Sick Kitty

Whilst we were away for the weekend the kids called us to say that Titch our one cat was not well. When we got home he was soooooo thin and weak, we phoned the vet who said it sounded like cystitis and that we should bring him in the following morning.

Fortunately it's treatable, so after a job and some antibiotics to give him for the week, we went home.

Giving the tables was easier said than done as he fought us tooth and nail. He also wasn't drinking so I had to use a syringe and squirt the water down his throat. It's a week now since he was so sick and he is only now getting better, still very very thin though.

Needless to say Rob has used this as an excuse to feed Titch tuna meat - shame he needs to pick up his weight.

Weekend Away in Tulbach

[click on the image to get a larger picture]

What an incredible weekend away. Friends of ours, Tony and Hilary suggested we go away for a weekend. Rob and I jumped at this and arranged for a 'baby' sitter for the boys and off we went.

The 'baby' sitter was one of the coaches from Chris's school and the boys had a ball with him, going out to eat at Spur etc.

The plan was to go to a house in Riebeek Kasteel that we had hired for the weekend. Tony and Hilary left before us as we went to watch James play a waterpolo match. Before we even left, we got a message from Tony to say that they are no longer going to Riebeek Kasteel but rather going to spend the weekend in Tulbagh. Rob and I were now totally confused and thought they were joking. Only when we actually got to Riebeek did we realize they were being serious and they directed us to our new accommodation in Church Street, Tulbagh.

It turns out the house we had booked was double booked and there was no accommodation in Riebeek due to some festival, but they managed to find the place in Tulbagh. The cottage we stayed in was beautiful and in Church Street, which is the oldest street. All the houses have a history of who built/stayed in them. http://www.capedutchquarter.co.za/

We took no food with us, other than a few snacks and bottles of wine and we ate out for all our meals. We cruised around the wine farms tasting all the delicious wines and campaigns.

One of our meals was at a restaurant called 'Readers'. The owner was a large lady and mad about cats, which made Rob's day, but she was also mad about her homemade ice-creams which she kept raving about and insisting we had to try. So for desert Hilary and I order a trio of ice-creams, well there was curry ice-cream, ginger and lime, and GARLIC. The garlic ice-cream was revolting and actually spoilt a nice meal, the others were just well .... interesting . .

We went to watch the SA vs New Zealand rugby match at the local pub, with some of the locals, that was quite an interesting experience, but half way through I snuk out and went and scratched around the local shops (not that there were many), managed to find a few interesting things.

We did a lot of eating, drinking and sleeping over the weekend, both nights we managed to get over 10 hours of sleep, pure bliss the only thing to worry about was the damn peacocks that made so much noise.

We had a poker set with us, but did not even get to open it we were all so 'chilled'. In fact so chilled that this past week I have really battled at work, it feels like it was months ago that we went away, not a week.

We stopped in at a chocolate factory on the way home, and at the house in Riebeek Kasteel where we were supposed to stay - the house is beautiful and we are very excited as the owner has offered us 1 free weekend away to each couple, so needless to say we will be each be inviting each other to our weekends, so in essence we get 2 weekends away YAY!

All of us eating and drinking and eating some more and drinking some more - happy days!!

Kids having fun

It was such a beautiful day here today in Cape Town that we decided to go and visit Oupa and Nana and the boys could have a swim in their cold pool, our heated pool is just not as nice and there is no place for them to throw the ball around without probably breaking a glass door.

so we get to Nana and it says to please be quite at the pool area between 2 - 4pm, clearly when the elderly people like to have their naps. But put 2 boys and ball into water and that isn't going to happen!!

Click here to see the video of Chris flopping into the pool and here to see how 'nicely' they played together and here to see James doing a forward passy thingie???

Lazy Sunday

After rushing around getting gas, lunchbox fillers, ice-cream and waterpolo, we came home to 'chill'. The boys both start exams in about 3 weeks, so Chris had to hit the books, although this looks very studious, he only did it for 15 minutes, about to go harass him to do some more.

James on the other hand was trying to put back a toy that he took apart - hmmmmm

Polo Training

This morning (Sunday) we went off to one of the local schools that offer an academy that specialises in technical training for kids ito waterpolo. so we were up and at the pool by 9am and what a beautiful day.

Its not a cheap option at R125 for an hours session, but was pretty useful. Good money making racket though if you consider there were 10 boys at the session and another 12 at the session thereafter, so that's R2500 for 2 hours work (pretty good in my books)

Halloween

Well we all had a nice quiet night at home, but James being his usual busy self [the child cannot just sit and watch TV, he has to be doing something else at the same time]

So off he went and created his own halloween apple, yes, he carved it out of an apple (still not quite sure how?)

James First Waterpolo Match

Very exciting afternoon planned, James has his first waterpolo match this afternoon - whilst he is U12, he is going to help out the U14C team at Wynberg. So watch this spot for photo's of the proud moment.

He is then going to a Halloween party this evening - he is the only boy that is invited to a party with a whole lot of girls and of course he is loving that idea.

Chris on the other hand has 5 friends coming to sleep over tonight as they are all going to a party this evening as well - all the lifting and carrying and Rob ain't here to help me tonight.

But that is the least of my concerns, I am more worried about what on earth to feed 6 teenage boys for dinner and breakfast?

Slang

Oh my word, this is a message that someone wrote on facebook, I have to admit to took me a little while to figure out what he was actually trying to say - no wonder people can't spell anymore!

