Hi there. I’m Freda. Welcome back to my little corner of the internet.
It has been a while.
A very long while, actually.
I have spent the last few years doing that thing where life gets busy and you keep telling yourself you’ll get back to writing when things settle down. Except, of course, things never settle down. Not when you’re a mother of four, a baker, a fashion curator and the founder of an engineering consultancy.
So here I am. Writing again.
And because I have several years’ worth of catching up to do with those of you who have been following me since the beginning, I thought I’d start with something simple: a day in my life.
These days, I live in Zimbabwe, after stints in Kenya and Nigeria, and my life seems to involve firing on several cylinders at once.
I have an outrageous to-do list most days. I will almost certainly not get everything done. And, strangely enough, I rather like it that way.
There is always something happening. Something to look forward to. Something to figure out.
And, lately, there are a lot of croissants.
4:00am: Good morning, apparently
I am now a 40-something-year-old electrical engineer who has somehow reinvented herself as a croissant and general viennoiserie baker.
At 40-fine!
Honestly, isn’t that great?
A year ago, I had absolutely no idea how to make a croissant. Today, I am producing enough of them to package into bags of six and send off to the frozen food section of a local butchery.
I still find this slightly hilarious.
I am not even a morning person, but my day usually starts at around 4am. I get out of bed at 4:30, change into my workout clothes and immediately go to check on the croissants that have been slowly thawing and rising in the fridge overnight.
Because apparently this is my life now.
Sometimes they are beautifully puffed up and ready to go. If I’m lucky, I can get them into the oven before my workout.
Other mornings, they need another hour or so. In that case, back into the fridge they go while I head off to do something completely unrelated to pastry.
Like exercise.
At 5am.
With a group of people who, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, are also enthusiastic about exercising at 5am.
We call it a play-date.
Our workouts usually follow a Les Mills routine: cardio, Body Combat, Body Attack, Body Balance and whatever else is on the schedule that morning.
The hour flies by.
And then?
The real race begins.
Because by the time I leave the gym, I have croissants to deliver, children to get to school and an entire day’s worth of things waiting for me.
And it is only morning.
7:00am: Everybody out the door
I get the kids to school without shouting.
Success!
Next is a coffee and a chat with whatever parent is around.
What do we talk about?
Zimbabwe’s beauty. A weekend off-road trip. The kids’ sports schedules. Aging parents. The choice between living in Africa or elsewhere. And the state of this crazy world.
Sipping a hot cappuccino as I drive back home is my reward for my morning’s exploits.
9:00am: Now for the rest of my life
Once I am home, it’s time to knock out whatever pressing tasks need attention for the day and fit in a shower somewhere in between.
Find a food tech intern.
Give my master baker the orders for the day.
Plan some alumni events for my board duties.
Polish up project proposals.
Draft emails to make introductions to investors.
Eat lunch… usually last night’s leftovers.
Ponder for a second over what happened to breakfast.
At my age, with my activity… protein much?
And suddenly, it’s time for a series of school runs, and there goes the rest of my afternoon and early evening.
Line up dinner.
Monitor the home inquiries.
Bath time.
Wind down.
Bedtime.
The trenches have changed
We are not quite in the trenches anymore.
No. That was when I had three children under six years old.
Now those three are 16, 13 and 11. A lot bigger, a lot more independent, and thankfully much less likely to require me to physically carry them around.
But I still have a six-year-old.
And he is like five children in one.
Never a dull moment.
9:00pm: Set up tomorrow
With the last bite of energy in me, I set myself up for tomorrow’s success.
And that is usually achieved by lining up what the kids will get for school lunch, getting things ready to finish off and packing them into lunchboxes in the morning.
Then I line up some frozen croissants onto a tray, cover them and put them into the fridge to thaw and rise slowly overnight.
Step into a writers’ community Clubhouse room at most twice a week.
And that’s it.
The day is done.
Until 4am.
Rinse and repeat.
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