Blood sucking

On Saturday morning I had a PR disaster in my subtle anti-smoking campaign waged on Caron. It all started innocently enough, we took Samuel and Hannah to the health shop to show them their blood under the microscope which was fascinating and entertaining. The lady operating the microscope picked up that samuel was gluten intolerant which, given his parentage, is actually quite likely and would really explain certain things. He isn't violently gluten intolerant so I don't think that is going to lead to massive changes in his diet; he just has to be a little careful. Hannah had just recovered from a bout of flu and the number of bacteria in her blood was noticeably higher than the rest of us. It's amazing to see the bacteria swimming between the blood cells; I was hoping to see a white blood cell pac-man gobble one up but it was not to be. Not really much wrong with either of their blood which is quite cool to know but it would be really nice to have a copy of the slides so that one could track the blood with time. The last to go was caron and I was hoping for another arrow to my anti-smoking armoury but I was sorely disappointed! Caron, who smokes and does no exercise had better looking blood than me who doesn't smoke (much) and exercises perhaps more than strictly required. Eish! boomerang arrow!

Belated Xmas

On christmas morning we were at Kim & Laurels house watching Sage open her numerous xmas presents, one of which was a new dress which she had to try on immediately. Laurel wanted to have a photograph of her in it and when she was ready Sage struck a pose like she was a model but the way that she did it had us all in stitches. It looks like she is going to be a natural in front of the camera!

Some presents are more effort than one thinks

A few months ago Kim and I were standing under her large Pin Oak looking up into the branches and discussing how it was just begging to have a tree house built in it. Little did I know just how much effort building a tree house 5m off the ground actually is but now I know so my career as a builder of tree houses is officially over and emotional blackmail isn't going to bring me out of retirement.

It's not that it is that difficult, it's just really awkward working between the ground and 5m off the ground. The first thing was to build the "A" shaped structure on the ground which I then lifted into the tree with a minor whoopsy on the way but nothing broken or damaged. Once in the tree I added on the rectangular piece which one can't quite see in the picture. Having finished that I put the OSB board on and nailed it in place and rigged the suspension wires to points that weren't resting on boughs. A dash of paint and 20 hours of work later; voila! I really hope that Samuel and Hannah use it because if they don't; I'll be a bit pissed off to put it mildly.

Christmas 2008 at the Vaal

Caron and I have given up trying to second guess what the other actually wants and solved the annual gift buying conundrum by going shopping together; the one chooses and the other pays. It takes the surprise out of opening one's present but there can be nobody other than yourself to blame if you don't get what you actually wanted and having to wait until christmas to actually open the present made it still feel like a gift.

The morning started with the holmes tribe for early morning coffee and breakfast which was a bit of a quiet affair since there was only one child, sage, at home and there is a limit as to how much noise a single child can generate. Put another child into the equation and all bets are off; it is not a linear equation.

After breakfast we drove down to the Marina Letata on the Vaal to have lunch with Kirsten, Carl, Bruce, Charmaine, my parents and assorted children which was very noisy and chaotic especially in comparison. After lunch charmaine and I took the children down to have a swim which started out innocently enough but ended up as shown below:

From left to right Liam, Jordynne, Austin, Alistair and Megan

Alistair, Liam and Austin leapard crawling through the mud. Alistair looking a bit confused as to whether this really was fun or not. Megan on the other hand had no such qualms and really got into the swing of things.

The five mud monsters.

This looks like one of those photos to be buried away and resurrected on someone's 21st.


As the children progressed from clean to completely filthy charmaine was worrying what grandma was going to say when she saw the demise of jordynnes brand new red and white costume. Nothing as it turned out and I got the distinct impression that somehow we, as adults, are missing out on a whole bunch of fun because we collectively refuse to be children again. Towards the end of the mud bath Austin and Liam were running down the banks and diving headfirst into the mud and sliding a few metres and right into the water; I would do this as well but I think I might break my back.

After the photo session everyone waded out to relatively deep water to wash the mud off and out of their costumes before the rest of the parents saw them. Megan managed to drop her bikini top so there was this frantic search by everyone to locate it while megan kept her modesty intact by keeping her shoulders well below the water surface. The whole episode was very funny as viewed from the sidelines of course.

That was pretty much christmas for 2008; I think that the mud wallow is going to be remembered for a long time to come.

Of Hips and Femurs

Eish, how life changes! Last thursday my father-in-law was walking around what will be their cottage at Kim's house checking on the progress of the builders when he took a tumble. This is not too unusual but what was unusual was that he broke his hip. It was friday morning before he decided to go to hospital and after a quick diagnosis; a hip replacement was decided as the course of action. These doctors don't hang around these days and by the end of friday the operation was over and a brand new hip installed.

To make things more complicated, they've given notice at the flat that they're renting so they have to have moved house by the end of this month. Clearly father-in-law is not going to be doing an awful lot of moving given that he can barely shuffle along on crutches at the moment.

Every evening he has to have an injection for some reason and all the women are too squeamish so I get to do it. It must be every son-in-law's dream to stick needles into the father-in-law AND get thanked for it.

As a result of the operation, Aldon is recuperating at our house and as a result of that our nice peaceful, serene existence has been eviscerated. Loads of sisters-in-law and their spawn visiting at all sorts of time. Jessie (the psychotic cat) and Caron have taken to hiding in corners to escape the maelstrom.

