OAP is Poster Boy for Joint Replacements!

OAP had a left knee replacement 2 weeks ago and is doing SO well in recovery that his physio is considering making him the Poster Boy for the op!  He was in a ward with 2 other men, one of whom had a hip replacement (OAP had that done 2 years ago) and the other a knee replacement.  They whined and moaned and pressed their bells every 5 minutes and screamed and whinnied with pain when they were forced out of bed by the physios. All the while shooting dagger-like looks at OAP as he happily ate everything put in front of him, did his bed exercises with alacrity and leapt off down the corridor each morning and afternoon in his zimmer frame.  Once home he used the zimmer when he went for a shower as it gives support under slippery circumstances otherwise it has become a clothes horse!!  He uses crutches in a way I have never seen before swinging each one forward with the opposite leg - most odd but it works for him!  He says there is no pain but at 11pm he does concede to take 2 Stopayne so that he has a peaceful night (and so do I!).  A friend of ours had a mole removed from his leg last week and could barely walk so I reckon we all have a different pain threshold and R's is sky high!

The hardest thing about the knee op is that he has to wear an elastic stocking and I have to put it on and take it off each time he showers.  As I put my back out a while ago this is excruciating first thing in the morning - I loosen up during the day but at first its all I can do to get MYSELF out of bed!  So there I am, lowering myself gingerly onto the floor, rolling down the stocking and peeling it off the foot, careful not to pinch a nerve in my lower vertebrae.  Then while he crutches his way to the shower i carefully ease myself up using the bed, chair or whatever to lever myself upright.  Once up I have to go to the shower and, door open 6 inches, wash his majesty's back while trying not to get wet and flood the bathroom floor!  He also insists on his legs being soaped - since when did THEY get dirty?  So it's back onto all fours in order to soap the royal calves and feet - 2 days ago i used the lavatory brush with the facecloth wrapped around the bristles and he LOVED it until he saw what I had done, then he couldn't see the joke and felt "used"!!!!!!  Actually I thought I was pretty darned clever!

SO we are in Joburg tonight at elder daughter's house and tomorrow he is supposed to have the staples out and new dressings put on (although the old one came off in the shower and I had to replace them myself) and more exercises given (including stairs I think) and also he wants to know if he can drive the car soon which will be such a blessing as he can then take himself off for a while to friends nearby and I can have a little "me" time with my iPod and my Game of Thrones!

You get what you wish for!

Be careful what you wish for - goes the saying.  Well I've been wishing for our concierge to bring us a load of firewood in readiness for winter here in the Alps.  Not that we will be here but eldest daughter with boyfriend and favourite grandson WILL be.  I so wanted to make sure they were all set for the snow and freezing cold and didn't want them to have to hesitate before lighting a fire each evening and, if not skiing, have it going all day!   Well we've been here 2 months and no firewood has been forthcoming - until this morning.   The concierge arrived with a CORDE of wood (thats a cubic metre) - he did ask if wanted a corde or half a corde and we quickly said half as we had seen last week what a corde looked like - its enormous!  He had it packed in boxes and loaded on his mechanical wheelbarrow and box after box came off and was stacked against the wall on the patio.  After 6 boxes I realised he still had 4 more on the wheelbarrow and decided to call a halt to it all!  Non, Non!!! S'il vous plait!!!  Halt!!! I felt like Mickey in the Sorceror's Apprentice when he cast a spell on the broom in order to get it to fetch water from the well, although Antonio was easier to stop!  So, daughter mine, you can have a fire EVERY day you are here - DO NOT stint yourselves as we can't take it with us!!!!   Although if there is much left we jolly well will have a bash and load it in the car and take it to France next year - but hopefully you will use it all and we won't have to bother!

New Job Prospects

I just found this post in my drafts section - it brought it all back to me so I decided to post anyway even if it was months ago!