..haaz!t dude?!..yh0r bra its bn lng tym n0o c man i reali mc u n r0sc0e man!:-):-(. .bt aniwaes hpe 2c u guys in da near futre!. .bt plz invyt me on mxit on ds n0.0832488925!. .lukn 4wrd chtn wif u:-)8-)

Translation:
How is it going dude? Shew brother it has been a long time no see man, I reallymiss you and Roscoe man, (sad face) But anyways hope to see you guys in the the near future. But please invite me on mixit on this no. 08 . . . Looking forward to chatting with you (smiley face) [smiley face]

Hectic Lives and Why there is Just no Time!

Just to put into perspective what our week is like and why we simply do not have any time.

Monday
05h30 - wake up, make sandwiches and get kids out of bed - get ready for work
07h00 - leave the house and drop kids at school
07h30 - start morning office job - kids at school
12h00 - rush home get changed and start swimming lessons at 12h30
15h30 - 16h40 - James has swimming at school
16h00 - 17h30 - Chris has waterpolo at school
16h45 - finish swimming, get out and dressed, dive into the car, pick up James at school, rush through and pick up Chris from his school.
find out Chris is playing a waterpolo match, so leave James at school watching polo practice, rush Chris home to get his things and back to school by 6pm
20h30 waterpolo finishes - get home and start dinner, homework etc.

Tuesday
05h30 - same routines starts all over again except this time James has to be at school by 7am for swimming time trials. We also had to pick up a friend coming with to time trials.
17h00 - finish swimming, get out and dressed and take kids back to school for James Waterpolo from 18h00 - 19h00
19h15 - get home and start dinner (fortunately homework already done in the afternoon, thank goodness the boys are old enough to do it on their own)

Wednesday
05h30 - same routine AGAIN
16h45 - finish swimming - change, dive into the car and back to school to fetch Chris at 17h00
for a change a nice early evening where we can all relax

Thursday
05h30 - normal routine
06h00 - Volvo arrive to swop cars (went in for repairs) only to be told that on the way there the engine service light came on, so he is taking it back again today.
0630 - leave the house as Chris has to be at school at 7am for a gym session for Rugby season.
07h10 - meeting at a coffee shop
08h15 - office and begin working

Tonight I have a meeting from 7pm, but before that I have to get James back to school for his waterpolo from 6 - 7pm, somewhere in between I need to get to the vet to get cat food and cook dinner (might just land up being takeways), oh yes and get to the bank to deposit cheques, the PO BOX to clear the bills and buy frames for certificates for a function this evening - guess I am going to have to close the office, put a sign on the door and hope for the best.

The projects I am involved with are the following and take up the remainder of my evening

School - wanting to build an Aquatic Centre
BKM - Neighbourhood Watch
Lioness - ladies group doing 'good' work
CID - new proposal for the community
Swimming - invoicing, banking, scheduling
Household - pets, kids, food, maid, garden boy etc etc.
Kids - notices, scheduling, arranging lifts etc

So, on the weekend when people wonder why I am so tired, it is because it is the first time I actually get to sit down and relax. . .

Waterpolo

[Rob drowning some innocent child]

So waterpolo has filled a large portion of our lives, with Chris and James both playing. Now Chris has polo practice twice a week for an hour and half each time, then there is still a match as well. Anyways the parents set a challenge to the boys that we would play them . . .

[parents in flotation devices]

Well some of our parents had armbands and lifejackets on and other nothing. As backup to the parents team, we invited some South African players to join us, and it took the U15 team about 20minutes before they realised there really were no rules and suddenly everyone was having loads of fun.

The boys worked together as a team really well, one of them drowned the goalie, whilst the other took a shot at goals.

Rob and James represented the Muller family in the games (I was behind the video camera). James was fine as he trains twice a week, but Rob said that he was shattered and said in fact he was more tired after an hour of polo than he was when he rode the Argus Cycle Tour - it took him 4 days to recover - he said he felt like an 80year old and now has a new found respect for the boys and how fit they are.

Needless to say, Muller improvised and hung onto the side of the pool and the goals and only came into play when the ball was in front of him or their was some poor little 15 year old kids in front of him that had the ball [ not for long as Rob would then climb on top of him to get him to release the ball ]

It was a great evening and if you want to see some of the videos, follow these links to youtube. In the one, Alice had so many flotation devices on she could not move fast enough to chase the ball into goals . . .

The other one the parents tried to score a goal, it looks so easy from the side of the pool, but as you can see from the lack of power behind the shot - it clearly isn't.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUG4htiCHU0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IavpJIHFZU

Catch Up

So I won't even try and make excuses, but to keep certain people happy - here we go . . .

As is rather obvious we did leave Stirling and eventually landed up back in Cape Town, but what an incredibly awesome holiday - we really had such a wonderful time and it was great seeing family and friends who all made us feel so welcome.

have a look at this video of Adam and Dad playing the 'atshoo game' . . .



Of course once we got back we hit the ground sprinting and have been playing catch up ever since.

One of the major things that has happened, is of course my birthday - the big 40!! So I am now officially a member of the 'club' and can legally talk as an old person. What an amazing evening. We had a 'function coordinator' do the evening for us, from hiring everything to the food and drinks, and waiters etc. Rob and I had to do nothing but arrive, in fact I spent the morning at the hairdresser having my hair done. I asked everyone to wear a mask and was impressed because everyone did!!

The music was amazing and at 1am I eventually had to tell the DJ (who is one of our local police officers) that I really think he must turn the music down. He played fantastic music that everyone on the dance floor most of the night - rediscovered muscles I haven't had for a long time.

What made the evening and weekend really special was having all my friends and family and particularly, Mandy, Andy, Max and Tiff, Tim, Melonie and little Alex who flew in from Jhb to be with us. It was wonderful to have everyone together again.