Back in the Saddle

Although Jason and I haven't actually stopped riding, the frequency and intensity have gone down to about a 1 out of 10 which has been quite pleasant but the time has come, as they say, to pick it up again. Sunday we did a 70km route which was great albeit exhausting. When we started the ride it was 4.5 deg C but I thought it would warm up quite quickly so I was riding in shorts, my concession to the cold being a windbreaker and some newspaper and long fingered gloves. When we finished the ride three hours later it was 7 deg C which is not a whole lot warmer and I spent the entire day chilled but not quite frozen. It was great being on the bike again in the winter sunshine riding past the lionesses and their cubs and helping some other cyclists who didn't have multi-tools to fix their own bikes.

It was shortly afterwards that I was following one of the previously broken cyclists around a corner and as I was thinking that this was too fast around the corner, his front wheel slipped and he went tip over arse over kettle with me braking hard to avoid riding into him. No damage other than some nasty road rash and some bruising that'll remind him not to take corners that fast for a week or two.

We finished the ride at cycle lab and I was very thankful that I didn't have to ride the extra 10km home. I'm sure my legs will get back into the swing of things quite quickly but at the moment - it's quite exhausting.

We had a very rare family gathering at lunch time at Kirstens place; very rare that all the siblings are in the same town at the same time. Had a very enjoyable lunch with lots of wine before we all settled in to watch some of the tour de france. Carl has obviously become an addict judging from the depression that set in when Kirsten insisted on switching over to watch Wimbledon. Personally, I think she just wanted to watch Rafael Nadal show his biceps off.

The family comes home to roost

Caron and I once used to joke that we were doing so well with family. We, even though we really can't claim the credit, had managed to get my brother to live in pietersburg, my one sister in london, my other sister in scotland, carons sister in botswana and her other sister in nelspruit and her parents in hillcrest. Life was good, uncomplicated but slowly and surely all our hard work has unwound. My sister lives just down the road about 3km away, carons two sisters and her parents all live within about 0.5km, my brother, although not exactly close, is at least in johannesburg. Even the scottish sister has moved to Abu Dhabi which is closer. I'm worried, they may be gravitating back.

The latest arrivals have been caron's parents who moved up from hillcrest last week wednesday so they have spent the better part of the last week sorting out the garden cottage where they are going to live while they build a granny flat at kims house. They have had to put most of their possessions into storage which is not a trivial matter considering that carons mother is a potter (kilns and clay) and her father is an artisan (lathes and other heavy metal objects) and inevitably, something they will need in the next six months will be buried in some inaccessible corner of the storage.

P.S. We actually get on well with most of our respective families most of the time.

Weekend Broken

It's been a tough week but things are finally starting to look up and it all started on last friday night when Alistair and Megan arrived, not they actually had anything to do with it. Saturday morning started at about 02:00 pretty much just after I had gone to bed when my cell phone kept on bleeping at me to inform me that all was not well at the office. It had the really annoying habit of bleeping and then waiting just long enough that I had to actually wake up to think about what to do next before it would bleep again to tell me that all was well. Then it would wait just long enough for me to fall back to sleep before bleeping again - it must be psychic.
After this weekend we are now both thoroughly convinced we were not intended for parenthood. If it wasn't for the tv and dvd's I think we would have been in real trouble but fortunately both megan and alistair love the tv. Maybe it is the feeling of being able to move one's eyeballs without engaging the brain or any other part of the body that does it for them but dragging them away from the tv was no mean feat. This leads me to the conclusion that my sister doesn't let them watch enough tv and they are suffering from tv starvation so when they arrived here and we weren't too firm with them they just naturally took the gap. Alternatively of course, we could have planned this to ensure that we never get them again. Damaging their eyeballs from overuse, what were we thinking? Hmmmm!
Saturday night was a change control night so I only arrived home at 01:00 and we woke up to a rainy day. This global warming thing must be happening, it is very unusual for us to get rain at this time of the year. We were going to go paddling with the little 'uns but the rain put paid to that and we went out for breakfast at Sandton city. At this point i went and hid in my study and refused to come out until it was time for me to leave for Cape Town at about 12:00 conveniently leaving Caron to the attention of the two little monsters. I was blissfully unaware of the goings on after I left but I have it on good authority that they had a decent tiff just before they were about to bath. What a relief, they are normal after all.

Psychologically Incapable

Caron, once upon a time, tried to donate blood but after several attempts gave up or rather was told by the nurse to give up. She even received a document from the nurse stating that she was psychologically incapable of donating blood - every time the needle came anywhere near her she would faint. I can't donate for a different reason, they rejected my blood as not being of sufficient quality muttering something about malaria ...
As mentioned previously, my sister and brother-in-law have dumped their spawn on us for the weekend while they swan around in Prague courtesy of said brother-in-laws firm. In preparation for this event, Caron and I underwent a psychological self test to find out exactly how much trouble we were going to be in for. The results where not encouraging, according to the profile we both, by a long way, have our lowest scores in the personality types necessary for parenting.
This weekend is going to be interesting indeed - too late to bail out now. Kirsten and Carl flew out yesterday.

