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.