[tried loading photo's and after half an hour of 'loading' got an error message, so sorry you will to go to facebook to look at the photo's.

Friday - Stirling

Today was a rather relaxed day. We left at about 9AM after breafast for the 90minute drive from Dailly to Stirling. There we visitied the Old Town Jail, a Victorian jail built in the early 1800's when prison reform in Scotland started. It was a most interesting experience, made so by the tour guide who acted out various parts, all with perfect accents, although he was from Glasgow. Then we went to the castle, which is almost like a smaller version of Edinburgh Castle, and then for a walk around the village.
Then it was then about 2.30PM and the kids were complaining about being hungry, so we found a park below the castle called King's Park, where we had a cream tea - we managed to find clotted cream and pre-made scones at the supermarket. Not quite as good, but that way we were able to make pigs of ourselves and have 3 scones each. The flask and cooler bag that we bought when we arrivesd in Bedford have served us really well up to now.
I was a bit tired after that so Jeanette drove us home. It was the first time that she has driven any distance anywhere other than in South Africa and did really well followingthe Satnav.
We arrived home just before 6 tonight(somewhat earlier than previous nights) in order to pack up our possesions, which have grown somewhat in volume and weight for the trip down to Kerri and Al tomorrow, which we are looking forward to.
It is only about a 4 hour drive, but we will be up and off early in the morning as we are going to stop at Bowness on Lake Windermere for a cruise on a steam boat, and then an interesting drive on the way down.

Pedometers

James' pedometer says that he has walked 5.04kms today, and we had a pretty relaxed day in respect of walking. We spend a lot of the day in the car.

Thursday 1st July

After spending the night in Inverness last night, we set off pretty early this morning(battled to get thekids up). We spent some trime in Nairn for a walk around the harbour, Fishertown, and the City Centre. The tide was out and the kids were amazed to see that there was a rather large boat just lying on the harbour floor.
Next was off to a smaller and very quaint town called Forres fo a walk around, and then on to The Macallan for a distillery tour. Whilst the distillery is in it's annual maintenance shutdown period, we were shown the entire process from Malting the Barley to distillation, and then the filling of the barrels. They also talk quite a bit about the barrles that they use and where they source them from as this is probably the most important part of the whisky making process - the aging. The tour was finished with some samples. We of course managed to buy some rather larger samples to bring back with us. Next was a drive through the village of Craigellachie, and then a stop at its bridge, which is no longer in use, but was built by Thomas Telford in 1814, and is the oldest stell bridge in Scotland.
Lunch was in Aviemore at a pub called Mackenzie's, and then back on the road to Dailly. What was supposed to be a 3.5 hour drive ended up taking almost 5 hours due to 2 quire serious accidents on the way back.
We stopped for fuel after driving 1099.7kms on a tank(61.6l) of diesel(5.6l/100km). It is quite amazing that a large modern car can achieve such mileage, and it is fantastic not to have to be filling up every 5 minutes with the price of diesel here being between GBP1.15 and 1.22/litre.

Pedometers

This morning in Fort William, Jeanette and the kids each got a pedometer to try and see how far they were walking in a day...................both Jmaes and Chris after wearing them for only half the day today had done over 4 km's(2.5 miles for those non-metric folks), and Jeanette 3.5km's. I reckonwe are doing an average of about 7 to 8 km's per day minimum............

Scotland - Tues 29th and Wed 30th. Done together for practical purposes.

Had a lie in on Tuesday morning as the kids were completely buggered from their day Edinburgh, and then went shopping at one the the famous Outlet Malls in Livingston(between Glasgow and Edinburgh), where Chris managed to but himself a PSP and some games. Got home early and had a roast lamb dinner.
On Wednesday we set off early for Inverness, where we are staying tonight. It took the whole day to get here (only about 370km/230miles). Stppoed a coupel of times along Loch Lomond to enjoy scenery, and then ended up in Fort William at around midday. Did some more shopping and had a wander around the town and then headed off to a picnic spot about 10 miles out for lunch with a view of Glen Nevis(some people call it Ben Nevis). Next stop was Urquhart Castle a ruined castle last inhabited by the Grant Clan about 300 years ago for a bit of exploring. After that we drove off to Inverness where we has a walk around the city - unfortunately no shopping as we arrived at about 17h30 when the city centre was closing down. We then checked in at our hotel, and were pleasantly surprised to find a beautiful pub (Snow Goose) across the road from our hotel. Had an excellent dinner there and setting of for a distillery tour tomorrow morning.

Scotland - Edinburgh

We set off early on Monday morning for Edinburgh, bearing in mind that it is a 2 hour drive from where we are staying - to get almost anywhere takes around 2 hours, as the roads here, whilst being in good condition are narrow and carry a lot of traffic. The speed limit on most is 60MPH, but you are lucky to do 45. Arriving in Edinburgh, we went to the Dungeon, which different from the one at warwick and entertaining. After that we did Edinburgh Castle, where we hasd lunch in one of their restaurants(btw, the restaurant served an exxxxellent fish pie - slightly different from what would be expected. Made with lightly smoked Salmon, haddock and mashed potato instead of pastry.) After that we did the walk down the Royal Mile and were then off to Princes street and the gardens for some shopping and extra fantastic views of the Castle. If we had the time we could have spent 2 days in Edinburgh.

Scotland

[click on the picture to enlarge]

So we left our lovely houseboat and hit the road towards Scotland with an overnight stop in York. We spent the day in and around York and headed for our hotel, only to get there and be told their boiler had broken and they were relocating us to hotel 20 miles back in the direction we had already come in Leeds. As it turns out this wasn't a bad thing as there was more shopping to be done there as well.