Forewarned

Last Sunday Jason and I did a 60km ride around what turns out to be quite a tough course, just one respectable hill after another. Of course you do get to go downhill sometimes but you hardly notice these in relation to the uphills. I actually did 85km since I rode to the meeting place and back as well. Great ride although I was a bit tired by the time I finally finished. Glynne was meant to have joined us so that there would be two of us wanting to have a nice easy ride and only one trying to beat lance. I lucked out, glynne didn't ride so I tried to keep up with Jason trying to beat the imaginary lance. I don't think Jason understands the meaning of "nice'n easy" and to make me feel worse, he had done the same ride during the week with the other Jason who couldn't get his heart rate over 150 without dropping Jason. How demoralising.
Went home for lunch and then met Kirsten and Carl along with the little ones for a mountain bike ride at Northern Farm. Everyone brought their bicycles except Caron who brought her book. I hope she feels embarassed reading this. Nice'n Gentle ride with the family, Megan is really, really coming on and she is going to enjoy it so much more when she gets a bicycle with some gears. Having a single gear bike is no joke, especially as a child. There is a bit of a movement to ride on single geared mountain bikes which I can only think must be absolute torture.
On the way home we were driving behind a nineteen voetsek (very old) nissan bakkie which looked like it had cellulite. There wasn't a smooth panel on the bakkie and the tailgate had been replaced entirely. Written on the tailgate were the words "Fore Sale", I wondered if the current owner was forewarning any prospective owners but I think it more likely that they just couldn't spell.

Lapalala

It has taken precisely two days of work to completely obliterate any R&R I might have had at Lapalala and there wasn't that much there in the first place.
Lapalala is a wilderness area about 2 hours north west of Johannesburg in what is normally a very dry and hot area. The last time we went there was about 7 years ago when it was described as a wilderness area and not a game reserve and true to the name at that time, we didn't see a single head of game. Not one of the blighters stuck their heads out of the dense bush for us to have a peek at. Things have certainly changed, they've cut down or rather "thinned" sections of the bush so that people like us can actually see the game. This is decidely tourist friendly but is not so flora friendly. Caron and I were expecting the temperatures to be 35 deg. C or above and we knew that there isn't any airconditioning so we were very pleasantly surprised when it rained just about every day and was overcast to boot.
We drove up with Caron's two sisters, Laurel and Kim and their offspring Samuel (11), Hannah (9) and Sage (2) a.k.a. "The Savage" pictured below.

Sage, of course, provided the entertainment as well as the torture for the trip, she was particularly worried that the worms under the ground were going to get her if she went barefoot.

Thursday: arrived safely and followed the signs up ever narrowing roads, the thinner the road the thicker the sand got. The accomodation was comfortable but rustic, it must have been a proper lodge at one stage and we pretty much had it to ourselves. There was one couple already there but they were very quiet, probably intimidated by Sage. On the way in I was just rounding a corner when I spotted a snake lying in the road which we managed to miss after some heavy braking. Not knowing my snakes very well and having to rely on memory, I think it was an African Rock Python. Whatever it was, it was over a metre in length and about the thickness of my wrist. Very pretty indeed. Just after we arrived back Samuel found a stunned pygmy kingfisher, the smallest of the kingfishers. It had flown into one of the glass windows and all but knocked itself out. After about 30 minutes of recovery, firstly on Hannah's hand and then on a branch it flew off to a more secure perch and spent another 30 minutes recovering before disappearing.


On Friday we had a power failure. There must be something about me and power failures, they seem to follow me around. In the afternoon we drove out of the reserve to the nearby Rhino park which is operated by the Walkers who really put Lapalala on the map but who are no longer involved there. At the Rhino park we were lucky to see a young female being fed with pellets and even managed to hand feed the Rhino. Quite remarkable, the Black Rhino has a top lip a bit like an elephants trunk but obviously a whole lot shorter and no nostrils. If you hold out a hand of pellets it will clean the pellets out. Here we have firstly Samuel and then Hannah feeding the Rhino.


When we returned from the Rhino's the power was still out and things weren't looking so good, our food had survived one day but any longer and we were going to be in dire straits, possible diahorrea straits. Elias organised some gas fridges which worked a treat until the power was restored mid Saturday morning.

Our first game walk was on Saturday morning with Elias the guide who was nothing short of fantastic, he has a really good general knowledge and the odd thing he didn't know he would look up and come back to us like the gregarious spotted cockroaches which were quite amusing, a bit like a herd of sheep but small and insectivorous. The destination of the walk was a small dam which had canoes so I took all the children including Sage paddling and startled a water monitor lizard, just a baby one but boy could it move. The place where the canoes were stored had an old canoe to the one side and the termites had built a mound directly underneath and into the canoe which destroyed the canoe because, in picking it up, they had to use so much force to break the termite mound that they broke the back of the canoe as well. Seeing into the mound was fascinating, I always thought the passageways were small, like the size of the termites but they aren't, they're about the size of a wrist and the actual termite nest is a few metres away from the mound. The mound acts like an air conditioner and collects cool air which is fed through to the actual nest. Neat hey! Spent most of the rest of the day reading and writing which was very pleasant. I was reading next to the pool and Caron was swimming and throwing a ball to Samuel and a couple of times when Caron was distracted by Sage, Samuel took the opportunity to hit Caron on the head with the ball. She obviously wanted to get even but trying to hit someone on land when you're in the water is near impossible so she asked me to catch Samuel which I proceeded to do but he very cleverly jumped in the water out of my reach since I was in normal clothes. Unluckily for him I don't mind wet clothes and jumped in on top of him, clothes and glasses 'n all. He got such a shock that he sucked some water in, either up his nose or into his lungs and promptly burst into tears so I had two women looking at me accusingly so I spent the rest of the afternoon being grumpy because there was absolutely no reason to believe that I had done anything wrong and yet I was the first one accused.

