Dorje went up the cable car for the first time yesterday, to the top of Table Mountain. Or, as he calls it, the ‘Table Car’. I’ve also never been up in the new cable car before - only down once after climbing up.

He was interested in the view for a while up there, but it didn’t take long before he wanted to go back down the cable car again. As if it was one of those coin-operated cars outside a supermarket you go on again and again.

At R130 an adult, and R68 a child over 3 (Dorje’s four), it’s not quite the same as grabbing a handful of R2 coins (although there was a winter discount on, R130 for both of us.)

I managed to distract him by telling him we were going to see the ‘crack in the mountain’ (Platteklip Gorge). I don’t think he was overly impressed by the crack though, asking ‘where is it’ when we were right there, but at least I managed to get a couple of hours ramble on the mountain before heading down again.

His favourite part of being on the top, as usual, was scrambling on the rocks (we could have spend the entire time within metres of the cableway). While he was blissfully climbing the rocks, I enjoyed the worried glances from the tourists, some of whom were getting vertigo on the cable car, and for whom a four year old perched precariously above a kilometre fall was too much.

I did get nervous though when, having a snack on the cliffs above Plattelkip, he headed for the edge to look at a catterpillar. The catterpillar was in some grass, and it wasn’t clear if the grass was solid, or just hanging over the edge of the cliff. Luckily for the caterpillar, I managed to convince Dorje not to risk it.

If this is the quiet season, it must be like Adderley Street up there in the summer. I look forward to the day Dorje can climb it for himself.

He may not be ready for Table Mountain yet, but his climbing is getting better. He managed to climb onto the tree at the my house unaided for the first time. I’m already starting to see that the region around the tree will be a dead zone in the garden.

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We went with Louise, Terence, Joel, Sophie (+ friend Jade) and Ben 10, Marina, Johann, Euan, and Liam

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Dorje has so much fun in general, getting him to stay still when eating is normally a tough ask. He’ll take a bite or two, then next thing he’s chasing some motorcyclists in his helicopter.

So it helps when eating becomes part of the game. Pasta becomes snails and worms, and the poor things are boiled alive, usually tossed in one by one and they, screaming, try escape the pot. Then the slugs and other insects (the veggies) get chopped up.

When it’s all ready to eat, again they try escape but Dorje hunts them down, crushing them in his relentless jaws. First it’s a daddy worm with some slugs, thinking it’d made a getaway as it veers around the cushion, but Dorje grabs the fork and down they go. Next a poor little baby worm, now an orphan, making a getaway to a better life. It too is subsumed down the gullet.

It keeps me on my toes, as each one has to have a new tale, and a new reason to live.

If he says he’s full in the midst of the game, you know he’s really full.

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Dorje was sharing a song with me last night.

He’s sang this song for quite a while, and until last night, I thought the words were:

Are you sleeping
Are you sleeping
Boys and girls
Boys and girls
Mother’s going to keep you
Mother’s going to keep you
Warm and safe
Warm and safe

Last night I realised the words were actually:

Are you sleeping
Are you sleeping
Boys and girls
Boys and girls
Mother Earth will keep you
Mother Earth will keep you
Warm and safe
Warm and safe

Excited by this new discovery, and ready to launch into a discussion of the Gaia hypothesis, or a discussion of various forms of the mother goddess, I asked Dorje if he knew what Mother Earth was.

“Yes”, he said, “it’s a gnomie that lives under the ground”.

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Over the recent long weekend, we went to stay in a house in the Koue Bokkeveld. Dorje loves going away, and it’s a reminder of how much we’ve lost in the city when a child can just roam over a large area without the need for constant supervision. At home, he’s stuck between the four small walls, or closely guarded when he leaves.

He had a bike, which helped with his mobility!

Friends came along with their daughter, Ylara, who is slightly older than Dorje. Apparently a fan of Disney movies featuring princesses and happily ever after, she announced that she was marrying Dorje after a bath together. Dorje sounded enthusiastic.

When she was still talking about it two days later, Dorje’s enthusiasm seemed to have waned. Here’s Ylara with Anique:

While Dorje and Ylara were making marriage plans, or biking all over the countryside, I was doing what should be done on a holiday:

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He tells me he needs an “escape board”

Today he asks me “MUM, do you know where my brother and sister went?”.  So, I say no, where have they gone.  He says “They ate bubble gum, you know!  And, they did die!”

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Dorje is growing his hair so it is “like his dad’s” So I bought some clips to tie his fringe out of his face whilst its still growing - I mean, they don’t say “Bend it like Beckham” for nothing. Anyhow, Louiza informs me that Luka also wants boy clips like Dorje. He he he

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Most days with Dorje we make muesli for breakfast. Fantastic Camphill wheat-free muesli, with Camphill yoghurt and honey. And a liberal sprinkling of seeds. Pumpkin seeds, linseeds, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds. Dorje’s not a great fan of seeds. He often tells me he doesn’t want at least one or two varieties. There’s no real consistency to which he rejects - he just likes to assert himself and say no. Usually though, after I put them in my muesli, he wants to copy me, and we put them in his anyway, but he doesn’t really show any great enthusiasm for the seeds.

With one exception. Golden linseeds! Now golden linseeds, in case you’re wondering, taste just like linseeds, or any bird food for that matter. But the name! He calls them goldseeds, and shows great excitement every time I bring them out.

There’s one more ingredient that goes into his muesli (and I don’t mean blackstrap molasses). Most important is that I put lots of barley grass in. Not just the sprinkling I put in mine, but lots and lots. We pour it in. He mixes everything together. If the overall colour isn’t dark green, we have to put in more. This usually takes 3 or 4 generous goes, as I can’t imagine anyone actually liking half a jar what’s basically dried grass in their muesli, but clearly the colour, and the name, is more important to Dorje than the taste.

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I realise more and more how complex the English language is from speaking to Dorje. Having a Xhosa nanny, getting the genders right is an ongoing struggle. I don’t know how many times I’ve corrected things like The man, she said. I try and do it subtly, not harshly telling him he’s wrong like a schoolteacher. I usually repeat the sentence with the correct grammar, but then I run into the difference between I and you, and the conjugation of the verbs. So I usually have to find an excuse to repeat the sentence from the same grammatical point of view.

I can see the outcome. Either Dorje will be a grammar nazi, like me (I remember stubbornly saying yes instead of ja like the cool kids, at age 7 or so, just because it was right ), or the opposite, making the impression of a rapper in the Oxford English department.

There are times when I just want to give up. I’m pressing softly says Dorje, as he sticks the fork in my skin. Now I’m pressing hardly he says, poking the fork into my skin with a vengeance. Trying to explain is just too much - bloody English grammar.

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