STAP SEUN

Can you teach an old(er) mare new tricks?  Let’s see!

With the arrival of marginally warmer weather…. I.e. 8  degrees at 08.00 instead of minus 8,  the fat bits concealed under thick jumpers, pullovers and jackets put in an unwelcome appearance.  All through the disgustingly cold winter I would say to myself “as the wales do in Antarctica , so do I”  Which of course was carte blanche to eat my way through the days and nights with the excuse that I needed energy.  The little one, alias Jacqueline Russell, had a similar philosophy and the two of us blossomed into something resembling a grub (me) and a rugby ball (she).  So come what passes for Spring in this Alpine Climate, we turned all the mirrors to the wall and continued the pastime we had so got to enjoy.  Eating!  But the fudging exercise did not last because whilst I could hide myself from myself, I could not hide the rugby ball with four legs that parked off on the floor grinning at me.  And so it was that we found a small mountain just out of town to exercise the rugby ball, and a horse by the name of Charlie Brown, to exercise me.

Now let me hasten to explain that I first started riding when I was 8 years old and have always considered myself to be an above average horse rider so my reason for taking riding lessons was for the sole purpose of losing the blubber, not to learn anything.  I mean what could you teach me?  (sic).  Try Afrikaans in the first instance!  Do not be fooled by the name Charlie Brown. This little chap understands only Afrikaans .  So when I boomed in my most posh horsey cadence “Walk On” and Charlie Brown just blinked, I wondered if he was perhaps hard of hearing.  Next thing I hear “STAP SEUN” from behind me and off we set.  I collapsed in a heap of giggles because I was mortified that the horse could speak Afrikaans whereas I battle a bit. 

I digress.  What can you teach me?  HUH.  I arrive with my posh leather gloves, French riding boots and skinny jeans ready to leap on and show the instructor just how good I am and what happens instead?  I get handed a curry comb?-  No way!  You are not serious I say to myself!  I mean I haven’t groomed a horse since who knows when?. Charlie Brown, who looks exactly like a horse called Legend who scraped me off his back once upon a time and put me on my back for a week, rolled one eye at me and flattened his ears.  “All my students have to groom the horse first” Says Ninke.  So groom the horse is what I did.  And actually it was a pretty good idea indeed.  You kind of form a bond with a horse you have to help with his ablutions! 

      But when it came to riding, the laugh was most definitely on me.  Riding styles have changed quite considerably from when I was 8!  I had to start from the beginning and boy did I creak. Touching toes while on a horse’s back, standing in the stirrups while the fellow chuffs around the arena are exercises for those who have not spent winter munching away or curled up like a tennis ball against the cold.  But the part that had my hairdresser hooting  with laughter when I regaled the story of my first lesson, was how, when told I had to learn a new riding style, I was tempted to say  “Look sweetie, I know how to ride, just perfect what I know”  But, as the words formed on my tongue I suddenly thought of the age thing.  I mean there is NOTHING in the world more aging that not wanting to learn new tricks.  So rather than reveal my age to this proficient young instructor, I said “show me how!”

  

 

So if I may impart a little wisdom on this Friday, do not close your mind to new ideas.  One can learn something every, single day.  Take the veld fires here as another example?  All through winter the countryside was on Fire Alert.  The first rains come and still we have fires?  Bigger ones?  I am super puzzled.  Until someone says to me now the danger season is over, they are burning to improve the grazing. I knew that!!!?  But I am a little concerned.  The walk the dogs and I now take in the morning is up a small mountain just on the edge of town.  (See reference to Rugby Ball above).  It is a superb walk.  We wind our way right to the top on a well-developed track and each morning we greet three Blesbok Rams.  But they have burned one side of the mountain and now we no longer see the Blesbok.  The Reedbuck too, seem to have gapped it. I tell myself they are safe and grazing on another part of this mountain and since I am seldom wrong, that is where they are!

At the top of the mountain (Okay, Koppie, but it is a “Kop” to my mind it is veeery  high) there is a panoramic view and one ponders the beauty that abounds.  It is uplifting and uplifting.   The second uplifting is the tucking of the rugby ball under the arm because the panting noises from ground level and small beetle eyes gazing at one imploringly are hard to ignore!  Slowly, slowly catch a monkey. We will all get fit yet.

On this note allow me to wish you an exceptionally happy weekend.  And if you need to stock up on Rosanique or any of her cousins, drop me a line on lynn@rosaorganics.com.  The postal services works a bomb! 

 Sincerely, Lynn Schultz http://www.rosaorganics.com/. 083 453 0220

Smoking Gun For Rosa

Would you agree that this has been the most terrifyingly cold winter ever?  I mean it is so darn cold that my one and only pair of thermal PJs have me sitting next to them as they are hung out to dry.  You know how you baste a chicken? Well, so too do I turn and scrunch my PJs so that they are warm and ready to wear again that night.  In fact, so often have they been draped over this bod of mine that I am starting to look like a chair that needs re-upholstering.