Sunday we spent most of the day relaxing, swimming in the pool and reading and writing until our game drive which was pretty awesome. We saw blue wildebeest, rhino, impala, tsessebe, nyala, kudu, warthog, giraffe and the inevitable baboon but over and above the game, the bush we drove through was just absolutely beautiful. We saw a giraffe trying to mate and I was happy to see that it isn't only human females which give the males a hard (no pun intended) time, it seems to be a law of nature. Just before sundown we saw a golden orb spider which was really worth a photograph as shown below but the bastard went and expectorated/defecated all over my hand and camera. Perhaps the fact that I was lobbing small stones and twigs into his web to see him scuttle about had something to do with it ... maybe.

We only got back from the game drive at about 19:30 so Sage went straight to bed and left the rest of us in peace to see the new year in which was a pleasant if quiet affair.

Monday dawned way too early. It felt like we had only just gone to sleep. The walk was to a section of the Palala river where there are some bum slides. We had only just go there and of course Samuel has to wade into the middle of the river which is only about thigh deep, needless to say that he was swept off his feet which sent Elias running down the river to a point where he would be able to catch him, there being hippo and crocodiles in this river after all. Samuel managed to swim to the side and came out making light of it but his face when he fell in was totally at odds with his bravado afterwards. Simply put, he shat himself. Hannah, quite uncharacteristically, was very hesitant getting in but she eventually did and enjoyed it, I think. I took Sage down the bum slide and things were going pretty well until she saw some vegetation under the water which was when the wheels came off. Uppie, Uppie, UPPIE is Sage speak for I'm terrified, pick me up. Very nice place to walk to.




Not much to Tuesday, we went home. As usual, Kim made (or should have) the rest of us feel bad about how much work she does cooking and generally organising everything. One day we're going to have to do something about this, maybe tie her hands together, I'll have to think about it.

Christmas weekend

We have survived the Christmas rush once again, this is the time of year that we (Caron and I) normally overdose on family. We now have a one day break to gather our wits and our strength before heading off to another family filled weekend with the 'other' side.
Officially, I am on holiday, but that really just means that work takes a back seat rather than disappearing altogether. Unfortunate but true. I have tried previously to just leave my email until I get back but after receiving 45 000 emails on my return the one time, I now try and at least deal with a few to prevent a repeat of the tidal wave that assaulted me that time. I don't always manage it but I try.
Saturday was the last shopping day before christmas so I took the opportunity to get a fluorescent jacket for my brother, bruce, since he too has bought a 650cc motorbike although his is a kawasaki. My mother is in a state! I also purchased a very interesting book on riding a motorcycle safely, although this is a rather relative term since it can never be as safe as a car.
Spent the afternoon making the penultimate bookshelf for caron. I am desperately hoping that once she has filled these up, and she will although it may take some time, she will start throwing out books because I have now made enough bookshelves (10 to be precise). Besides, we would have to add onto the house in order to fit any more in and that is not something to be undertaken lightly. Also spent some time modifying my motorcycle jacket so that all the pockets have decent tags on them that one can use, even if one has gloves on.
Sunday morning, we were up at 05:15 to go and meet Jason and his brother in law, Vaughn at Northern Farm for a mountain bike ride. It has been raining pretty much every day for the last week so the course was really muddy which was great fun. A couple of nervous moments in ruts where one couldn't get out so one had to just peddle in a straight line and hope for the best. Fell back on the hills a bit, I think that maybe I'm just not that good on the hills. At the one river crossing instead of the normal 3" of water ther was about 12", if you kept you pedals at the 3h00 and 9h00 postitions your feet were just skimming over the water but you would have stopped midstream so there was no choice but to pedal in the water. Great fun! Jason and Vaughn had to leave before me so I did about an extra 30 minutes which was just fantastic. Starting to trust the front wheel a bit on the gravel around corners which is making the whole experience much better. Got back to the car completely covered in mud but for a change, I had some dry of clothes and a towel. It used to be white. Caron is not going to be happy!
Got home, washed the bike and myself before we had to make the house presentable for the family invasion which duly arrived at midday. Not sure what has gotten into me but I am just perpetually tired so I wasn't much fun, caron kept on asking me if I was ok which I was. Just really, really tired. After everyone left, we packed up and cleaned up since there is no maid to do it for us at the moment which is really bad timing. Got lots of really nice comments on my photo gallery which made me feel pretty good. You might say that they were family so they were just being polite but my experience with family is that they are even more likely to tell you the truth than friends. Friends you can disassociate yourself from, family on the other hand: only death provides relief.
Went to my parents for supper with the usual suspects, still feeling really tired so once again, I was just a bystander in the conversation. When we left, I couldn't drive I was so tired. Caron had to drive.
Woke up this morning and went for a jog. My knees are taking strain even though I am taking it really, really, really easy. I think I am going to have to go and see a doctor about it.
Opened our presents to each other. Very pleased with my present to Caron, an iPod adapter for the hifi which sounds great. I received the remaining DVD's for the Adams Family series as well as the Star Wars series which I am very happy to have. Started the final bookshelf but had to break and get ready for the Christmas lunch with, you guessed it, the family.
The Family in this case consists of 10 children and 12 adults although two of the adults and two of the children can't really be considered family, more like family once removed. One of the children was twelve years old and has a very noticeable, and I mean really noticeable, moustache. At twelve! poor bloke he's going to be shaving by the time he hits teenagerdom. Opening the chrismas presents was chaos with 10 children and a couple of additional elderly children forgetting their age. I think I want to be a child again, I'm sure the quantity of presents has increased since I was a child. Caron gave all of the children, in addition to a christmas present, a 'gross' toy. It has engendered near universal dislike by mothers and near universal fascination from children. There are whole lot of types, all variants of a theme, but to describe one would give you the idea. It is a rubber ball filled with blood and plastic maggots and what I think are entrails. You can't normally see anything but by squeezing the ball suddenly the maggots and entrails can be seen through the rubber. Gross hey but the children love them! By 16:30 I had had enough so we retired to our cave and I finished off the last bookself and retired to write my blog.