I have decided that if OAP and I hit the poverty line, I will become a Hotel Inspector!  Actually, I would happily do it for free right now.  Here we are in Upington - this place really is the arse-end of South Africa - and yet it was impossible to get a room for the night under R600!  OAP really objected to that and we had just decided to drive on to the next town (like heck! The next town is Kakamas which is 145km away and it was already dark) when we saw a place called Azalea Guest Lodge.  We phoned and talked the owner down to R350.  I now understand why.  At first glance it looked nice and we could bring the car in where our tons of stuff (we don't travel light) would be safe.  Then OAP made like a very old man so the owner's husband carried our car fridge into the unit and plugged it in and then went home to nurse the hernia he had suddenly developed!  I unpacked the fridge into the one in the unit and mopped out the milk that had spilled - no use crying about THAT! OAP went for a shower only to find the bracket holding it to the wall broken so he used it in one hand while soaping with the other.  I then went to shower and totally flooded the bathroom as the jet hit the wall at the end of the bath and water cascaded everywhere.  I was washing my hair and was totally oblivious.  Serves them right as there were no towels (luckily we had two small gym towels in our bags).  Then the one and only bedside light wouldn't switch on and after much plugging and unplugging we decided the bulb was gone.  No other bulbs in the house as, can you believe it, all the other lights are strip neon tubes!  TV is the limited bouquet sort so I missed Strictly Come Dancing and Downton Abbey - outrage!  What else is wrong?  Well the tiles are chipped, the fittings are plastic, the furniture is mismatched and saggy.  The mattress is saggy so God help my back in the morning.  There's gaps in the walls, saggy stained ceilings and although it's superficially clean I can see grime in every corner and hairs everywhere - oh yuk! 

How is THIS?!!!  I will never view the mountains in the same way again!  I have flown in over the alps to Geneva in winter, but today we were flown in a small, single-engined plane called a Robin, over all the areas we have ever walked in (and a few we haven't!).  What a thrill!  Years ago when we first had computer difficulties here we enlisted the support of a computer geek in a village below called La Poste.  As he spoke NO English he enlisted the help of a friend who did and Remy has remained our friend ever since!  A smashing guy who has lived in Australia for a few years so his English is good, each year we phone him or he phones us and then we meet and catch up on our lives.  Normally, if it's winter, he comes to ski above us and then skis down to visit us, after which he skis off the edge of our patio and home through the forest!  In summer, he will walk up the mountain and hike for most of the day in the peaks above us then visit on his way home - he makes us feel OLD!!!!  But in the nicest way!  Anyway he announced this trip that he has his pilots licence and would like to take us up so we met at the tiny airfield in Bex in the Rhone Valley below at 11 am and up we went.  First down the valley and out over Lake Geneva, then up over the mountains to Gruyere and Gstaad and then over the Diableret Glacier (a picture of which is above) and then he steered the tiny plane along all the hiking routes we have ever done!  And I was impressed - with US!!!!!  It is absolutely formidable up in the mountains and yet we, OAP, my sis and I, managed some great hikes.  Sis, the only one we didn't fly over was that hellish high lake set in a sort of volcanic crater place in the mountains where it was SO steep that we never thought we'd get there, then SO steep walking back that it was almost as hard going down as going up!! The hike around Anzeindaz was incredible and here I must add another picture of the 'miroir' where we sometimes see people climbing - like tiny ants against the rock face!

,Whether there's anyone on the rock face I don't know but doubt it as today is Tuesday and they normally climb over the weekend.

In the pic above you can vaguely see a zigzag path going up and there were people on the path heading for the summit of this mountain whose name I can't remember but we actually look out onto it.  On the 1st August - Swiss National Day - there will be a blazing bonfire on top and today the climbers were hauling the firewood up to the summit for the bonfire!

And this is our little Robin with OAP on the left and Remy, our pilot, standing on the wing. 
What a day!  Which, I might add, began with a panic as we suddenly realised we'd double dated ourselves as the car was due for it's MOT (Roadworthy to the SA readers!) at 10am.  We got there at 9, no one spoke English, my French was understood but their replies were not understood by me and we caused havoc by placing ourselves plonk outside the doors when we should have parked in the little diagonal bays at 90 degrees to the doors!  But being Swiss they were incredibly polite and just drove round us until it was our turn!  I had to do it as my French is better than OAPs and it was fascinating - and fast!  I'll tell you about it in an email!

Brother in Law Memories

What do you say to someone who knows that it's only a matter of time before he leaves this adventure for the next?  Is most of our sadness for ourselves, those of us who are being left behind and who will miss him terribly?  This man who was once so vibrant and full of life and who I held in such high esteem when I was young and unmarried, has now reached the end of the road that we are all walking towards and I want to share some memories that have been comforting me for nights now.