BUT, the VEEERY good part to this terrifyingly cold winter is that there is smoke coming out of the barrel of the Rosa Gun! My goodness are we pumping!  The orders are coming in at such a rate that Ismael at the post office is thinking of getting in a special person just for us.You see, Rosa Serums and Oils whilst known for their remarkable, anti-ageing properties are simply stunning in adverse weather conditons.  Such as are found in deserts (we have two customers in Libya.... well, we hope we still have 2 customers in the Libyan Desert) and the climatic conditions in the coldest of cold places - Jozi!  You see, whilst Dullstroom dips to minus at night, it is a sort of bearable cold. Jozi on the other hand has a bone crunching cold that is unlike anywhere else.  Marginally higher temps mean nothing. Dry cold is like dry ice.  Your skin kind of peels away to the touch.  Know what I mean?  Tarrrrah (trumpet call)... and along comes Rosa Organics Serums & Oils to the rescue.  Hydration, Protection and Comfort.  And the best of all is that treating stressed skin in winter = Beee-utiful New You in summer!!! And this is because the healing repairing and rejuvenating properties in Rosa Serums are strutting their stuff silently, yet effectively all winter long.  YAY!

Rosa News Bud

Which brings me to a very important news bud.  Check out www.rosaorganics.com.  Our new website went live in July and we are pleased to say that it has hit the mark. Rosa Organics is targeted at the initiated. Results driven people who are also too busy to switch from one skin care range to another in search of the panacea to a well-cared for, youthful looking sin. At the same time, these initiates are environmentally friendly, or have got to the age where they would rather save their liver functioning to metabolizing a glass of good red wine, than the parabens and petro-chemicals in some of the skin care offerings on the shelves. So check us out. read our ethos and stock up on Rosa if you haven't already done so!

Burn Out!

Last year I wrote a review for a Harley Davidson Launch I attended wherein I drew reference to my love for the song BURN OUT by Sipho "hotsticks" Mabuse.  I poignantly remembered the day I first heard that song played and how to me it epitomised all that is unique and compelling about Africa.  Not the words of the song per se, rather the score that is so unmistakenly African and yet at the same time Universal. When I hear the first bars of that song, I always stop in my tracks and feel good about what makes up this harsh, yet magical continent called Africa. But that was last year..... I fear.

This year I haven't been feeling so good about Africa, South Africa to be precise.  The strikes that have cost the country billions, in an economy that could do with a boost not a boot.  Malema and his talk about Nationalisation (that we even have to worry about him is a worry in itself), and the fact that the currently dis-advantaged are losing interest and enthusiasm has tempered my gung ho attitude just marginally. Some of us seem to be dragging ourselves through the days rather than embracing each new day with energy and verve. And if we do have the energy and verve, it is of the self-seeking kind.  If you can remember when someone offered assistance without there being something in it for them, please do drop me a line? With the advent of a ME, ME, ME society, I have become proficient at fixing the jets on the gas heater, I can make a fire with only one match, I now know all about water pressure and how to manage it, and I have become super fit without having been near a gym all winter; of all which has come our of necessity and not intention.  I moved Rosa's think tank and bottling plant to Dullstroom because I honestly believed the energy of the place would be beneficial to the brand. The natural beauty of the countryside that is hard to describe because it is so unremarkable in its beauty, and my perception that the locals would warm and welcoming?  The beauty persists and will do so in eternity and in this there is energy for Eons to come. The town and its inhabitants? Try unwelcoming and parochial in the first instance and down right lazy and morose in the second!  Rosa has been here for six months and has tried to employ like number of people and yesterday saw me throwing up my hands in dismay yelling BURNED OUT!!  You can take a horse to the water but you cannot make him drink. There are plenty of thirsty horses come month end lining up at the Post Office, ID book in one hand; the other waiting for their Government pay-out. It is such an occasion that people put up Gazebos in the field opposite.This town is rapidly losing its charm.And not just to Rosa.  The visitors too, who keep this town in gravy, are gatvol at having to pay R75 for a jar of honey that costs them R35 at home. Or R55 for the tiniest slither of cheese you have ever seen (made locally so no distibution costs), or paying R20 more for a 9kg cylinder of gas when the price is supposed to be regulated. And take the car guards that line the streets left and right from Friday to Sunday to play on the pockets of the visitors to this town when not one of the cars parked outside the numerous restaurants and shops is able to be stolen?  eTV featured Mpumulanga a week ago telling of how it is hitting the skids. Pilgrims Rest is no more. Sabi is following suit and Dullstroom is going to have to do a lot more than fleece the visitors, if it wants to avoid the slide to obscurity.  But for all that, I love the place and Rosa has indeed flourished because I have had my soul restored by waking up each morning to beauty and my little friend the ram Duiker who tippy toes Ethereally through the scrub behind the house.  Souls do not need people for restoration, you see.  You need intention and faith and the place in which to practice these.  A happy soul and all else follows!