As I am writing this, I can see the lightning out of the window and hear the roll of the thunder. I have gotta admit that I just love it and if we were to go overseas it would definitely be one of the things which I would especially miss.

A Walk on the Wild Side

Well, quite a weekend of kill or be killed. Unfortunately I was a witness to one murder, the perpetrator in two and almost the victim in a third. So I use a bit of literary licence, so what!

I think it is just that time of year because both Caron and I are absolutely exhausted and not the pleasant exhaustion that comes from exercise. As a result, neither Caron nor myself can actually remember anything from last week, it is like we tore the week out of the diary so my most distant memory is that of Saturday morning which I actually remember quite well since it started at 04:30.

Met Jason at Cycle Lab to go for a long medium pace ride. He was quite pleased that I arrived after him, not that I was late it's just that he was actually there before me. My how things change. Started the ride at 05:30 just as the sun was starting to peep over the horizon. What an absolutely fabulous day. Spring time is just fantastic in Joburg. Cool mornings, clean (relatively at least) air, gorgeous soft light, hot days and rain in the afternoon to cool it down for the evening. Absolutely perfect, such a pity one has to have the odd oppressively hot and freezing cold days to make one really appreciate the good days.

Met up with two guys cycling at about the same pace as ourselves who asked how far we were going. 100km was our answer thinking this would get rid of them, their reply was a nonchalant, we're doing 150km, mind if we join you for a while? Hmmm, oh well Ok, if you put it like that. They then proceeded to regale us with horror stories about falling off bicyles and motor bikes and breaking and scraping just about everything possible. Not so sure I want to be riding with people this accident prone. Call me superstitious but ....

We all cycled along quite nicely for about 60km when we got to the Krugersdorp hill which is a long grind up about 5km of relatively gentle gradient with periodic steep parts. Jason, as usual, takes this to be a personal challenge to be conquered at as fast a pace as possible so I hung on for dear life about 100m behind him, losing ground inexorably. When we got to the top we turned around to find them expecting them to be just behind us but they were't there, they must have been at least 1000m behind us which made us both feel pretty good although neither of us said anything. Not good form to gloat and there is always a chance that they were conserving their strength for the extra 50km they were doing ... but I doubt it. Nobody likes to get dropped.

Took our leave of them so they could continue on the 150km and had the most fantastic ride, easy spinning down gentle slopes with the wind behind us was just bliss. Phoned Caron and Cathy (and Kelly) to meet us at the design court for breakfast which was great if a little dangerous for the ol' wallet. Meeting wives in a centre dedicated to decor is probably not a bright idea to be repeated too often.

Went to Kim and Laurel for lunch which was delicious as usual. They both seem to cook so well or maybe it is just that Caron and I put our energy into other things because the cooking at home is not what one would call spectacular. This would also explain why we eat out so often. After lunch it was my turn to put up, fix and otherwise make myself handy around their house which was about the time that the first murder happened.

In the last few years there seems to have been a dramatic influx of indigenous birds back into Johannesburg and one of the birds to have made a reappearance is the Burchells Coucal which is a beautiful bird with a beautiful call but some nasty psychopathic behaviour. It's a predator but not the kind that waits for prey to be at least full grown, it preys on other birds eggs and chicks. Hauling them out of the nest and killing them while the parents frantically dive bomb the coucal hoping to distract it. The hapless pigeon parents were a bit late and the coucal had already killed the chick so the dive bombing only had the effect of making the coucal drop the carcass which the garden boy promptly picked up and put into a plastic bag. The coucal then spent about 10 minutes on the ground looking for the carcass where it knew it dropped it before Kim went and retrieved the carcass and put it back on the ground. Within about a minute the coucal was back and away with Saturday lunch. We might not have lions roaming the streets of Johannesburg but this definitely qualifies as a wildlife kill.

Finished the handyman act and retired to read "Spud" which is quite a humourous account of boarding school life circa 1990 in the Natal midlands. Feeling a bit two toned due to not putting sun tan cream on this morning since I thought that the sun wouldn't be too hot by 09:30 when we stopped riding. I was wrong and I now have an exceptionally marked farmers tan, think badly sunburnt. Actually quite sore especially under the shower. Went to bed early and woke up late ... at 04:45 on a Sunday morning can you believe it. Met Tim, Ross, Mike and a new guy Ralph for a 60km cycle to the botanical gardens and back. Still a little sore from yesteday so I took it relatively easy most of the time but couldn't resist putting some effort in on the last few hills which left everyone except Ross trailing far behind. Ross has deep seated psychological problems and just cannot let someone beat him. He would rather bonk (hit the wall, not the usual connotation) than let someone get away. This is a really fun trait to have in someone because they can't help themselves and you just have to push yourself a little bit to watch them bursting a foofie valve determined to beat you. Thoroughly enjoyed the ride, particularly the last hill where for a change I felt really strong even dropping a gear and sprinting up the steep bits.

