Fathers Day

To my dad.

Dad, I know that you look down on me, and I really hope that you are proud.

I know that I am sometimes a little too hard on people, and that you would not approve, but I hope that you can see your influence in the compassion I do show, and in the very strong sense of justice that I got from you. You always fought the wars of the under dog. I got that from you.

I wish that I could hear your views on your grand children. I know that you would have adored them. I wonder what your reaction would have been to your two grandchildren in the UK, who have developed such strong pom accents. I wish that we could both share how much we miss these two.

Dad I hope that you know how much you are still missed,even though you have been gone for 18 years. I hope you know how often I think of you and miss your sometime harsh judgement, and I hope you know how much your guidance has influenced who I am today.

Thank you for the knowledge that I was always loved, and I look forward to seeing you one day and telling you how very much you are loved.

To my husband.

Thank you for loving my girls the way that you do. Thank you for taking them on and giving them someone to look up to, someone they know is always in their corner.

We are all very aware of how very lucky we are that you came into our lives, and how rich you have made us as a family, just by being who you are, and by loving us unconditionally in the way that you do. Thank you for proving that biology does not make a father, and for choosing to be their father and my husband. Love you so very much.

Time

So busy right now. Economic crisis has hit SA and things are changing rapidly.
So much to do - so little time.
Miss my child. The house is so quiet without her giggles, and big feet.
The day she was born, the first thing I saw was the size of her feet. She has grown into them, but we still tease her about her toes. She has toes almost as long as most peoples fingers and I always mock her about it.
She takes this in her stride, which is what makes this wonderful child so special.
She cries at sad adverts and is my tissue sharing partner when watching Greys.
I miss her madly. My beautiful, compassionate funny child. I hope that she is enjoying every minute because when she comes home she's not leaving my sight for at least a month.

Cat attack

I love cats with a passion, but have twice been attacked, the first is too funny not to share.

Smokey was a Blue Point Siamese, and was not the first cat we have owned who thought he was a dog, hubby used to have great fun crawling on hands and knees stalking him. He ripped hubby to pieces, and I have heard of stories of elderly keeping this breed as watch dogs!
He disliked people, other than when he was stalking them, and we all knew to check under the bed before getting up in the morning.

One day I came home from work, with newly permed hair. Was chatting innocently to the family on the couch, when I felt a searing pain in my scalp. I jumped up and started running around trying to dislodge the cat from my head. He had dug his claws in and I had blood running down my face.
Hubby was in hysterics laughing at me.
Once we removed the cat I was really really angry. The girls by this time had also started laughing, which did not help my wounded ego.To this day he tells the story of my cat hat.
Only afterwards did we realise what had happened.
He had come out of the room and looked up at the back of the couch.
Only my head was visible, he saw the fuzz and decided that there was an interloper in the house.
He silently stalked and then attacked.
Once he realised it was me, he was stuck and I was in any case bounding around, so he couldn't let go. He followed me around for days after that , think he was trying to apologise!

Cat people

I love cats. Cannot imagine my life without cats.

I understand the dog people, I love them too, but cats are different.

You are either a cat person or not.

Me , I cannot live without their arrogance.

As I sat here tonight, missing my family in the UK, and feeling sorry for myself as we have just seen my baby off at the airport (when did she get so big to be flying off on her own....), this big fluffy beautiful face came into view.

She stood on the laptop keyboard and put her nose on mine.

She is the most arrogant cat I have ever known with a real lion heart.

We have three cats. The "baby" has grown up with our dogs, and will blatantly rub herself against Benji. This is very brave. Benji is skitso (big time), but the other two were adopted by my brother (same litter) when they were 6 weeks old, and they don't remember Benji.

Back track. The three we have now, came from a litter of four from a kitty we saved, so these three are sisters.

The green eyed monster who eye balled me a few minutes ago is named after her mom. Cleo.

She is awesome.

When my brother and Dieds emigrated we were lucky enough to get them back. Cleo did not take long to take over the house. She stares Benj down and HE BACKS OFF!

She has the most squeaky, quiet meow, but a huge temper.Wow, I respect that.

To get Benj to back off is nothing short of miraculous. A lot of humans back off from him. Me included when he is in a temper or full of nonsense.

Back to cats.

There isn't a memory I have in my life without one of these little creatures. Love you when they wanna, but woe be you if they ain't in the mood.

Having said that, I cannot remember being sick (ever) or down , without one of these little miracles right there at my feet, or in my face.

I get home at night and Butty (the other sis) is on the balcony to greet me, with loud calls of appreciation. (Butty - short for Button) She is white (like her dad) with spotted buttons down her back. A beautiful cat.

I have yet to meet an ugly cat.

They are.

That's all there is to it. They are.

And they fulfil in a way that humans sometimes cannot.

Bianca

Bianc is off to the UK. Ticket is busy processing and her excitement is boundless.
It took only a week and a a half to get the visa, so now she's off to see the family.
I phoned my brother,sister and sister in law to tell them the news and it hit me all over again how so very far away they are.
Gosh darn it, if only I could get away right now, if only we could afford two flights, if only December would hurry up already. If only Zant was also coming in December.
Miss them all so much and how wonderful to hear their voices, even if it was only for a few seconds. Will have to try the skype again.

Danger

While away we got to talking about times in our house. Two stories bear repeating here.
We used to entertain quite a bit, but this has been seriously curbed by the cost of everything.
When we moved in, we got it into our heads to invite all and sundry for a fondue in front of the fire.
This was a good plan, until we lit the fire.

