Guess where we've been!

Well one look at the picture at the top should give you an idea of one of our destinations. We had a great time during the merry month of May, sunshine all the way and hardly a cloud on the horizon. I would just like to thank all our generous friends and family for the wonderful way they treated us and fed and watered us during our whirlwind tour.

We landed at Jo’burg at 9:15 pm, 0n the 9^th of May for the start of our best holiday ever, and Robyn landed ten minutes later, in spite of her flight leaving five minutes earlier, we had a good tail ‘wind’. Triona picked us up and took us to her house via all the road repairs, preparations for the World cup soccer in 2010. Triona lived just down the road from a huge entertainment Casino complex called Monte Casino, what a joint! There were people everywhere and you could buy almost anything at the traffic lights, mobile phone chargers, shirts sun glasses etc, the new SA has certainly changed and you had to be careful not to knock over these new entrepreneurs. When we got to Triona’s house the chicken were all in bed in the trees, so not a good idea to park under them. Sunday was a fairly relaxed day, although we were taken to see Monte Casino, and the party got a little separated from each other and Liz from some precious Rands. We found it quite illuminating, but were quite glad to get back to the house where we were able to have a braai, a few bits of wors and some steak went on to the braai and Liz went into the pool, in spite of everyone protesting that it was winter, hah, they don’t know what cold is. Monday morning dawned and at about ten-ish we were on our way to the Kruger game reserve. Once we had cleared Jo’burg and Pretoria we had nice open, toll, roads. There seemed to be toll roads everywhere, and loads of traffic. We stopped at Machadadorp for a lunch break and bought our first lot of buttermilk rusks, yet another new taste for Matt. We stopped to take a few pictures along the way and at one place we had to leave in a hurry as a nanny, who was hitch hiking, thought we had stopped to pick her up, but our car was full, she was still running as we went around the next corner in the road, two kilometres away, shame! There seem to be new employment opportunities in South Africa now as they do not have electronic warning signs for road works, the warning is usually given by someone listlessly waving a red flag it must be very exhausting for them!The scenery was certainly very spectacular going down to Kruger. We stopped at Nelspruit to get food and drink supplies for our stay in the self catering house on the border of Kruger. This took a while as we had some tough decisions to make and once again bought pork for the braai, in spite of Matt saying he was not a pork fan. End of part one more to follow…………..

The Mini rally

Mass mini rally, drive through Forty Foot!






The fanciest mini.



The last miniNot a mini, what's that doing here?

Summer and minis

The end of April saw a rally of old minis driving through Forty Foot, and this year I managed to get a few pictures.Summer is here and the birds are singing, and running and hiding! We took a trip to the auctions on Saturday and on the way home I spotted some partridges browsing sedately in a field beside the road, so I decided to stop and take a picture of them. Well, as soon as I got out of the car and the camera started, they were half way to Peterborough, talk about Olympic runners, Liz was hysterical, and I was a little frustrated, but took a couple of long distance pictures anyway little blighters, who knew they could move so fast. The long weekend has been pretty miserable here, weather wise. We got a couple of bargains at the auction and are now the proud owners of his and hers coffee machines, I splashed out and bought a Philips Senseo for £1, spare no expense, when we tried it it worked!

Philip and Amy came round on Saturday with Harry, so Liz was delighted, we had a braai at about sixish, luckily it had a lid so nothing got wet. We have done quite a few braais, but it has been lonely out there, talk about the loneliness of the long distance runner, it’s more like the loneliness of the English braaivleis cooker, with everyone peering (I said peering) at me through the kitchen window, drooling, what a sad bunch!

The days have started to warm up and the ride home from work is much pleasanter although still chilly , the early mornings still require gloves though. Liz had to move Catriona's car this morning, as it was parked behind our car and she needed to get to work, the car alarm went off, this at 05:30 am, the cats shot in through the cat flap and went thundering up the stairs and dived under the bed, they must have thought we were being attacked. The cat's ears were right back and their bellies dragging on the ground with eyes bulging in fear, after a frantic search we found the right keys and disabled the alarm. I gather that none of our neighbours were late for work this morning.