Yesterday was the SIL's (Sisters in Law) house handyman stunt. Today is home handyman, specifically the gutters need cleaning and if there is one handyman type chore that I really detest, it is cleaning the gutters. Spotted some carpenter bee holes in my rafters. Carpenter bees are very large and have a nasty habit of burrowing into rafters, I have read that this does not significanlty weaken the structure but I dont' see how it can't. This is definitely a case of NIMBY (Not in my back yard) and the bees had to go. Sprayed DOOM into the hole and waited for the bees to exit and die. One got out of his hole before I had a chance to spray it and terrorised me for a minute or two before making himself scarce. I really wish they didn't make homes in rafters, and it's not like there isn't a whole lot of dead wood around for them to choose from. Dying to make a wisecrack about some people being deadwood but I have to restrain myself.

Onto the dreaded gutter clearing exercise which normally just entails using a long ladder, clearing leaves out and using high pressure water to dislodge the rest and wash it down the drainpipe. This works fine for most gutters but one, in particular, can't be done like this. It is about 6m off the ground and well out of reach of the ladder so one has to approach it by walking down the roof and squatting near the edge on the 45 deg roof enabling one to use both hands to scoop the dead leaves out of the gutter. This leaves (pardon the pun) one's nose poking out over space, in this case about 6m of vertical drop and this is not a good time to get vertigo. So there I am perched precariously on the edge when out pops a spider from the pile of leaves between my hands and skoots up the roof heading for you know where. I am not normally scared of spiders but there are limits and having a spider trespassing over one's privates is way over the line. Needless to say, vertigo went out the window and I moved rather rapidly backwards up the roof on all fours as fast as I could thus denying the spider the opportunity to latch onto anything .... well, the gutters are finished now and no, I didn't kill the spider.

Spent the rest of the afternoon reading which completed a very satisfying weekend.

Oh yes, enjoyed a lack lustre All Black side walloping England.

Outlaws continued ...

Started the day going to gym with Kim so that the spinning instructor can get all the pent up frustrations from several past lives out. This particular instructor just makes me want to laugh, everything has to be done at top speed and if you are slacking, she singles one out and tells one to get with the program. Dangerous class, gotta pick your bike carefully, preferably behind some large person. I hope she doesn't have a boss, managing her would require the wisdom of solomon and the patience of a glacier. There was a very good advert on TV for a Toyota tazz and in one of the shots there was a picture of a spinning instructor breathing fire and I keep on seeing this mental picture in front of me.

Went to work but left at 11:30 to go and play my annual obligatory round of golf. Boss frowns at me as I waltz out the door and reminds me that he is noting all the times I leave early and that I am now seriously in debt. My sister does volunteer work for an educational charity and the golf day is in support of this cause which is worth supporting especially in the country we are in. The fourball consisted of two actuaries, my sister and myself. I think I actually just get invited to provide the entertainment, not from what I say but from the way I play. I don't actually play, I kinda stitch the course together by going from one side of the fairway to the other, slowly homing in on the hole. Only the scottish could have come up with a game like this. I only play golf relatively infrequently, that way I have a really good ready made excuse for why I am playing so badly. Actually, I didn't really play that badly and scored 99. Some of the shots were even quite decent like the 180m approach shot that ended up 2m from the pin. Probably lucky but I prefer to think not, it was skill. really it was. Escaped home after the game and retired as soon as I could, cycling and walking 18 holes carrying a backpack full of steel was more than enough to finish me off.

Father in law had a list of things around the house that I ought to have fixed. Felt like telling him that he is welcome to fix them it he wants them fixed.

Outlaws and other aliens

My parents in law arrived today, for the weekend. Laurel invited them up for the weekend but their house is too full as it is so we got the job of hosting them for the weekend. It is just as well I actually get on quite well with both of them.

We had to rearrange the TV room, joining the two benches together and putting the mattress that normally lives in the garage to use. We used to have a dedicated spare room but, in reality, we so seldom have people to stay that it works out better to use the room and rearrange it when necessary.

Made one mistake. Left the drinks cabinet in the room which my father in law found with remarkable speed. Even worse, I had left the keys in it. Too late Jose, as the saying goes.

Rug Rat Fatigue

Well, this weekend past was a long weekend and it sure felt like one, it seemed to go on forever.

Weekend started on friday afternoon with the drive down to Durban with the 1/2 a million other lemmings. This was when I realised that it was going to be a weekend to endure, not enjoy. In the car we had Kim as well as defendant one, rug rat Sage age 2 years and 2 months. I know, it's a bit of a wierd name but hey, your name (whoever you may be) is only normal by convention ... you too could have been called Sage if you had been born to different parents.

Drive down was horrible, crazy people driving like lunatics. As a percentage of drivers on the road they were actually only a very small percentage but they draw so much attention to their bad driving that one forgets all the normal sane drivers. Loads and loads of traffic ensured that what is normally quite a nice albeit long drive turned into a marathon and I was truly relieved to arrive safe and sound.