I remember the days when he and my sister first met.  We were living in Clifton, Cape Town, and the sun seemed to shine every day.  He taught me to surf and introduced me to his many navy friends.  I was never without a date in those days!  I remember when he and my sister got married in the Naval Chapel in Simonstown and I stood behind the bridal couple and saw that their legs were shaking with nerves.  I remember when I met my husband to be and the first people I wanted to tell were my sister and brother in law.  I spent hours in their flat in Plumstead playing with my new niece and was always made to feel welcome.

He never used my name but always called me Sister in Law in a fond way.  He looked after me and saved me from many a disaster and always made me welcome in his home.  When he and my sis lived in Gordon's Bay they had a dog called Dfer and a cat called Cfer!  They also had a black hairy spider called Fred made of fluff and pipe cleaners with which we used to play tricks on each other.  One day I placed Fred in Brother in Law's naval cap and he got a fright when he went to put in on in the morning!  I thought that was great till I went in the kitchen to get some fruit and saw that he had placed Fred on top of the box.  Laughing at his crude attempt I picked Fred up only to discover to my horror that this was a real Bobbejaan Spinnekop (Jumping Spider). I screamed wildly as "Fred" jumped out of my hand and onto the wall.  Our mom (also staying there) came running and beat poor Fred to death with a bottle of Coke!!  We never mucked around with Fred again!

Brother in Law had hundreds of brothers that I could never quite get straight as they all seemed to look alike, sound alike and, as most of them followed B in L into the navy, dressed alike!  He was one of the first people I knew to get a computer and I used to love babysitting so I could play Space Invaders and Pacman on the green and black screen until my eyes nearly fell out of my head.  

I went to parades, launching of ships and parties and dinners and met loads of interesting people all through B in L and will always be grateful for the support he gave me through most of my adulthood.

After losing touch with him for years we met again over the internet and it was with great joy that I was able to communicate with him again. My kids were always made welcome and loved him and after a long break in communication seem also to have found him again, sadly only to lose him so soon.

We love you B in L and look forward to seeing you on the other side where, no doubt, you will once more show us the ropes just like you did this side.

Being far away

It's hard to be far away from ones family.  I've had to make a decision to be where my husband wants to be and he wants to be in France where we will live a much more free life with no burglar bars on the windows and doors and no worries at night.  We chose a tiny hamlet of 5 houses - only one other permanently occupied by an English fellow - and made an offer.   Until the offer goes through we are holding back on the excitement/nervousness of moving - after all it might NOT go through.  I'm ambivalent about whether it goes through or not but I think OAP would be devastated.

For me the worst thing is leaving my family behind.  I'd always hoped they would travel abroad and settle in other countries, then I could go and visit and live elsewhere myself.  OAP is now 74 and feeling that he can't protect me any more (my cave man!) and his quality of life is affected by the tension.  When we leave our house to go to town or gym or whatever we set the alarm, lock up as if its the Bastille and worry the whole time that we will get home (again) to a ransacked house.  I must say that leaving our car in a car park in SA we wonder if it will be there when we come back!  I've had two cars stolen - once from under my nose - and it's a horrible experience, but not half as horrid as being hi-jacked.   OAP is SO nervous about that that he makes my life miserable, so I finally relented and decided to try the living abroad.

One thing we have discovered is that we are not eligible for any sort of medical cover and our SA medical aid will not cover us for more than 4 months away so we will be back in SA every 3 months - which, actually, is probably about as often as I see the kids anyway!!  This will ensure QUALITY time is spent together.  We are not selling our SA house as we both dearly love it and will come back every European winter to spend SA summer there for 4 months.  SO actually it probably wont be any different to our life now except we will, hopefully, have a cute house and small garden in the French countryside and a much cheaper way of life than at present!   Anyone fancying a holiday in France in the Limousin countryside is very welcome - there's a small river nearby, a gorgeous lake 5 kms away and lots and lots of smashing walks.

One and One equals ?Hmmmm - Let me see.......

Am I the only woman who is completely dyslexic when it comes to shopping?   Today I bought about 350g of Italian cherries for CHF1.15 per 100g.  The notice above the Swiss cherries said they were CHF9.50 per kilo.  1.15 vs 9.50 = no brainer!  Triumphantly putting them into the shopping cart that OAP was wielding like a medieval weapon I felt so virtuous that I'd chosen the cheaper ones until he looked at the price tag and shrieked "Why the expensive Italian ones?"  I patiently explained my logic - he IMpatiently explained that 9.50 per kilo is cheaper than 10 X 1.15.  Finally I saw his point and took the cherries back and chose a bagful of the Swiss ones instead - what a laugh, they came to R5.95!  If he'd just left it with the Italian ones we'd have had less cherries but at a cost of CHF3.95!

