Liz goes to hospital

Well for those not in the know, Liz went in for her op on Thursday at 11am, and was still sending me text messages at half past one. Her op was all over by ten that night as she sent me another couple of text messages then. She had a couple of ‘girls’ from work visiting her on Friday, who said she was quite fine and was texting people like mad, in spite of the sign above her head saying cell phones were not allowed, hah, Liz doesn’t read notices, she is too busy. Yesterday, Saturday, was auction day, but I saw nothing we could not live without, so gave it a miss. We went to see Liz in the afternoon, four of us, we met Ria and her daughter there and when we arrived there was S J there as well, two visitors per bed, hah. Ria had even prepared a lovely bowl of flowers for Liz, these were also against the rules, she may contract something terrible from them, flower flu perhaps? We brought the ‘poison’ flowers home with us, whatever happened to the good old days when you could take flowers to cheer up the sick, now you have to wash your hands at the door and swear on a stack of bibles that you don’t know anyone from Mexico, know where it is or even seen a pig sneeze, before you can visited the sick. We finally got through all these obstacles and saw Liz lying on her bed, phone clutched in her hand, finger poised, with the ‘don’t use mobile phone’ sign just above her head. Liz was feeling a little listless and her temperature was up, it is now back to normal, she says in her text this morning! The ward she was in was as hot as hell, she probably had heat fatigue! I have been left in charge and have already had a disagreement with the washing machine, I think I put the soap in the fabric softener slot, so I put some more in another slot, we will probably have ‘frothy’ not ‘fluffy’ clothes, but what the hell it should be interesting. We thank god I can cook, roast duck tonight, egg bacon and black pudding for breakfast, speaking of which I am getting hungry. The blasted sun is shining again today so I am going to have to go to the garage and get out the lawnmower, after hanging up the frothy washing and feeding the fish, talking of which…. The fluffy cat came in with very damp hind quarters the other day, I accused Liz of washing her because she had a dirty behind, it has happened to the cat before, but she vehemently denied it. I went to have a look at the pond and noticed that the surround, at one end was wet, so she must have slipped whilst getting a drink of water from the pond, we put more water in so that she wont have to scrabble too high to get out next time, we don’t want the liner damaged!

South African holiday 2

Well it’s raining here in ‘sunny’ Cambridgeshire, so more on our SA trip…..

When we found our destination at Marloth Park, a private game reserve on the Kruger park border, we were delighted with the five bedroom self catering lodge. The house was one of many in the park which was teaming with warthogiiii, impala and other game. We had to wait for the caretaker to come and open up for us, so we took a look around the house and Matt found an unlocked door, this set off an alarm, so he rapidly closed it, security pitched up five minutes later, so we knew that their response time was good, and we were able to convince them that we had a legitimate reason for being there! The bedrooms all had en suite bathrooms and there was a lovely large kitchen and dining room. There was a gas braai and also and open fire area and braai area next to the house, should we wish to cook outside. There was a lovely pool and Liz was in it as soon as the house was unlocked. Louise thought the warthogs were quite cute and made a lip smacking sound to call one, it came, she left, rapidly, wild animals with huge tusks are not as cuddly as cats apparently. We enjoyed a lovely braai with pork ribs, some wors and rump steak, Matt ate the pork, his training to eat pork coming along nicely. We enjoyed the dinner a few Windhoek beers and a bottle of wine on the veranda in the balmy air, listening to the bark of the impala rams in the distance, what a great time to be in Africa! We were up and off at six the next morning for a quick pre-breakfast drive around the park to see what game was around. We spotted a few warthogs, impala and zebra and more warthogs. We went to the game fence next to the Kruger, but only spotted a few buffalo about a mile away and a couple of impala, again. We returned to the lodge for some lovely egg and bacon rolls cooked by yours truly, they were perfect. We were about to start the cleanup when the housekeeper arrived and said the dishes were her job, we didn’t need telling twice. After breakfast it was in to Triona’s car and off to Kruger via the Crocodile Gate. The route was along a dirt road lined with banana and avocado pear plantations.