I finally cut the grass on the front lawns and hedge as well, the rest will have to wait until tomorrow as I am working tonight. I had to cut the grass because we lost a cat in it yesterday, and we were quite fond of it, we found it! The back lawn is now done and Liz is so pleased she wants a party, although there is rain forecast for the weekend. There was one black mark against me as I 'strimmed' the bottom of a clematis, damn, I guess I'll have to open my own beers for a bit. We fire up the braai to celebrate and even ate outside, it was quite a pleasant night, Liz knocked up a nice Victoria sponge cake with jam and cream in the centre for dessert. Liz decide it was 'spot on' time for the cats again! The fluffy cat didn't think this was the right decision, but she got done anyway. We sent Catriona in search of Sooty, she was sleeping happily on our bed, but came down when called, who says cats don't come when they are called. I had the job of holding her while Liz put themuti on her head, Sooty was not interested and put up such a fight that I thought her head would pop off, as she tried to back out of my 'death grip' around her neck which seemed to be stretching, if I didn't let her go, so I released her and we had to catch her again. The cats were finally done an they still 'speak' to us. The road to work is now quite picturesque, with everything in bloom. I now get to ride to work in daylight as well and as the weather has warmed up we are feeding the fish once again. The wild life has perked up around here and on one of my trips to work I had to wait for a pair of swans to cross the road, not a bird to argue with when you are on a push bike, they did give me the fluffy eyeball, but carried on anyway.

March,spring!

Well I have had a few days off, go to finish leave before the end of March. It will soon be May and a trip to South Africa. I finished chopping up the two trees we cut down a couple of weeks ago, I managed to get all the small bits into three green bins, and the other bits are chopped up for firewood for a friend of ours, who has a wood fired stove. The garden now looks clearer, so I guess it is almost lawnmower time, argh! The birds were fairly chirruping while I chopped up the trees, so I guess they were a bit fed up with the destruction of their perches. I spent the day going to Cambridge and Saffron Walden, what a lovely day it was too. It as the first time I had actually been in to Cambridge for many years, boy had it changed, I wandered around the city for a bit enjoying the lovely warm weather, along with quite a few other people. I went on to Saffron Walden in the hopes of getting some boerewors from a butcher there, but they had none until Thursday, damn! I went in to one of the butchers in town and found that they could do some for me, I collect it tomorrow and start braaing Friday night. Got the wors, three kgs, it lasted about 5 minutes, it was very good and we braaied it over the weekend and during the week. Liz stood inside and watched, the weather was still a little fresh, overcoats needed whilst braaing.

We went to a couple of auctions during the month and now have a few more items we can't live without, ornaments etc.(sigh!) We went to Asda at Corby after one of these auctions and had the joy of experiencing a fire alarm. The people shopping were not disturbed and didn't even rush for the doors, we moved to the doors and out whilst the locals just moved outside and stood right at the doors, talk about death wish. The fire brigade was pretty quick in arriving and we were soon back in and spending our money, quite a few folks had abandoned their shopping and left the shop all together.