This then brings me to the cocnut we bought last week.  After fiddling around trying to work out the cost of a whole coconut with milk inside (yum!) as opposed to coconut flesh chopped into inch lengths about half an inch wide.  I came to the conclusion that the ready cut ones were cheaper so put a handful or two into a bag and had it weighed - quelle horreur!  It came to CHF15!!  I then again realised that it was X amount per 100g.  As the whole coconut was MUCH less (CHF2.95) I put back the bag of cut and chose a whole one (shaking it carefully next to my ear to see which one had more milk inside).   I finally poked a screwdiver through one of its "eyes" two days ago and found it was sour!  Wah!!!  I went and got a hammer and opened it up and it was all nasty inside - I didn't bother bringing it back inside as it was a bit smelly and half an hour later looked out and there was a Blue Jay busy with one half and 2 slugs happily chomping away at the other!   We were going to take it back today and complain but the birds LOVE it, so, expensive birdfood it may be, they deserve it!  Today a large black dog carted the one half off before I could do anthing about it.  The other is on the table outside where the dog can't get to it!

Lying to your spouse by default!

Why do women lie to their partners/spouses - and do you consider it lying to hide things from them?  I know why I do it - my OAP tends to battle to remember the simplest things these days but let me step out of line and make a mistake of some sorts and boy he never forgets!

So when I couldn't find my Nintendo on arrival in Switzerland I thought I'd left it in the seat pocket in front of me in the plane.  I had to wait for twenty four hours before I could use the phone without OAP overhearing.  This was when he finally walked down to the garage to reconnect the car battery.  I watched as he walked down the garden path almost to the drive way and then, feeling like a woman about to phone her lover, I grabbed the phone and dialed the number I'd looked up the night before after he went to bed.  After a series of failed attempts to get through to the right department I finally got through to the lost property section who said "No" there was no Nintendo game handed in from that flight.  I put the phone down just as OAP walked in through the door - giving the phone a final wipe with the duster I cleverly had to hand I nonchalently walked away and dusted the mantlepiece!!!  Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive!!! As Scott or someone cleverly said.  I felt quite sick about the loss of my beloved Nintendo, not only as I am totally hooked on playing it every chance I get, but also because it was given to me by my dearest Elder Sister for my 60th birthday.  A jolly expensive prezzie and now carelessly lost.  Just as bad was it contained Travel Puzzles for Dummies which my beloved Elder Daughter gave me and to which I am completely adicted.
OAP and I went shopping at the first opportunity (shopping is something we both love doing except he likes to spend as little as possible and I love to spend as much as possible and anyway it all sounds so cheap as long as I don't recalibrate into rands!) and I managed to get away from him for 5 minutes in Cora.  This is a huge French store near Evian which sells absolutely everything.  Now the idea was that I buy the exact same Nintendo called a DS-lite in the same colour (white) so that OAP wouldn't know I'd lost mine.  But they had pink, green and black and they were expensive and 3D and there was no way even OAP could think they were the same one.   I mean, I can be jolly rude about OAP and slag him off cheerfully at the slightest chance, but I really couldn't see even him making an oversight like that.

Each time we've gone to the shops I've managed to slip away to look in the electronics stores, leaving me more and more disconsolate and OAP more and more puzzled as to where I keep disappearing to!  Today we left the car down at the dealer in the Rhone Valley below for a service and walked to the nearest shopping centre to while away the time until the car was ready.  There was an electronics shop there which I looked in - no luck.  The supermarket had an electronics section - no luck.  Then at lunch in the supermarket cafeteria I remembered that I'd promised to try to find a pair of moonboots for Golden Boy grandson, so off I went leaving OAP resting his belly on the table, glad to take the weight off his feet.  On my way across the carpark to Les Halles Chaussures I spotted the enormous toy store and on the off chance I went in to see if they had Nintendos.   THEY DID!!!  AND - they were discounting the DS-lite because ALL THE KIDS TODAY WANT 3D ones and they don't want white apparently!!!  SO I bought a white one and also a game to replace the one I lost in the Nintendo I lost.  I had cleverly brought my backpack along instead of a handbag so stuffed it in to the bottom putting my jacket and jersey on top and quickly looked in the sho shop (where they thought I was completely mad looking for snow boots in summer - I have to tell you at this point that it actually snowed last night - above 1800 metres) and back to OAP.