Yesterday we drove up to Scotland to our timeshare near the town of Dailley which is lovely. We stopped at Gretna Green which is the border town between Scotland and England and is known at the town where people used to elope to to get married off by the local blacksmith as the law states that you only have to be over 16 to get married (and still is).

Today we headed off exploring the south western coast of Scotland and stopped in at Kilmarnock, Ayr, Dunure(for tea) tried out the Electric Brae, where you are supposed to coast uphill due to an optical illusion, but it didn't work - I think we were going the wrong way. Unfortunately when we got to Culzean Castle it was closed, but the view of it was great. Tyhen we went through Turnberry, saw the Ailsa Craig(volcanic plug) and then on to Girvan which is only about 5 miles from our resort. The south Western Scottish coast has a typical collection of seasde resort towns like a lot of other regions in the country.

More of England

Yesterday we visited Cadbury World, yes that's right, the world of Chocolate, needless to say Chris and James were like children in heaven, we toured around there and got loads of samples and then got to make our own chocolate concoctions at the end (yum yum) Rob then bought the boys the BIGGEST bar of chocolate we have ever seen - a 1kg bar. Not sure if it will come home with us or not.....

After that drove down through the Cotswolds which is absolutely beautiful. We started in Chipping Campden where we stopped for tea and scones with clotted cream. . . These villages are all beautiful and so quaint, built from the local stone.

We then carried on to Stow-on-the-Wold where James had his chocolate chip ice-cream and then on to Bourton-on-the-Water where we wondered around the village and saw the miniature village. The weather has been so stunning that James took himself for a walk through the river, whilst the rest of the town sat on the banks of the river absorbing the sun.

Our final stop was in Oxford where we wondered around the city.

Today we headed out to Sandringham, the Queen's holiday residents via Peterborough where we shopped (yet again) and saw one of the larger cathedrals in England. We spent some time in the gardens of Sandringham, dreaming how we would live if we owned that kind of space and feeding the fish and ducks, taking loads of photo's

We then drove on to Norwich where we again wondered around the village, saw the castle, shopped and went to the Norwich Cathedral built by the Normans in 1098. In the Cathedral the boys lit candles in memory of Jonathan, Grandad and Uncle Jimmy, which was a lovely moment. The candles were all placed in a globe, which James then took a picture of.

This morning before we left, Rob went to speak to the management of the resort about our 'yobbo' neighbours who once again came home in the early hours of this morning, this time with girls, shouting and laughing at the top of their voices. On Saturday night, or Sunday morning at about 3h30, they were smashed out of their minds and jumping into the water of the Marina, and then the screaming -"it's f@#king cold - I think I am going to die....etc, etc, etc. The management said they had already had other complaints about them and assured us that they would be gone by this evening, even if they had to get the police in to do it and true to their word, when we got back this evening, they were gone. It is fantastic that the resort reacted in this way and that they are really concerned about the welfare of their customers.

Finally home again, to make dinner and eat at only 10.15pm while its still not quite dark outside.

So far we have travelled approximately 1300km around England, all of it driven by Rob, not bad for 1 week. I did do a small driving stint to one of the local grocery stores, but am very happy to be chauffered driver around - Rob is an excellent tour guide. We have been given a fantastic car by the rental company - VW Passat station wagon, which is more than able to cope with all of our luggage and transport us in comfort, whilst being extremely economical on diesel - it goes about 1100km on a tankful - I don't know why we don't see more of these types of cars in SA, as they are much more practical than the small 4 door saloon cars that we see on our roads.......

England 2010

London 2010

Having A Ball

We have been so extremely busy over the last couple of days and boy have we walked and walked, I have discovered muscles I never knew existed.

Right so lets prioritize;
ShoppingOh my goodness what divine things they have here, be it food or clothes shopping, the biggest thing is to remember that when it says 1pound that its not actually R1. but on a whole we are so badly ripped of in SA its scary,

Places We've Visited
We spent 2 days tubing, training, bussing and DLR'ing to get around London and visit the sites along with the other millions of tourists, it is unreal how many people there are and the locals say they avoid the tourist areas as they know its bad.
So we have seen
The Tower of London - wonderful experience, we hired the audio guides that took us around the castle and gave us all the low down.

Big Ben, Tower Bridge, St Pauls, London Eye, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace(changing of the guard), Piccadilly Circus, Regent Street(Hamley's), Oxford Street etc etc.

Teddy
Now in a lot of our photo's you will see a teddy, this is Jill's teddy that travelled with us to England and gets photo's taken wherever we go, we have snapped off so many but will show them all when we get back.

After our stay in London we travelled to Bedford to our houseboat which is great. On route to the houseboat we went via one of the largest shopping malls in England (Bluewater) but its not THAT impressive(in fact high street village shopping is better - that's what England is about - you can see these types of malls anywhere), we then went on to Cambridge and walked around the town, Chris loves the idea of this and stated he wants to come here to go to Varsity.

On our first night on the boat (night of the England playing Soccer) at 4.30am our neighbours returned from a drinking party and went for a swim in the Marina. This in itself is fine, but they were EXTREMELY noisy and decided to go swimming. The temperature must have been about 7degrees when he decided to do this, so you can image the noise he made when he hit the water.

We have taken a day trip so far to another shopping outlet in Biceister. We then went on to Warick Castle in Warwickshire and spent a GOOD couple of hours there wondering around the dungeons, and castle. On our way home we stopped in at Stratford Upon Avon to see Shakespears birth place and this is where Chris bought his 1st pressie for Jill.

Well that is a very brief summary of what we have done to date, today we are taking it easy and have friends coming for lunch, got to go do some washing etc etc.

