Ethel believes that any day that encourages us to love each other and treat each other better should be celebrated.

She makes me think of that line uttered by Jack Nicolson in As Good As It Gets, when he tells Helen Hunt,“You make me want to be a better man” (great date movie that, if you’re looking for something to take out of the DVD store tomorrow).

They say that the greatest gift a woman can give to a man is to make him want to be a better man – and Sister Ethel has that effect on a lot of folk. She makes us want to be better people.
She has seen her own community in Missionvale ravaged by Aids TB, poverty and crime, and many families torn apart by sexual and physical abuse, so she knows what she is talking about. To be sure, as a nun she is more likely to go for the AB of Aids prevention, not the full ABC (Abstain, Be faithful, Condomise), but how can you argue with someone who wants us all to love one another more?

Happy Valentine's Day, Sister Ethel!

Cupboard Love

One of the perks of my job at La Femme is getting out and seeing interesting things and meeting new people and while I was out scouting for a good cup of coffee (which I found at Bocadillos) I also ventured down Clevedon Road in Mount Croix.

The Lavenders, the coffee shop there run by the Gunston family, now has a cutesy little addition at the back, in the form of a gift shop run by their daughter Carryn Scheepers.

She opened just before Christmas 2008 and has the admirable idea of promoting PE talent, and hence her five main suppliers are all from around here.

They include Beetle and Rhubarb (which we featured in La Femme before Christmas), Polka Dot's wire works, soaps by Ruby Soul from Plettenberg Bay, Soil skin products (well, only the agent is local there) and children's t-shirts, cement fondu shelves and crosses and a whack more by a most creative team called Gem & I.

Carryn loves birds so they fly all over the shop. It's a tiny wee place, tucked right at the back of the coffee shop, but worth a visit if you have small children to shop for or like quirky handmade goodies.

New Walmer coffee shop

If you love Vovo Telo and its outlet at the Warehouse, you’ll welcome Bocadillos, the newest Repton family sandwich and coffee bar in Main Road, Walmer.

This time mum Gill has teamed up with her daughter Kerry to decorate and start the little restaurant, which you can find where Cobblestone started off last year. They only opened last month, a brave move in a heavily traded market in a what everyone says will be a scary year but so far is doing really well.

It has Vovo style food - rye, ciabatta, croissants and more - and you also can order sandwiches to go. The coffee, though, is Lavazza, not Illy, but my cappuccino there today was just as delish and with the same creamy designer froth.

Matt had better watch out, he might have cornered the market in Central and Newton Park but the Walmer ladies who lunch are already flocking to his sister’s new spot.

The decor is cool and light and modern ... and I enjoyed the way the mirrors reflect the wallpaper on the back wall.

Lovely stuff!

Is this the end of books?

Amazon.com introduced the Kindle 2, a new version of its electronic book reader, yesterday, and it will go on sale later this month.
It can store 1,500 books from a library of 230,000 titles, yet it is only about as thick as a pencil, has a 15cm screen and weighs less than an average paperback book (about 280gm).
Since one entire wall in our lounge is filled to bursting with books I can definitely see the appeal of something this small.
The super-gadget uses 3G wireless technology and sells for about R3,500 but once you’ve bought it, that’s it, you have access to all those juicy books.
Whatever device is used, reading a book on an electronic screen no longer seems to be considered bizarre, even for older readers. When Oprah Winfrey showed hers off on TV last year and proclaimed it her "new favourite thing in the world," demand was such that Kindles sold out all over America.
Is this the end of books as we know them? Well, they said that when the first version of Kindle came out but I think it may take a while to filter through to the Eastern Cape.
In fact, a call to our own Fogarty’s Bookshop at Walmer Park met with blank responses “what’s that?” said two of the staff and even the erudite Theresa didn’t know anyone in PE who owns one. Do you know anyone who has one?
I can see the appeal, though ... except now no one will know how clever you are any more because you won’t have a single book in your house.

Women drivers

Just yesterday I posted a little piece on how hard it is to get that driver's licence and today a colleague of mine at The Herald sent out this video clip of women drivers. It goes against my feminist grain to publicise how terribly women can drive but it is so funny I couldn't resist.
What is so ironic is that my colleague, "M", shall remain nameless because she failed her own driving test several times. At one stage her daughter thought she would beat her to it but mum did eventually - late last year - crack it. "M" said she hasn't "yet" tried any of those parkings moves or stunts so the rest of us are still safe for now.
The women in this clip really give the rest of us female drivers a bad name. Maybe they bought their licence at the same place so many of our taxi drivers do.

More weird names

When you hear that the Berlin family of Missouri has three children, Lilian, Eve and Bosh, you might think, gosh, who would call their kid Bosh. Then you hear that they are all in a band called the Living Things … and that all three are boys. They do retro-punk kinda music, which I heard on 5fm this weekend and enjoyed.
I think musicians must be exempt from the mummy mafia rules which say “don’t give your baby an unusual name or they will be teased at school and never amount to anything in life”.
On the other hand, blandly named dads David, Frank and Michael gave their children the weird names of Zowie (Bowie), Moon Unit and Dweezil (Zappa) and Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily (Hutchence) and do you ever hear from the kids? The old timers with the boring first name are even in 2009 the famous dudes … Just a thought ... and remember my earlier post on how much readers hated Bronx Mowgli ?

If at first you don't succeed

If you are one of those South Africans who has sat and failed your driver’s licence more than once, then you will empathise with that South Korean grandmother who failed her driving test 771 times.
Yup, 771 times … sort of puts my friend Megan’s three times in the shade, and I know a couple of people who’ve sat and failed more often than that. I suspect that former Algoa FM presenter Buli G is one of them, but I never managed to winkle out of her exactly how long it took to get her licence. However, get it she did … unlike at least two of my acquaintances who are still trying.
What I find more interesting is the extremely small number of people who DO pass first time around. In the past five years, I’ve known a whole slew of folk trying to get their driver’s licence and only one has managed first time (congrats, Jessica G).
The granny in question, Mrs Cha, is 68 and says she is not going to give up so Test Number 772 here we come … that sort of puts it in perspective. So, Megan, here’s wishing you good luck for the fourth time!