After picking up the car and driving home I cleverly dropped OAP at top of driveway so he wouldn't have to wear whats left of his knee joints walking up the 1 in 3 driveway and drove the car down to the garage.  I thought I'd take the new Nintendo and stuff out of the box and hide the box in the cupboard just in case I needed it.  I opened my backpack to take my jacket out and felt something hard in the lining at the back of the bag and on inspecting closely I discovered a pocket I'd forgotton was there and in there?  Yes, you've guessed - my old friend - my NINTENDO!!!!  

SO, what now?  After spending nearly a week trying to escape the beady eye of OAP to find this Holy Grail do I now once again try to escape and get to the shopping centre we were at today (one we NEVER normally frequent!) to take it back or shall I squirrel it away in case I ever do lost my baby or it breaks or I can't make out the screen anymore (they scratch with frequent play and although I do say it myself I DO play it NON-STOP never mind frequently!).

Memory Going!

Back in the bush after a month in Cape Town, and it's looking spectacular with Pride of the Cape, Wilde Dagga  and Tecomaria (Cape Honeysuckle) flowering brilliant orange and attracting all the sunbirds and butterflies from miles around.  I had written 3 blogs while on the way home as various topics raised their ugly heads (I nearly always blog when I'm angry or irritated!) but now I've forgotten them and they are on my Netbook, named Lily.  Like most women she is bloody temperamental and has been having lots of moody moments lately, so I can't open her up to retrieve my stored blogs.  The one was about Upington, where we spent the night on the way home!  With no accommodation under R600 per person it looked as if we were about to spend the night in the car - God help us!  But OAP saw a sign on a darkened, overgrown house that announced it as a B&B.  He phoned and arranged a bed for us with safe parking for our overloaded car and somewhere to plug our fridge in (I had taken all the contents of our fridge all the way to CT and some of it all the way back! A well travelled hunk of beef for roasting in particular!) and we had to wait for half an hour for someone to come and let us in.  I called that blog "I Wanna Be an Hotel Inspector" as the place was nice at a quick glance in the dark but awful after staying there for a while!  Cracks in the wall, a sagging ceiling, no towels, bath mats that hadn't been washed for ages (just the thought of someone else's feet on them made me want to throw up!), no bedside light, no DSTV which meant I had to miss Strictly Come Dancing and Downton Abbey!  Chipped tiles and mismatched furniture, grime in the corners and chipped cups and plates made me wish we HAD slept (or not) in the car, but mostly it made me wish I was a hotel inspector so I could downgrade them!  Since we seemed to be the only residents they had probably been well and truly downgraded before anyway.

Back home with our non-functioning septic tank for the main house we bought a porta-loo to use over the Easter Weekend as we had quite upmarket friends staying for 4 days.  It was disgusting to clean out but an absolute godsend for ablutions.  The smell of the chemicals will stay with me forever but from now on - unless an emergency of the unimaginable sort - it will only be used for wees!!!!  Tomorrow we have good old Elias coming to dig a trench to the new septic tank and lay pipes and all will be back to normal - I hope!