Having a wonderful time and hope all is well back home.

Exhaused flyers

Wow what an exhausting 24 hours to get to England. Firstly we landed up flying from Cape Town to Johannesburg (yes no one realised this until we were on the plane), then on to Doha where we were laid up for 6 hours waiting for our connecting flight.

All of us were absolutely shattered and the boys fell asleep on the chairs in the airport - most uncomfortable.

The most disgusting thing about this stop over though was the toilets, being an Arab country the toilets are so revolting, as everyone washes themselves with the shower hoses, so there is water everywhere on the floor and I am sure I don't need to go into more detail, needless to say, I was pretty much bursting by the time I got on the plane.

One good thing though was the boys bought themselves a camera each with the pocket money in the duty free and boy oh boy have they been snapping away - its great, with 3 camera's now, we are guaranteed to get some good shots.

When we finally arrived at Heathrow and picked up our rental car, we were please to discover we had been upgraded to a bigger car (thank goodness as our luggage only just fits.)

As we are driving along, Rob was playing with all the switches and buttons and suddenly my arse starts tingling and I realise my seat is starting to cook - Rob of course by this stage is in stitches laughing as he has switched on the seat warmers.

Finally we made it through to Blackheath (next to Greenwich) to Martin and Ann Marie's place well after 10pm, it is really strange that with it getting dark so late here, really messes with your time clock.

Martin and Ann Marie have a stunning home with 3 bedrooms so we all had our own rooms, they are 10mins from the station so it was all so convenient for getting into London.

We have manged to get a pre-paid sim card and for 5pounds we get 1 months free unlimited Internet access, what a bonus, this allows us to update our blogs each night.

So the last 2 days we spent going into London and doing the Tourist thing along with all 1 million other tourists, but more about that in my next blog.

This morning we left Blackheath and made our way through Cambridge to Bedford where we are staying for a week on a house boat in the Priory Marina. This will be our base to go exploring some more.

Finally Arrived

After a very long 24 hours of travelling, we arrived safe and sound. The worst part of the trip was the 6 hour layover in Doha airport and the toilets, but more on all that later.

We spent yesterday walking around London and got home last night around 10pm, were COMPLETELY shattered, taken loads of photo's and will post a more detailed blog tonight.

This morning we are off to Buckingham Palace.

SKUNK PATROL

Our skunks back from the hairdresser with the holiday haircuts and highlights. . .

Best Dressed

Thanks once again to Aunty Ingrid, James won best dressed for his grade at their school soccer supporters competition. Here he is collecting his prize, wearing his hand made 'hard hat'.

Well done James and Ingrid!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES

Today is James's 12th Birthday, can't believe our baby is growing up so fast.

At the last minute I organised a get together with a few friends, and thanks to Gran had a beautiful chocolate cake with candles for him as well.

The only thing was the candles were those terrible ones that just don't blow out so he spent a while trying to get them out.

Thanks to everyone that came and made his day special.

Now that is all out the way, work is over, I can now focus on packing and the ever closer date to us leaving, just 3 more sleeps YAAAAYYYYYY!!!!

Bafana Bafana

Chris and Kevin spent the afternoon preparing these signs

HOOT 4 BAFANA A A A A A A A , then stood outside with their vuvuzela and and blew it at all the cars going past.

Well done Bafana, 1st goal of the World Cup. I have never in my life watched a soccer match, but sat cheering for Bafana Bafana. Go boys.

The budding supporters, Chris and Kevin

BREAK UP DAY

Yay its holidays, the boys are now officially on holiday, means I can sleep later in the mornings now.

This afternoon we have a bunch of kids decend on the house, and that means feeding the hoards, here they all are making pancakes.

1 x 2l of ice-cream - finished

24 x pancakes - finished

Gill got the job of making them though, so it was painless for me.

Sweet Valley Primary School - Soccer Day Fever 2010

Check this video out of James's school assembly where the entire school got into the Soccer World Cup fever.

They all dressed up and danced.

Party Time Black & White Dance

Last night we attended the school 'Black and White Dance' where we had to bring our own drinks and glasses. So I neatly packed the glasses into my back and managed to transport them there safely, only to take them out my bag and put them on the table a touch too hard and smashed the stem to pieces. But that didn't stop Lynnae our friend from using it as she merely used her wine bottle as the holder - INGENIOUS!! No wonder the men love her so much.

We all had a great time, even though the music wasn't exactly to my taste but it was great fun watching everyone dancing and what the poor single ladies have to put up with from drunken men.

Thanks Alice for motivating us all and organising the tickets - otherwise we would probably all not have gotten our act together.

SHOPPING SHOPPING AND MORE SHOPPING

What a fun day, Rob and I woke up this morning and realised there were a couple of things we needed to buy before we leave and so we went shopping. Well what a productive day, for me anyway THANKS GUYS!!

James and Chris also bought some stuff, but James's biggest things was his hat that you can see him wearing here. He is soooooo chuffed with it.

this morning Rob hauled out all the suitcases, and serviced and cleaned them, ready for packing next weekend.

Poor Rob, yesterday afternoon he came home an hour and half later as good old SAA had lost his baggage, problem was it was a new suitcase he had bought for our trip. Fortunately they located it in Jhb and delivered it to us this morning about 08h30 thank goodness.

We are all getting more and more excited about leaving, 7 sleeps to go.

Stress in the House

Chris finished his exams 2 weeks ago already and of course, now gets to play playstation or watch TV, while James has only just started his exams and has to study. As I am sure you can imagine, that goes down like a lead balloon and to get James to do anything is a trying process.

