“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”

— Sigmund Freud

Sat with a pint in hand at The Roebuck in Marlborough, we spoke of our excitement to finally be flying out to South Africa the following day for my sister’s wedding and a week long trip up the Cape West Coast - a trip that we (my partner Sam and I) had dreamt of ever since we knew we would be going back. Having spent the first three months of 2019 living and travelling around the Western Cape, I was excited to return and explore this country’s food and lifestyle landscape once more. South Africa is this magical pocket of the world; a place that brings with it a world of diversity, creativity and opportunity.

Our West Coast trip was going to be an exciting new project for Ubuntu Food where we would spend time meeting local artisans, and finding inspiration from the places and people we came into contact with. Sam would spend time in the ocean surfing, whilst I would fire up the Braai on the beach to cook up what ever we were able to get our hands on from our visits to markets and fisher towns. Even as I write this, I find myself drifting into a reverie of remote coastal landscapes - almost tasting the salty ocean breeze that gently encourages our fire to grow.

However the world had a different plan.

That same evening the news broke of the Presidential address around Covid-19 ordering a full lockdown from the 18th March. Anyone entering the country would be submitted for intense testing and potentially quarantined if necessary. Boarders would shut in and out of the country, with no clear view of when they would open again. At this point half of my family had already flown out ahead of my sisters wedding (that unfortunately had to be cancelled) and the rest of us spread across the UK.

It was from that moment that life as we knew it drastically started to change. In the weeks since both the UK and South Africa have gone into full lock down and the gravity of Covid-19 has been felt by billions of people across the world.

In a time where our news feeds were filled with negativity, nervousness and cries of public uncertainty; we continued to find solace in our community of people.

Instead of simply locking ourselves in and losing our usual productivity, we have found ourselves kept busy doing the things we have always wanted to do “if time”, and supporting those around us. Our garden patch, once riddled with weeds and untouched soil, is now becoming a healthy home vegetable patch. New recipes are being tested every day, and the time that we are able to go for a walk or run outside is being relished as it should be.

Colder days have been spent painting, and sorting through archives of prints; appreciating the times where we were able to freely explore and spend time with one another. Whilst self isolation remains to be a somewhat daunting prospect to suddenly be faced with, I have undoubtedly noticed how creative we can be to find connection in our local communities. Connection in this way becomes less about physically seeing and spending time with others, but instead learning to appreciate and utilise the time you have on your own, and consciously invest and support local/small business (more on this in future journal entries) .

So to kick off my reposting of Table Talk Journal Entries we wanted to share a collection of prints I (Imke) took whilst in South Africa in 2019. As the realisation of isolation for us, in the first instance, was certainly that we would have to wait a little while longer to experience the abundance of inspiration that comes with exploring the Western Cape, its people, and its culture.