Late winter

Well we have survived the lovely snowy weather, its all gone now and we are starting to get summery weather, cold with rain. This will make my ride into work a little more pleasant. Robyn and Martin went off to Belgium for the Valentine's weekend, and we haven't seen Catriona since Friday, perhaps she has run away from home. Liz has the week of and several tins of paint have arrived in the kitchen, ohh dear. I think she wants to paint the kitchen red or something, because there does seem to be an awful lot of red paint, such an agressive colour, blue would be better, but that is a bit cold for this weather. Liz finished the kitchen and has started baking again, carrot cakes etc, the electricity bill wasn't too bad, she is quite struck by Robyn's boyfriend, Martin, and even bakes cakes for him! (only little ones though) Well some time has passed since I started writing this little bit. I have cracked open a small bottle of French lager, apologies to the German audience! Liz has finished painting the kitchen. We now have one red wall and the rest is magnolia or something, off white really.
We have cut down two trees in the back garden and, having done that, I am now busy cutting them up for firewood. This is taking a while as it has been a little chilly out of late. The weather now appears to be warming. We have been to a few auctions recently and have added more to the house contents, Liz has a few red bits of kitchenware to go with the new look red kitchen, a red colander and a red coffee pot. We have now started to have a couple of braais and we even found a few lamb burgers in the freezer from the wedding and some boerewors. We had a few friends around for a braai last night and cracked open a nice little bottle of pinotage, that went down really well. I braaied the wors etc and we even had a wood fire going in the brazier that Liz bought a couple of years ago, but it was still a bit too chilly to sit outside and eat, but hopefully this will change soon. We should soon be able to engage in outside activities. My morning rides, to work, are now in early morning light and I even saw a muntjac, an animal not unlike a duiker, and hare one morning, they looked a bit dazed by the sight of a fat-ish human on a bicycle riding by, but they should soon get used to it. There are now motorbikes starting to zoom around the place so spring is on the way. I must go and get another beer, that last one was quite good, a Dutch lager would be better, but alas there are none on the premisses, no biltong either, only salted peanuts. Ah that's better, the beer seems a bit warm though, still cooler than any beers left in the Shashi river ever were, it looks as though I am going to have to turn on the fridge again soon! The fish in the pond have started to get restless to and are starting to feed off the algae, we will have to start feeding them soon, we did lose one during the winter.

Weather report

Well, as you may or may not know, there has been a lot of snow around. Our snow arrived last Thursday in the early hours and Liz made me ride my new push bike to 'school' in it. I managed about fifty yards through this village and then walked the remaining, nearly, two miles and rode the last one hundred metres. It is a good job bike lights are not dynamo driven any more, otherwise it would have been in the dark! It was a whiteout at work, very christmas card like. There were some cowboys practicing 4 wheel drifting in the car park, they didn't hit anyone, but could have, it is no wonder we have all these safety regulations here. People around here couldn't get to work, so they came to the Co-op instead, to play, the car park was full through to the weekend, so the shop must have felt like it was Christmas all over again. The garage was fairly quiet and I had to do a double shift, so I was able to 'beg' a lift home from Liz, I even had to drive, talk about a slave driver. Friday was also snowy, but I had the car, so not so bad although it did come teaming down at home time. The carwash was out of commision, as you can see. Peterborough was very icy on Saturday and relatively quiet when we went in, there was plenty of parking as the car parks were thick with frozen snow, I didn't see any yellow snow however, for those who are interested. There was even a city council truck gritting the pedestrian areas.

Philip and Amy christened our grandson on Sunday, Harry Michael is now an official catholic. They arrived at the church on time, even the priest was surprised, so we were able to get on and I did not have to spend too long in that uncomfortable environment, my eyebrows started to curl and there were scorch marks on my coat afterwards. There was a celebration at the Ramsey Mereside village hall, but no booze, more regulations. Louise and Matt were also there and the priest even joined our table at the christening, he had to as Liz is the church organist. I had to talk to him, but we kept the discussion down to steam trains, there was a new one completed this week up north and it came through Peterborough on Saturday(phew!). I gather he also likes riding a motorcycle in the good weather, he is about seventy and has a pace maker, so there is still hope for some of our older motorcycling friends, you know who you are! We finished and came home at 3pm, in time to watch the Six Nations match between Wales and Scotland, Wales won, but only just. I bet all you folks in Africa must be sick with envy of our weaher. The black cat is not too impressed as she doesn't like her nethers being chilly when she takes a loo break, but the fluffy cat couldn't give a cat's arse, or something, she loves it, as it brings the birds closer to the house, meals on wings. The black cat has just come in, she is damp, it must be raining, she is sitting on my papers, shoulders hunched and glowereing, just to make sure I know how unhappy she is with the weather, what a neurotic cat! That will have to do, we have Valentine's day coming up on Saturday with a dance at the village hall and also an auction in Oundle on Saturday morning, wow what a busy weekend we are going to have!