Having consumed about 1/2 a bar of chocolate on the way I was kinda bouncing off the walls and consequently didn't sleep very well. I'm noticing more and more what an amazing effect sugar has on me these days. It has got to the point that if I want to be in a particularly loud and bouncy mood or to stay awake, all I need do is consume a small amount of chocolate and voila, loud and bouncy and very wide awake. Better not speak to me after a few hours as you will only get the odd growl and the occasional bite as I work my way through the sugar low. If I maintain a sugar free (or almost) existence I stay on a fairly even keel, generally upbeat but not over the top. These, of course, are highly subjective obversations and do depend to a certain (large) degree as to who is around me at the time. Some people can even knock the stuffing out of a sugar high, while others can moderate the sugar low.

Launched the yacht on Saterday morning and went sailing with Tim, Emer, Rug Rat defendent No 2 a.k.a Liam and Rug Rat defendent No 3 a.k.a Clare. Maybe I should dwell on the launch a bit more since I rather overdid the distance that I let the yacht go down the ramp. Tim's comment afterwards were words to the effect that I didn't really have to launch it right out the harbour mouth. Brad, who was standing on the trailer must have wondered when the water got up to his armpits just how far was he going to have to swim to get back to shore. Fortunately he is a rather amiable character so no real bother there, thank goodness. Approaching the harbour mouth I tried to winkel Liam out of the cabin to no avail and it required the father to wade into action in order to get him out. Once again, the answer from the PortControl was monosylabic and totally unintelligable so in the absense of any light and large freighters we proceeded out to sea. We were about 20 minutes out when emer started looking a little green and suggested that we go about, after 35 minutes she let loose overboard. So now we had two miserable kids, one seasick wife, one grumpy husband and me who was actually ok at that point in time. Radioed ahead to come back in and for a change there was a real response, one we could understand. So the pattern now is that if you can't understand it and it is very short just go ahead, if they had wanted you to stop they would have said so clearly. Still, they really should standardise on their replies, it would really make life much easier. We parted company for the day agreeing that the next morning Tim and I would take the yacht out since it had been a generally miserable outing for them as a family.

Next morning was pretty miserable, low cloud, scattered showers and when we arrived with MIL, FIL, SIL and defendent No 1 in tow, Tim announced that they were going to camp out at RNYC, have breakfast etc. So we cancel the planned breakfast at the harbour mouth while Tim and I sail past only to be told 5 minutes later that plans have changed and they are going out right now and do I want to join them. After yesterday, I don't think so but what really pissed me off was the constant changing of plans without taking anyone else into consideration. Anyway, this gave me the jig and Tim just couldn't understand why especially since I am not prepared to fight about it in front of the family, it's all my fault in any case. Really it is!

Spent a very pleasant couple of hours at RNYC having breakfast before I ventured out onto the mudflats with Sage on my hip. Learnt a couple of important lessons here. Lesson one, women have hips, men don't. If you are a guy and carrying a baby, trying to balance it on your hip is not an option unless you have well developed spinal sclerosis. Lesson two, conversations with two year olds tends to go like this.

"Look Rug Rat there are the crabs" as they scurry away
"Where the crabs?"
"There they are" pointing at the one intimidated crab who wasn't quick enough to get to his hole.
"Where the crab?"
Ummmm "There the crab is"
"Where the crab"
Silence while I think of what to say.
Excited "There the crab"
Phew, "Yes, there he is"
"Where the crab"
Gnnnnghhghh!
and on and on and on and on. There has got to be a better life than this.

I think childen are like this global conspiracy that all parents belong to. When asked they all swear that children are the best things to ever happened to them if, and ONLY if, you happen not to have children. If on the other hand, you do have children, well too late for you (snigger, you fell for it) so now the only thing left is to commiserate over how they are slowly leaching the life out of you. It is remarkable how after the initial exictement of being a parent, parents quickly realise their mistake and then the comic adult behaviour begins.

You can generally recognise this, not by what is said but by the amount of money that is spent on the cretins with the intention on occupying them so that the parents can have a little, just a little of their previously happy lives back.
The more desperate they become, the more money they lavish on kindergarden, preschool, playschool, primary school, after care, sports, secondary school anything, absolutely ANYTHING at all to have some peace and quiet. And you thought parents were just looking out for their progeny. No, they're not, they are trying to get some peace and quite.

Back to the weekend, after showing Rug Rat No 1 the crabs, I do believe that she genuinely did see some, we left for home. So much for sailing this weekend...

Afte the third SMS from various family members to remind me that it is/was my fathers birthday, I thought maybe I should phone and wish the old codger happy birthday. Having done my family duty I went to hide in my cave, actually my FIL's cave since mine is 7 hours drive away. Lots of sharp things in this cave to keep little cretins out.

