Dieting - again!

Well, I'm about to go onto my 50 millionth diet of my life! As you can see from the above photo I need to whittle myself into shape before flying off to summer in Switzerland. This diet is called the Dukan Diet and it says I should be able to lose 10 kilos by the 27th July! Wow! I will be happy with 5! The only problem is that for the first 3 days I am not allowed anything but protein and that will kill me as I am not a meat eater and it will kill my liver but I will give it a go and maybe I will lose a couple of kilos that I can then put back on in Switzerland! If anyone else wants to try it go to http://www.dukandiet.co.uk/ where you can work out your ideal weight with the help of their website. Now if I can just stay off chocolate and sugared almonds - or do they count as protein?

On the first of July I have to register for a Masters degree and send in a proposal about what I want to do. I have whittled down all my interests into "The role of Women in the Ancient Near East with particular reference to the Book of Judges and Deborah". If any of you are like me and reading the Bible for the first time - try reading Judges. Talk about a nasty bunch of patriarchs, and by the way does anyone know of another name for men who aren't exactly misogynists but treat women like slaves? Patriarch is too pleasant if patronising.

Our building moves on apace and we managed to commandeer one of the security guards to help us move a leadwood tree trunk into place so Elias (builder) could brick it into place where it will serve as a hammock upright. Also it will double as a lantern holder at night and a bird feeder hanger in the day! These stunningly heavy leadwoods were brought down from a farm in Thabazimbi for us a few years ago before we even began to build our extension. Two of them were incorporated into the family room downstairs where they "hold up" the floors of the rooms above. They don't actually as they were only put in a couple of years after the building was finished! Because this last one was needed around the front of the house with a couple of tight right angled corners to go round I decided they had to come through the house. Elias was horrified (HIS wife is obviously a stickler for housework!) as he had just seen me vacuuming! But it was the most direct route and once through the kitchen door I put two upside down mats under the front and the back of the tree trunk and they were able to slide it neatly right through the house and out the other side! SO thats in place and next weekend the boys (OAP 72, Aaron 59 and Elias 49) will concrete the slab into place ready for the stone work. We only have until the 14th June to finish it - then it will be October before we can do any more.

We have had masses of rain lately, no sun for days which plays havoc with the solar power and yet temperatures have dropped suddenly so that nights are bitter. I covered all the tender trees with sacking in the hope that they can withstand the highveld frost we get in June. Last night I saw a scorpion on the lounge floor and asked OAP is he fancied getting it out. He obviously didn't but felt it was his duty as a man so popped a tupperware over it and slid a piece of paper under. On picking the paper and tupperware up he tipped the scorpion out again and as it lay so still he pronounced it dead and scooped it up onto the paper, whereupon it did a resurrection number, whipped along the paper and onto his hand. With a scream he flicked it off - SOMEWHERE onto the floor. For those who don't know how and where we live, at night our house is vaguely lit by gas light and candles and a scorpion is bloody difficult to see! Anyway we did find it again - dragging itself under the piano - scooped it into the Tupperware and bunged it outside back into the bush! OAP (forgetting that he was the one who had screamed like a girl - I was the one who swore like a trooper at him!) said "shame its so cold outside" - Yeah right and your point is?

Life's frustrating ups and downs

My OAP has been going through a really bad time over the last 6 months or so - just at a time when his life should be getting simpler. His ex has decided that she wants a lions share of his possessions just because she accidentally fell pregnant with his kid 38 years ago! He looked after her financially, sent her on training courses in the work she said she wanted to do, paid for her and her son to live in Germany while training, paid for her to live in Cape Town when she wanted more training in something different, paid for her to live in a different part of Johannesburg when that was what she wanted, made room for her in his flat and farm when she said the school felt he should take more of an active role in his son's life. He desperately wanted to take a part but it was too late for them and his son despises him and makes no bones about his feelings. His son and his ex seem to think that it was me who broke up a "perfect" relationship 16 years ago but their idea of perfect is extremely warped when I know they didn't share a room, never mind a bed, and he had other girlfriends before me! Anyway she now has decided that she wants lots and lots of his money and she found a really good law firm who saw her successfully through the quagmire (his lawyer was crap) so he now has 90 days to find her money and the money to pay her and his lawyers!! Otherwise the court will attach his (and I suppose my) possessions! He thought he could sell his flat in Sandton but discovered her lawyers have blocked the sale as she is living there and can do so till she dies (now I understand why some folk turn to murder!), so he is trying to sell his farm but who in their right mind wants to buy a farm in Northwest Province at this turbulent time in SA's history? He has a tenant living on the farm who has reneged on his rent for the last year!!!! This tenant has now given notice that he intends to leave the farm at the end of July - slap bang in the middle of our overseas holiday - leaving the property vacant and vulnerable to squatters etc. So it looks like my days on Utopia may be coming to an end and we will have to move onto the farm when we get back at the end of September. Another chapter in my Book of Life! Maybe it will be fun (hmm I wonder - the ex lives in a cottage on the property at weekends!!) and maybe we will be able to sell it or maybe we can just set light to it and claim the insurance money!! Watch this space.

