carine hartman 2021

By Carine Hartman

Chief sub-editor


How I am manifesting the new year

As always. I’m tired already. But happy new year. Here’s to three cars. Let them at least be functional.


Three cars in the driveway: that’s how I am manifesting the new year. I have two already; both with rusty wheels I need to fix. Don’t ask me how – but I can feel the key of a (second-hand) new car already in my breast pocket that doesn’t exist because retailers just don’t give women That Pocket anymore.

So I’ll hold my breasts. Or breaths for this year. I’ve hardly breathed this year when the Harry-hit-the-dog-bowl fight with brother future King William happened.

So I need to ask just one question: if the royal brothers have a fisticuffs – what a normal family, I say – how many of you over this “festive season” stepped in between brus? I did.

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It started with online watching a four-year-old’s killer being put away: he was a boyfriend, mother defended him and looked past the blows he gave to boy’s stomach that led to his death. In fact, she blamed her 10-yearold son for “bullying” little Ignatius just to protect the boyfriend.

“They” call it “the Cinderella Syndrome” and I sighed about yet another three piggies that were politically incorrect. But that woke syndrome is all about the wicked poisoned apple.

And I wondered if that exact family didn’t include the women who become single parents; widows, like me, who can’t raise to the “core family”? I’m mulling this on my stoep when I hear a street fight – I thought.

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No need to think any more: the brus were hitting the dog bowls in my kitchen, blood and all. This Cinderella moved quickly between locking doors to keep the fighting factions apart and starting negotiations – Cat in the Hat, please note, although it is no laughing matter – but the glass slipper didn’t quite fit.

My dwarfs, fresh from a field of magic mushrooms, turned first on themselves, then me. It’s me, I think. Me drinking the cloudy water Ben Trovato’s gran tells me leads to a cloudy mind. But it’s not. It’s the age-old resentments of family get-togethers that just boils over.

As always. I’m tired already. But happy new year. Here’s to three cars. Let them at least be functional.

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