Saying that he did very well in his maths and was one mark short of 80%.

Today he writes NS (Natural Science aka Biology) and Xhosa.

But yesterday before I could help him with studying after swimming I had to try and find an 'O' ring for my salt chlorinator that was leaking. Initially the leak was insignificant, but by yesterday lunch time, the water was pouring out at a rapid rate. I sent poor old James on his bicycle to the local hardware stores and pump shops in the area to try and buy one, but unfortunately they did not stock it. He did however find the shop that stocked ice creams and chocolates though. . .

After climbing out the pool I located a shop that had the part I was looking for - an entire R30, the problem was they closed at 5pm and it was now 4.40pm and Chris had to be fetched from school at 5pm, in the COMPLETE opposite direction. Fortunately the shop agreed to stay open and wait for me and we finally got there at 5.40pm after fighting the traffic, whipped through the Mac Donald's drive through [dinner that was prepped will have to carry over to tonight] and raced home in time to attend the meeting I was hosting.

Thank goodness we were able to do some studying before I started swimming, otherwise we would have done nothing.

The wierd thing was I was so wound up from running around getting this part that after the meeting I then prepared 2 sets of minutes that were outstanding and did some other work, resulting in me going to bed rather late, needless to say this morning I could happily go home and climb back into bed.

Oh well just another day in the life of our crazy times. Roll on holidays 11 days to go . . .

days before we leave - what can go wrong they ask??

Well let me tell you, things are never smooth sailing.

This weekend, I noticed the pool pump was off, why because the pump had blown its bearings and was no longer working. Thank goodness Rob was home, poor thing, he spent his Sunday running around buying a new pump and fitting it. Whilst we were at it though, decided to replace the pool filter sand as well, not a great job, but at least it's done.

When everything was put back together one of the pipes had a little leak, which we didn't think was toooooo serious and could last till next weekend, but it appears to be getting worse and I had to top the pool up yesterday and again this morning hmmmmm . . . .

Poor little Mickey is quite sick with flu at the moment, and all you here at night is her snoffeling and sneezing, probably going to have to take her to the vet before we leave as well.

Well got to get my lists together now of things to do before we leave and lists of instructions for those staying behind and lists for people at work of where to find what and how things work, or maybe I should just leave and let people actually miss me?

Fun and games - can't wait.

Holidays!!

Wow, its just over 2 weeks and then WE ARE OUTA HERE!! Yup the time is fast approaching and we will all be on the plane headed for England, yea ha!!

Its quite scary to think how relaxed I am about this, as usual have left everything up to Rob to plan and organise, I will just supervise packing and then help spend the money when we get there, what fun.

The blogging bug has not bitten the boys who have started their own blogs

www.cheesballslife.blogspot.com and www.lifeofspeedoboy.blogspot.com

Hope they keep it up . . .

This morning was rugby, as it usually is on a Saturday and Chris's team was absolutely annihilated with a score of 69 - 0 (OUCH).

James played yesterday afternoon and although they lost by a very small margin, they were playing the A-team (he is in the B-team) and the opponents had 13year olds in their team as they don't have enough 12 yr olds to make up a team, so they played really well considering.

Rob and I decided to sponsor the boys rugby teams with waterbottles & carrier, since neither of them had. In my shopping around I managed to find a set and carrier of 10 bottles for R200, but not after being shocked that someone like Sportsmans Warehouse could ask R269 for the carrier alone and then it was branded with their name all over it. UHHHH no, I don't think so, it doesn't work that way that I should have to pay them to advertise their product, they should be giving it to me?????

Anyways, one more rugby match next week, which unfortunately Rob will miss as he will still be in Kenya and 2 more weeks of swimming for me and then holidays - how divine, not getting wet, my hair just might be able to regain some strength and my skin can rehydrate.

Time to start making lists and making sure we have covered everything from what's happening here at home to what me must take with us - pray for me!!

HAVE YOU EVER!!!

This from the website www.news24.co.za about the people that are destroying the toilets they had built for them.

Vandalism reports lies - ANCYL

Cape Town - The ANCYL national office has rejected as "lies" reports that its Dullah Omar branch plans to vandalise the City of Cape Town.

"Do you call yourself a journalist?" ANCYL spokesperson Floyd Shivambu asked a Sapa reporter. "How can you tell such lies."

Earlier on Tuesday, the ANCYL's Dullah Omar branch, in the Western Cape, called on the youth to vandalise the City of Cape Town over poor service delivery.

The ANCYL secretary of the Dullah Omar region Loyiso Nkohle said: "We are going to destroy everything and make the city ungovernable.

"We are calling on all youth to do this (vandalise the city), especially those living in informal settlements."

Nkohle's deputy Chumile Sali said the Dullah Omar branch was doing this to expose those parts of the city where the Democratic Alliance had failed to deliver services.

"The people residing in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, are not incapable of closing the N2 Highway and vandalising city council property," he said.

Intervene

On Monday, ANCYL members and community leaders led residents in the destruction of toilet enclosures the city council had erected hours earlier.
They taunted mayor Dan Plato to arrest them.

"The African people's dignity has been undermined by the DA. It is time to take action," said Sali.

While he denied that the ANCYL was promoting violence, the regional treasurer of the Dullah Omar branch, Andile Lili, said the ANCYL did not intend being violent, but was being forced to by the city.

"Anything with the city emblem on it will be destroyed," he said, adding: "The youth league will be vandalising the city."

The ANCYL Dullah Omar branch had written an open letter to Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale" asking him to intervene in the toilet debacle.

"Our complaint is based on the reality that African people residing in Makhaza, Khayelitsha, are forced to shit in full view of the public," it wrote.

