Lugkasteel

In her previous book, Sabbatsreis, Annelie Botes recounts how, in 2004, she blindly boarded a plane to England to become a caretaker for a granny. To pay off her huge debt. For one hellish year, also filled with many blessings, she became Granny's keeper. But as if that wasn't enough, a mere six months after returning to Port Elizabeth, she was on her way back to England. This time to work as governess for four mischievous young lads of noble descent. And like Cinderella, she finds herself a maid in a creepy old castle, where she goes hungry and is often numb with cold. And she has to share her tiny little room with the wandering ghost of a woman who passed away centuries ago. In order to escape from her stark reality, she converts an old mice-infested Mercedes-Benz, deserted in a field overgrown with weed, into her own sacred space, where she can dream, think and cry. Ten years later, seated at her old brown desk, she rolls the camera back to those days, and finds that, despite our damaged wings, we can learn to take off and fly, higher and further than our dreams would allow. Sometimes. Sometimes not.