Had a great nights sleep and woke up to howling wind and people wishing me happy birthday. 41 (fourty one). Expletive, I'm 41 years. That is enough to put a damper on the day. I don't know when midlife crisis sets in but I have a suspicion I am going to enjoy it. My birthday went as follows:
06:00 - Wake up, I know there is something I am meant to remember about today. Oh, yes, it's my birthday.
07:00 - 08:00 - Breakfast with assorted bedraggled characters.
0:80 - 08:30 - Drive down to harbour.
08:30 - 10:30 - Pull yacht out of the water and pack it up.
10:30 - 11:00 - Drive back to parents in law.
11:00 - 11:30 - Shower, pack and pile into the car to a chorus of "What's roland doing", "What's roland doing". Gnnnshhh, it's going to be a long drive and not only in hours.
11:30 - 17:30 - Drive back to Joburg with the same lemmings we had to contend with on the way down. Another lousy drive. Narrowly avoided an accident when the traffic concertina'd and the ABS came in for some heavy duty action. Pretty impressive actually.
17:30 - 18:00 - Shower and get ready for fathers birthday party.
18:00 - 18:30 - Drive to parents picking up food and presents on the way.
18:30 - 21:30 - Supper, lots of loud arguing, teasing and generally good natured banter. BIL took advantage of the 4 glasses of wine I consumed on an empty stomach to attack. Defense didn't hold out too well but I live to fight another day.
21:30 - 22:00 - Home at last, thank god.

End Of Weekend.

P.S. I have two words to describe children. "Adult Entertainment"

The Weekend that wasn't

I has taken me 4 days of working to recover from last weekend. But I'm back now so here's what happened.

Friday night didn't start out too badly, nothing on so I watched V for Vendetta with Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving. Actually I mainly watched Natalie Portman since there wasn't a helluva lot of Hugo Weaving visible. Thoroughly enjoyed it and went to bed after getting my bicycle ready for Saturday.

Saturday dawned, actually it cracked, at 04:45 which is the time I needed to get up in order to be on the bike by 05:30 to meet Jason at 06:00 at Cycle Lab. Did an 81km ride with Jason at just short of 26km per hour which is not too bad for us. Felt like Sh!t the whole way and my mood was not improved by the taxi overtaking me on my left by driving on the pavement. Very disconcerting having someone overtake you on your left hand side. Since we started ahead of the A group from Cycle Lab it took them a couple of kays before they came cruising past. They weren't actually going much faster than us in reality but it was just that little bit too much to comfortably hang in with.

Coming up with a new (maybe to me only) theory on exercise which has three axis, love of eating, love of exercise and the negative axis, hate of being overweight. So if you disike exercise and hate being overweight, there goes eating. This is normally called a diet, the process of getting thin and very grumpy. If you love eating and hate being overweight, better you get used to exercise and lots of it because you are gonna need it. I'm ignoring the 'love being overweight' crowd because they get what everyone really wants, no exercise and eat what you want. Of course they also get stares, self loathing and fat but then that's their choice.

I'm trying something down the middle, some exercise so I can pig out occasionally since I can't do anything about the other axis. I just plain do not like being overweight and unlike the old days, these days it is way too easy to just put a few on.

After the ride, straight into shopping mode. Food from Fruits 'n Roots, fetch chainsaw, fetch fixed bedside lamps, buy new toaster and fridge from Davenports, try on new running shoes, buy new sunglasses and have lunch at Sandton City. I think that is enough shopping for a while. Back home, change into Mr Fixit mode and hack down tree just outside of our boundays which is slowly damaging our fence, this is one job I REALLY don't want to do fulltime. It is rather difficult and things don't always work out as planned. Droped one of the branches onto the electric fence so I have to fix this as well. Dropped another on Caron but she is beyond repair. Electric fence doesn't turn off too well so I kept getting mild electric shocks as I'm repairing it. Off to the sisters-in-law to 'adjust curtain rails'. Finish the first curtain rail at 19:00 and retire home a beaten man. Watched TV again, twice in a row. I must have been finished.

Sunday morning 03:50, up again to go to work for the bimonthly change control. Kobus arrives with his whole family in tow. That is mighty peculiar and he "doesn't want to talk about it" so there is obviously something going on. Turns out the wife doesn't want to be left at home alone in case she gets burgled because some neighbours a couple of months ago were burgled. As if the miscreants watch and wait for Kobus to go out and then take this as a signal to start burgling somewhere. No wonder he didn't want to talk about it.

Home at 07:30 and don Mr Fixit clothes again. Finish the other pelmet at the sisters-in-law (yes, there are actually two of them ... in the same house ... with all their children ... chaos and anarchy reign there), home for lunch before a 35km ride with Tim and Graeme, the slackers. Home from there just in time for a family and friends get together. Eight adults and seven children shredding up our normally peaceful existence. Once again, the token vegetarian did all the braaing. Not too bad a job of it if I say so myself although I was sorely tempted to overdo it just a tad. Like charcoal it.

Tim tried to make an argument that since more women are suffering from stress these days due to work that the Womens Lib movement was ultimately a 'bad' idea. Like Womens Lib set out to increase the stress levels and hence diminish womens' health on purpose. Methinks he just feels threatened by women who are independent and can think for themselves.

Finished up, packed the dishwasher and retired hurt for the evening. Thank goodness I only had work on Monday and not another Sunday.

Black Eye Blues ...

Hmmm! Now if someone came and told you the following story, would you believe him or her?

Monday morning arrives and one of my colleagues walks in with really good shiner. After a little bit of prodding he said he got it during a movie. This sounds really interesting. More prodding, and just who was he at the movies with and exactly how does one get a black eye in the movies?

With great reluctance and in a small voice he admitted that he had gone to the movies with my sister in law. More and more interesting ...

Now I have to know exactly what he did so that I don't do the same. Don't want to end up with a black eye, now do I.

Approached said sister in law for corroborating evidence. The stories tie up which can only mean that they are in cahoots.

They both swear innocence, you can draw your own conclusions.