Cape Town

The weather is changing here and for the last few nights I’ve had to pull the cotton blanket over us in the night.  Not sure I didn’t prefer the excessive heat of the last two months!  Today we met old hiking buddies out near Durbanville and had a picnic on top of the Tygerberg Hills Nature Reserve.  The wind howled and we had to anchor everything down on the picnic table – including the lettuce!  It was a “No Alcohol” place but that didn’t stop the guys as Kuan makes his own beer and had brought along two bottles of his stout which apparently tastes remarkably like Guiness.  OAP took a half bottle of white and a bottle of red so they did a veritable wine and beer tasting and I was amazed they were able to walk back to the cars afterwards!  This reserve is a favourite with locals and you have to sign in and pay or (like our friends) be a Friend of Tygerberg - FOTs. We, on the other hand are FOPs – Friends of Pilanesberg!   We found it a bit barren spreading over 2 hills, the tops of which are crowned with Telkom and Cell Phone masts.  Bontebok were grazing on the lower slopes and we saw an enormous leopard tortoise on the crest of one of the hills while we were watching Black Eagles and Jackal Buzzards soaring and circling.  Amazing how they seem happy on just these small hills – we’re used to them in the craggy kranzes of the Magaliesberg, but I suppose wherever there is food so you’ll find something that eats it.  Speaking of which we had a quarter of a water melon over which we gave to the penned in tortoises near the entrance gate – they loved it!  We asked the ranger’s permission and he happily gave it then came to see if they would eat it.  They did!  He told us that before their last “burn” they employed 40 beaters to walk ahead of the flames and pick up the tortoises so they wouldn’t die.  Then they separated out the Leopard ones and penned them up and are giving them away as apparently they don’t really belong in this area.  Only Angulate and Beaked are naturally occurring there.  Who knew?!  OK, and probably you are asking “Who cares?” but I really wanted to take home a tiny one the size of a R5 coin!!  I may still go and get it when we leave here on our way home, as they naturally occur in the Magaliesberg and so I can reintroduce it.  You are not supposed to transport wild animals across the province borders in SA but the ranger will give me a transportation certificate.  But I did disillusion him by reminding him that the huge Leopard tortoise we saw on the hill has probably mated with every female around and so there are bound to be many, many R5 coin sized tortoises wandering the hills!  They had one poor tortoise that had actually been caught in the fire and rescued and he is SO ugly that no-one wants to adopt him!  His shell is sort of half melted and his skin on his head and neck is sort of yellow and patchy – a real burns victim poor thing.

Yesterday we went to OAPs cousin in Noordhoek where we had a slap-up lunch and exchanged family news, showed them our wedding album and they showed us their daughters’.  OAP’s aunt is 89 and is remarkably bright and witty, though looking a wee bit frail.  She had us roaring with laughter at her high jinks with a new zimmer frame with wheels!  I think most oldies use them on flat ground but not Val!  The estate where they live is all ups or downs so it’s hard work either pushing it uphill or hanging on on the downward slope!  She even tried walking the dog by tying the lead to it but ended up like Ben Hur with his chariot!  Sisters mine – does that bring to mind anyone we knew when we lived in Parkwood in the 60s!!!!!!

Restaurants

We had the most disastrous meal out yesterday that it was almost funny and became a topic of hilarious debate on the way home!


Robert wanted his cousin and sister to meet up after many years not in touch but as sister doesn’t get out bed until midday it was arranged that we would pick up cuz and meet sis at what she thought was a fabulous restaurant near where she lives in Durbanville at 2pm for lunch. To ME lunch should be over by 2 and, glad though I am to accommodate someone, I still think it’s a monumental cheek for the one person (whose living schedule is totally out of kilter with the world) to call all the shots, but that’s sis! So we girded our loins with a latish breakfast at 9am hoping it would hold us till 2. What I forgot about was that she is also forever late and then there were the drinks to be ordered after much discussion all of which delayed the ordering process. The waitress eventually got bored with us and went off somewhere so that at 2.45pm we had to go and look for her to order LUNCH. Everyone wanted the roast lamb for which this place was supposedly famous, I wanted the Eisbein. When it eventually came AT 3.30PM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we had eaten the rolls and butter and, because I was desperate, I had eaten all the restaurant sweeties I had saved up in my handbag plus half a roll of Rennies and a chewing gum!! The food was cold as were the plates and – much to my horror – it was all sent back to the kitchen to be heated! I didn’t want to let mine go, who cared if it was cold? Finally at 3.50pm it came back all nicely hot (if a bit overdone) and we got stuck in. I ate SO quickly, like a feral cat, that after 15 minutes I was full and had to have the rest in a doggy box! I was heartily glad I’d had the half a roll of Rennies. The restaurant/pub’s excuse? Saturday was St Patrick’s Day and they’d been up till 4am – do I look as if I care? I left the place when they called the manager and the waitress and kitchen staff to lay a complaint. OAP can be cutting when he’s angry but his sister leaves him stone last in the angry stakes – I didn’t want to be around for that so went and sat in the car burping gently. Other than the total disaster of a very mediocre meal the day went well and with sis and cuz reunited OAP felt his job was done. What a waste of a lovely day which could have been spent at West Coast National Park or Rondevlei Bird Sanctuary or strolling along the beach at Muizenburg.