So here we were, all of us sitting on pillows in the lounge around the fondue pots, with piles of food strategically placed in the middle......then slowly, very slowly , we realised that the person across from us had become very hazy. All the better for stealing someone else's fork, as by this stage it was getting increasingly difficult to make out the colour coding on the forks anyway.
But hubby was not going to admit defeat so easily.
He opened the balcony door which fueled the open fire even more and that was that.
Luckily we were all close to the floor anyway, so not too much smoke inhalation damage was done. We giggle now, but hubby was mortified.
I had recently been married, and as a joke, got a superman suit made up for hubby...no really, it was as a joke. That's my version and I'm sticking to it.
A friend of mine took it upon herself to lighten the mood and we disappeared for a few minutes while they doused the fire, when we reappeared she flung herself into the room in this suit, with a pair of socks in the area that women can't fill.......
This brought the house down. We had a few really "uptight" people there, but even they loosened up after this.

The second incident happened on Xmas day. Hubby's mom is in her mid 70's but still pretty sprightly. As the family were leaving we were all walking down the stairs in dribs and drabs, some family standing on the balcony to say their goodbyes. Hubby's mom was being escorted down the stairs by two young nieces, who decided that they would twirl grandma down the last few stairs.
I missed it, but hubby still laughs hysterically at what happened next.
In his words she turned like a top, and just kept turning .........down 3 steps, onto the driveway (which is at about a 35 degree angle) and on she twirled.
Straight into our flower bed.
To understand this , picture the driveway at the angle that drops off and gets steeper the more you go down, the flower bed lines the driveway on the other side, but the drop off there is about 65degrees straight onto the road.
By the time I got there my husband was bent double with tears streaming down his face. She had landed face first into the bed, with her feet and hands still in the air. In one hand was her handbag and her glasses were in the other.
You could only see feet from where I was standing.
Hubby's younger brother had to come down and help her out of the bushes.
Hubby was utterly useless for about half an hour and the first words out of his mouth were "do you realise that had the plants not been there we would have had to fetch you in Alberton" (this is a town 2 km away). We live on the top of a hill so he planted a really funny vision with this statement.
The next thing he asked was had she seen what she had done to the flower bed. To this day (3 years later) there is still a gap in the foliage where she plunged, and he never fails to point this out to her.
She laughs
Now.
It took her a while to get over the shock.

Pygmy's

We went away this weekend - up North into Limpopo to a lovely five star bush getaway.

It is a house in the mountains - with various size rooms that can accommodate up to 19 people.

We were 14 in total - so lots of space.

The weekend was to celebrate my brother and sister in law's birthdays. One on Saturday and the other on Sunday. The place is divine, and the temperature was perfect , (be jealous you Jhb bound people) - we walked around in shorts and t-shirts in the day, and had bonfires at night.

The reason for the blog was to share my hubby's sense of humour.

On Saturday morning he gets up and convinces me that a walk is needed.

I look at the map - hey - it looks fairly easy, no problem, so I put on my trusty tackies and off we go.

We were a mere 500 meters from the house when we see leopard prints on the dirt road.

Mmmm.

Leopards are shy aren't they, no need to worry.

Hubby just laughs and tells me not to run.

Why is this I ask myself, even if I did run he would be out running me anyway, and besides, I can see the leopard looking at us both, short dumpy one, versus tall lanky one, think I would have been doomed whether I ran or not - he's gonna have to chose the meaty one....dahhhhh!

But being the game person I am (pardon the pun), we continued.

The road is uphill.

All the way.

By the time we reach the dam (which was our destination) my little legs were cramping and I was really trying hard not to complain,

Bitterly.

He then dangles a carrot.

He saw on the map that the second dam is on our way back to "camp", and if we walk that way, we can cut across the bush to "camp"

Am now a little chirpier.

Things are looking up and the cramp is getting better.

We reach the dam about half an hour later.

My humour by this time is fast waning.

Hubby , in all his wisdom, now tells me that we can't possibly cut across as he can see marsh in between us and the road which leads to the camp.

ffffffffffffffffffffff#@$,

Surely he saw this on the map.

He can see that I am now fuming......................... and.......................................... its too late.

Moaning wife is losing the battle to stay hidden.

I am now praying that we meet the leopard to put me out of this misery, at least then I'd have a reason to run, and damned if I don't trip him up before I leg it.

We see and discuss animal feeding troughs and at one stage see a strange green box about 2meters off the ground, when I ask what this is hubby tells me it is a people house (he meant bee house - but the heat was getting to him too - though he would never admit it) I laugh and tell him that the people must be small and he goes on to tell me that Pigmy's live in the area.

Yes we can talk the utmost rubbish when we get a chance and I think delirium was setting in so ......

We cross paths as we start back and he is now walking on the side of the dirt road where I walked coming in.

All the way we have been identifying and discussing the tracks that cross the road, so at this juncture I point out the big German tracks (my hubby is of German descent) that I am seeing and tell him how annoying this species is.

He then tells me about the tracks he is seeing and he says" before me we see, a double breasted Pygmy print,", he goes on to tell me that this particular animal must have a small problem as it is a duck walking specimen, and that its natural habitat is by a large swimming pool with alcoholic beverage in hand.

I retorted that the German tracks I see are of a species that takes great delight in tormenting said double breasted Pygmy, and how bad tempered said German species is.

We both made it back safe. Seven, yes seven kilometers later I was very pleased to see a large vehicle round the corner.

In this vehicle were half of our party, and the Pygmy was even more pleased to see that alcoholic beverage was in aforementioned vehicle.

And that's the story of the Pygmy.

I sympathise with this dad

""Our daughter was filling us in on her date the night before. They had driven to a neighboring city for dinner. When her father asked her where the restaurant was located, she said, "You know, I really can“t tell you. I was enjoying the ride, the company and the scenery, and all of a sudden we were there." "I understand perfectly," her father said. "That“s exactly how your mother and I arrived at middle age!"""