"This satanic action by the city council is tantamount to gross human rights violations and undermines the people's right for their dignity to be protected as stipulated in section 10 of the Constitution."

The Dullah Omar branch said it had lodged a complaint against the city with the South African Human Rights Commission in January, but had not yet received a response.

It would not wait for Sexwale's response to proceed with its plan of action.

It was unhappy with the corrugated metal sheets the city had used to build enclosures around the toilets and wanted concrete instead.

New structures

In 2007 the city built a toilet for each household in the Makhaza area which each household agreed to enclose. However, since 2008, about 50 Makhaza families had been relieving themselves in full view of the public.

Plato told the Cape Times on Monday that he had recently met the ANCYL and community leaders and they had agreed to tell residents that open toilets would be enclosed.

He said the corrugated metal sheets used to enclose them were not inferior to the material people had used to build the homes they were living in and that if people wanted to destroy new structures he would "walk away".

On Tuesday, DA leader Helen Zille described the destruction of the toilet enclosures as part of an ANC campaign of violence and intimidation against the opposition in the Western Cape.

She would ask for a meeting with President Jacob Zuma to bring the incidents of intimidation against the DA to his attention, Zille said at a media conference in Cape Town on Tuesday.

"He must speak out against the culture of violence in the ANC, rein in the members of his party and take action against those who try to intimidate other political parties," she said.

SAPA

Catch Up

Shew, with just over 2 weeks to go and we are out of here!! We are off to England for 4 weeks, and its going to be so nice, no cell phones, computers or work. Time for us as a family to regroup.

One of the things we would like to do whilst over there is visit a school that is in the Afritwin system with James school, basically they share ideas with each other and I have approached his school about him going there for a day as an ambassador for his school - could be fun. www.christleton.org.uk.

So much has been happening in our lives and we thought we would be a little calmer now that Waterpolo was over, well were we mistaken. Rugby has taken even more of our time on the weekends.

Chris made the B team, but each Saturday lands up benching for the A team as well, so we get there early in the morning and pretty much hang around the entire day, as he has to stay to watch the 1st team play as well.

James has suddenly developed a huge love of sport and is now doing Hockey, Rugby, Swimming and Club Rugby, so he pretty spends most days at school until about 5 as well.

Makes my life easier for fetching and carrying as I can fetch them both when I am done with swimming.

This weekend Rob and I really need to sit down and finalise plans for when we are away, drawing up lists of how things work, making sure there is enough electricity whilst we are gone etc etc.

I have to say, I can't wait till we leave, just got to shake a few more kilo's between now and then (easier said than done!) and go and buy some basics e.g. eyeliner and mascara, clothes etc etc.

Chris and his Waterpolo Team

Shew the season is finally over, but what fun for the parents, the boys had to work really hard though - they trained 3 times a week, played matches on the 4th day, giving them one day off a week, but that in the last 3 weeks has been taken up by Rugby practices.

Their team did exceptionally well this term, being undefeated except for one match and made it through to the semi-finals of interschools tournament. The semi's were against SACS, Rondebosch and Reddam.

Wynberg drew with SACS only to loose in the penalty shootout, but we are all still very proud of them.

Bikes have been stolen

Can you believe it, but we have had yet another break-in and they have stolen Rob's, Chris and Morten (my brother's) bikes.

Here is a copy of my letter I sent to our local newspaper.

On Monday afternoon my youngest son came to ask me where the bikes have gone? After realising he was not joking we discovered that 3 adult bikes were stolen from our property. The bicycle's were mounted against a wall, chained and padlocked together.

We have 3 dogs on the property that bark at anything that moves outside our walls and we can only assume that since we are on a corner plot, the thieves must have distracted the dogs at one side oft he property whilst the remaining thieves jumped the wall, took their time to negotiate through a huge mountain of things in front of the bicycles (we had just emptied out our house to have our floors done), taken bolt cutters to cut the chain, removed the chain threaded through 5 bikes (imagine the noise), each attached to hooks on the wall, then lifted the bikes off their hooks and carried them over the wall.

The bikes are insured so that is not the problem, what makes me so ANGRY is the invasion of my personal space, the fact that my youngest child last night was worried about them coming back and spent the evening creating his own booby trap to catch the 'bad buys' On top of all this we have visitors from overseas (people that left the country because of amongst other things, crime) that have had to experience this.

Although we have a highly sophisticated alarm system, intruder proof glass, burglar bars etc, we are now going to install beams across our property at huge, unexpected and unbudgeted for cost, for peace of mind and to create one more layer between us and THEM!!. The inconvenience and time taken to resolve this issue with having to take time off work to go and report it tot he police, contact the insurance company and get quotes for replacement of the bikes is able to be quantified, but the emotional damage to my children and myself is unable to be quantified, let alone my husband who is overseas and having to deal with this remotely, worrying that his family are safe, all it does is fuel my anger towards criminals in this country. Why is it that we the public are made to continuously pay and pay and pay, yet our country cannot even provide us consistently with 2 SAPS vans per sector as they are allegedly supposed to do.

This incident - my 5th in the past 6 years has made me suspicious of any person walking around our neighbourhood that doesn't look as though he belongs, as this was clearly a planned theft, in that they must have had spotters checking out the lay of the land and planned how they were going to do it. We often have people ring our bell, offering to sell us stuff, begging, looking for work etc. THIS IS THE REASON WE PATROL AND ARE INVOLVED WITH OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH.

I personally will be doing everything I can to support the proposed Constantiaberg CID as this is the only way to create a 'Virtual Fence' around our suburbs with monitored cameras, adding one more layer to the security of my family.