Back to Burn Out, though, by Sipho "Hotsticks" Mabuse.  My dismay at the play of events described above had a reprieve.  I was watching an excellent movie on Mzanzi the other day, and at the end of this movie, as a filler between programmes, there it was.... the haunting refrain of Burn Out. I stood stock still and watched as two African men danced against a backdrop of the music video of Sipho Mabuse and his group playing Burn Out, a long, long time ago.  Longer even than 1994; 1984 in fact.  And I thought to myself...... I thought "There is magic yet in this land"  Africa is a timeless continent, a magical space and we can all make a difference, if only we try. 

And it is on this note that I leave you....

"At the back of every creation, supporting it like an arch, is faith. Enthusiasm is nothing: It comes and goes.  but if one believes, then miracles occur."

Henry Valentine Miller - American Novelist and Painter

Ad Lib

From time to time I write a newsletter and send it to Rosa followers.  In essence it is a vehicle to publish the latest and greatest about my passion - Rosa Organics - but in true female fashion, I get waylaid by happenings in my life and tend to give such happenings precedence.  I cannot see this changing, because when I was a kid, it was not polite to talk about oneself ad-infinitum, as enjoyable as talking about oneself may be.  Nope, you talk about other things, or you ask questions of the person or persons in your orbit at the time.  Which is well and good of course if such personages have a personality?  How often have you been in a situation...cocktail party, telephone conversation (the worst), dinner table, alone with the host's spouse while said host is in the kitchen...? when you valiantly try to get a conversation going and it just ain't happening!  At first you ask questions but come the fourth or fifth monosyllabic answer two choices present themselves...1) you plaster an inane "gee, I am having a great time" expression on your face  2) you babble.  I tend to do the latter.  The other evening I was invited to drinks with a couple I had just met.  I babbled so prolifically that I clean forgot to breathe.  When I finally excused myself, I dashed home and hauled out a paper bag and hyperventilated furiously into the bag.  Then I lay down on the floor in exhaustion.  Which is nothing, I am sure, to compare with the exhaustion of having to listen to the babble of a fringe generalist.  (Fringe generalist = someone who has a one liner on just about every topic in the book!)  I have a friend who impressed me no end with his vast intellect and knowledge. That he is an artist and as such in the same creative camp as I am should have given me a hint to the extent, or rather limit, of that knowledge.  I would sit and drink up all this information until one day his butt was firmly parked in a chair on my (then) Edwardian Veranda with a Frangipani branch as backdrop.  Opposite him was another Fringe Generalist and the two of them vied with each other for the Ad Lib trophy that was up for grabs.  My goodness!  What a load of hogwash.  But rather than demote said friend from the exalted position of intellectual know-it-all, I merely elevated myself into a notch marginally higher than he on the yardstick.  For after all, women, if they are wise, know when to say hummm and ahhhh when in deep water!  Men, on the other hand, just keep going.  Take for example my Dad.  Too precious for speech.  He is in his 80s and never has there been a more perfect specimen than Dad.  Yesterday, he ventured off in his ancient Camry in search of a new beach to walk on.  In his quest his car got stuck in the soft sand leading to the beach and who knows how long he sat there spinning his wheels until a  couple came along to save him.  Now Dad is a tad inventive in the memory department so when asked by the very nice couple where he hailed from he became an orphan with no home or family.  Fortunately, "detective" may have been in the CV of one of his rescuers because it was established that he lived in a retirement village not far from where he was stuck and once the couple had extricated Dad from the sand, they watched with dismay as he set off in the opposite direction from the retirement village described.  To cut a very long story short.  My sister's (see family?) husband was alerted and he screeched off in the direction that Dad had headed.  Only to find that the clutch of the ancient Camry had given up the ghost and had (fortunately) stranded Dad for the second time that day.  Peter saved Dad, had the car towed to the garage and all was well.  Last night I was chatting to Dad not letting on that I knew of his adventure and the story was, well, inventive.  He had gone to the beach to meet son in law. En route a lady managed to mess up his clutch and Peter just happened to have a toe truck handy at one of the remotest beaches on that coast line.  Today Peter is looking into Tracker and Netstar because we have decided that the angels may need a little help from time to time! 

And now to the purpose of  this blog.  ROSA ORGANICS.  Always save the best for last.  Rosa Organics is in the business of making women (and some men) look exceptionally beautiful with the least effort possible.  The reason for the "least effort" lies in the fact that the vehicle for enhancing the natural (pun intended) beauty of the women (and some men) is a simple, exclusive and highly active range of organic and natural serums for the skin.  After years of riding horses on the magical continent of Africa with the sun at its zenith most of the time my skin got a daily dose of the natural bronzing technique.  Years later and the natural bronzing became more than a little tarnished and a miracle was needed to restore it to is youthful lustre.  Well the BIG miracle is still being sought, but Rosa serums all contain a little miracle in their bottles.  Designed by nature and harnessed by Rosa Organics, you cannot do much better in the beautification of the skin department.  And here I am talking good, bad and indifferent skins.  Natural does not distinguish.  It will give your skin exactly what it needs.

Till later.....
Lynn