Today is overcast and cool and we are going to look for a Porta Potti as OAP has invited friends to “stay as long as you like” over Easter and our septic tank has backed up so we only have the guest loo! Very awkward, especially first thing in the morning when nearly everyone our age ablutes in a smelly way! A PP will save the day and can live on the balcony - a new take on a “Loo With a View”!

Showing off to my friends!

I have just had an old friend (now living in England) stay for a few days. I hoped she would love Utopia and she did! Who wouldn't?  We've had an exceptionally hot summer and so wallowed in the rock pools below the house every day.  On the first day we drove through to Pilanesberg and spent the day birding and seeing animals - I am allowed to put it this way round as she, too, loves birding.  We fed the Catfish at Maletse Dam and then ate brunch in the hide while watching two young male elephants indulging in a spot of horseplay in the water.  They pushed and shoved each other and played just like kids do in a pool!  An older bull came down and also went into the water, pushing between them and immersing himself briefly then out he got and  had a dust bath, while the youngsters carried on playing in the deep water.  It was magical and we must have spent the better part of two hours just watching.  We left the park in the late afternoon and were home in time for sundowners and a swim before supper outside on the stoep in the cooling night air.  Next day Jane and I went off to do a Canopy Tour nearby.  Great fun, considering we are both OAP's!!  Enough adrenaline to make you feel alive whilst knowing the gear and staff were both in good nick and your life wasn't hanging in the balance! See above pics. I thought I was the first in the family to do this but then discovered that Special Elder Daughter had pipped me to the post a year or so ago!  Where was I that I didn't know?  That night we introduced Jane to "Computer Games"!!!!!  I am an addict and play as much as possible; favourites being Zuma and Bejewelled and now SED has introduced me to Hidden Object games.  I downloaded Mortlake Mansion and OAP was intrigued and sat next to me "helping" then became hooked himself!  Then SED introduced us to Dire Grove which took us nearly 2 weeks (off and on) to complete. So now we introduced Jane to both and within hours she was rubbing the back of her neck and her eyes and was reluctant to leave it and go to bed!  On Sunday SED and Favourite Grandson came for the day and we hiked up to Mushroom Rock and Cederberg Kloof where he and Jane splashed each other in the pools before we trekked home.  He found a gorgeous piece of ripple rock and insisted on carrying it home - it weighed 11 kilos (I weighed it on the bathroom scale!) and we put it in my backpack and he and SED took turns!  They wouldn't let me have a turn - too old and frail!! So old age DOES have its benefits! Jane left on Monday and by Tuesday was back in drizzly, windy, chilly England walking her dog and wearing four layers of wet, muddy clothes instead of walking in a shirt and shorts.  Shame!

The Medical Side of Growing Old!

As its the start of a New Year, OAP and I decided to go to our local pharmacy and get our medical check ups for the medical aid done.  Early morning (to beat the normal queue waiting for the clinic sister) and no food (one of the checks is cholesterol) doesn't do my sense of well-being much good (one of the checks is for Blood Pressure!) so by the time I had my check up done I had a raised BP (well Mrs BLOODY FAT clinic sister called me obese!) and a raised Cholesterol level.  You will be glad to know that my AIDS check was negative - I should coco since I haven't had sex with anyone but OAP for 17 years and not with him if I can help!!!!!!  I didn't even want the check but she said it gained us extra points! What a waste of money.  Then we had to go to the doctor and have a proper cholesterol test done which cost an arm and a leg - only to be told that the pharmacy checks are useless as they show a total cholesterol level and my GOOD chol is much higher than my BAD one but added together they give a high reading!  I should have gone to the doc in the first place.  Anyway, while we were at the docs OAP decided to get EXTRA points for him by having his PSA checked (prostate cancer markers) only to discover the result was higher than normal and he then had to go to the lab for a more comprehensive test.  This is more than a week ago and we still haven't heard the results but I gather the docs rooms did phone OAP and tell him to come in to get his results and he refused as he says they just want to charge him for a consultation!!!  Jeez!  Meanwhile I went for my yearly mammogram which was fine - phew!   So we are in reasonable health (depending on his result if I can persuade the receptionist to let me pay for the consult in secret and not tell OAP!) if over R6000 poorer.  Not a bad way to start the new year.