Message from Rob in India [Calcutta]

I am looking forward to going to Dubai tomorrow as it is quite a bit more civilized than this place, but it has been interesting here, and I think we have got some good possibilities. It is just such a big market that we almost don't know where to start.

It is really backward as well and we should send some of our 'folkes' here to see what real poverty is. The amount of people living on the streets is shocking. You also just do not see fat people here apart from int he high end business areas, which are very much like what we are used to, but the rest is just one big slum.

I have also never seen so many taxis in my life. They are everywhere - in Calcutta, they use a car called a Hindustani ambassador, which is basically an Austin from the late 1950's, that when it went out of production in the UK, the plant was s hipped here and it is apparently still being made 60 years later. They must have been really good cars, because I think some of the ones that we have ridden in are 30 or 40 years old and although they are completely battered and *(^&(&(&*, they still go without puffing out loads of smoke.

In Mumbai they also use such an old car, but it is a Fiat from the same era- imagine being subjected to being transported in this when the temperature is 40C and there is no aircon, and the average speed of the traffic is about 12km/h wherever you go.

The hotel that I am staying in is only about a year old and although basic clean and suits my requirements and has 24hr room service, so we were able to get supper at 00h30 this am when we got back from Mumbai.

I have taken some pictures with my cellphone, so you can get an idea. [to follow]

The cricket at Eden Gardens was fantastic on Tuesday Evening.

Drinking our daily dose of Fruit and Veg

Cannot believe I did not know about this before, but you can drink your fruit and veggies . . .

Brent and Eloise are staying with us from England and have very kindly bought us our very own juicer. Our first jungle juice had spinach, beetroot, lemon, oranges, apples and cucumbers and tasted wonderful. Both boys drank it as well, just think of all that goodness!!!

Then last night I am driving home from fetching Chris and James phones to ask if he can make some apple juice for himself - WHAT A PLEASURE!!! Finally my child that doesn't often eat fruit is wanting to make it for himself.

THANK YOU BRENT AND ELOISE!!!

ADOPTION ANYONE?

We have the most beautiful little puppy Scamp, that if anyone is keen, she is looking for a home [just kidding].


When we got her (rescued from a farmer who wanted to drown her), we were told she was a border collie, well she has a border collie face, but the hind quarters . . . hmmmm I don't know.


So far she has managed to destroy my flat iron, 2 cell phone chargers, 2 pairs of shoes, a belt, numerous pens and pencils and a couple of my swimming toys.


That on top of the craters she is excavating in our garden . . . [ view the evidence below]




Our biggest problem with her is she still fits through the damn cat flap, which means when I feed her at night with the other dogs OUTSIDE, she runs around playing with them for about half an hour and then barrels herself through the catflap and sleeps in James's room.


Although saying that, there are not many days left as she is getting too big to fit through anymore. As for her breed, who knows, she has ears that are too big for her head and her back legs look like a township dog (or KD as we call them here). Generally however her nature is pretty sweet though - and she is a fast learner, I mean its only taken about 10 swipes from all the cats for her to realise that she is better off harassing the other dogs than the cats.

New School = happy child

[ Chris, Hylton and Sean]

Chris has settled in so extremely well to his new school, its almost too good to be true.

The other day he came home and told me he went to the library before waterpolo. That was the point where I nearly feinted, I didn't think Chris even knew what the library was, let alone set foot in one.

His life is extremely hectic most days getting home from school after 6pm, bearing in mind we leave for school at 07h10 every morning. But he is loving it and asks to wait at school, even though he could come home earlier, he chooses to stay.

He has jumped into the sport and school work boots and all, he has made the B team for waterpolo and was elected as the captain. He also plays as a reserve for the A Team.

They have also started rugby fitness so twice a week its waterpolo practice, twice a week rugby fitness and every Tuesday morning at 06h30 swimming training - all this leaves no time for TV, so that is really great.

On top of all that its matches on a Friday / Saturday.

The school itself is really great, they send out a weekly newsletter which outlines the entire program for the upcoming week, including the test dates and EXACTLY what the test is about. They also provide the boys with diaries at the beginning of the year which also has all these items outlined in it, along with the test dates and subjects.

Chris has also made the most amazing friends at school and they also have the most amazing set of moms that network so well with each other and a lot of them are single moms as well. It is so nice to have a support system at the school, within the first week of being there.

I really hope this is a sign of things to come for the rest of his high school career, as he seem so happy.

HECTIC HECTIC HECTIC

This year has started with bang and we have all the hit the ground sprinting. Rob is back to his travels around the world and we are back to school and work.

The puppy is keeping us busy, but she has settled in so beautifully with all the animals.

Chris has started at his new school and is loving it. On the first day he came home and told me he was amazed because everyone in the classroom is so quiet and they don't back chat the teacher DUHHHH!!!! The way it should be.

Anyways, he has settled in so nicely, he made the B team for waterpolo and at their first practice was elected team captain by the boys in the team. It is going to be really good for him, because now for once he will get to play most of the match, as apposed to spending most of the time on the bench as the reserve for the A.

James has also settled right into school, maybe a little too much though has in the first 2 weeks he managed to get 2 break DT's, he has now been warned one more and 3rd strike you are out - his pocket money will rapidly deplete at that rate.

He has also in the last 2 weeks managed to loose 2 teeth and can you believe it, has put them out for the tooth mouse - who was caught a bit off guard (thought he was past this) with insufficient money in his wallet.

Ingrid the good aunty took James off to the museum and a photography exhibition in Town the week before school started, which he absolutely loved. The photo's above are the ones that Lisa took of him. (thanks Lisa)