I have been trying to update my Blog for ages but without much news that anyone else might be interested in and unable to drag and drop pictures it has been futile. Much as I love living in the bush it does have its drawbacks. Solar power at this time of the year is scarce as the rains continue to fall sporadically. When its not raining then cloud cover obscures the sun or thick mist envelops the surrounding hills and we get a strong feeling that we have been transported to the Scottish Highlands! Only the yellowing grasses and indigenous birds remind us that we are definitely in Africa.

A Purple Heron plods hesitantly along the muddy edges of our dam while a pair of Crowned Plovers scream at a troop of mischievous baby Vervet monkeys intent on tweaking a tail feather or two. Much as I dislike the monkeys in the house their antics are a delight to watch, especially when there are so many babies in the troop. A Brown-Hooded Kingfisher sits on the rail around our stoep, watching the bush intently. It swoops on a grasshopper and flies back up to a higher perch where it proceeds to kill its prey before eating it. I am amazed at how large the beak is for so small a bird.

All our Weavers are gone, they were very half-hearted about breeding again since the Boomslang took their last remaining egg. In fact they pulled that nest to pieces before building another and laying again, only to be pipped at the post by a Klaas' Cuckoo, who laid her egg in the nest and ejected theirs.

So here I sit in Mugg & Bean where they have Wi-Fi (and lemon meringue pie) and I can download and upload to my heart's content!

This is just a test run to see if I can post pictures to my blog. I discovered that I can although it took ages and I didn't know what picture it was as they all just had numbers! But this is from my 60th birthday party at Mabula with the grandchildren playing in the shade at the braai area.

Slave Labour

I am sitting here looking out onto the twinkling lights of Cape Town while my body is longing to be lying on the bed! But I daren't go to bed so early or I will be bright eyed and bushy tailed at 3am! My problem is that I have been painting the walls and ceilings of OAP's tiny flat nearby. He is desperate to sell it but it was in such a dreadful state after a fire on the stove, three burglaries and just general neglect by tenants. I proclaimed it needed gutting much to his horror but amended that to needing painting - and guess what? I got the job!!! Nice one - when will I learn to keep my mouth shut!! I had already spent a week with my sis from UK painting out my niece's flat in Wynberg. But that, actually, was FUN! Because it was something we were doing together albeit hard work and also when you tackle such a job with two of you its much easier. OAP said he'd help with the work on his Hole in the Wall as he calls it but he is not much good with a brush and roller so I had to get him busy on other things so I could get on with the main stuff. I must say he really came to the rescue when I just couldn't reach a couple of places and was desperate. He also did a lot of stripping and throwing away of stuff left by the last tenant. At the end of each day we'd grind home (only two blocks), trudge up 4 flights of stairs, shower, eat and fall into bed only to get up again in the morning, barely able to move, and start over! I must be mad to do my own decorating wherever I live - other women call in a painter and then grumble because he dripped on the floor or missed a spot the size of a R5 coin. Why can't I just for once do the same? To make matters worse the first coat of white paint turned grey and I realised that after his tenant had had a fire in the kitchen she had never cleaned up after it and the walls and ceilings were covered in soot. Not badly but enough to make it necessary to paint 3 coats everywhere. And I have to say, here and now, that I absolutely HATE painting ceilings!! I had a stiff neck before coming to CT and now it's permanently in a backward tilted position so I will forever be looking up!!! My hair is full of specks of paint like dandruff and I have WHITE freckles on my face and chest, not to mention my hands and arms, oh yes and my legs and feet! Tomorrow we finish after applying another coat to the lounge and doing the burglar bars. Then I have to clean the bathroom which has a fine coat of mildew although I suppose it might be soot. Beloved sister and I scoured CT for tiles to match the cream ones in the bathroom that were damaged in one of the burglaries but eventually had to settle for the same tiles but in white so the tiler did a very creative job around the windows making it look as if we had meant to have a white panel of tiles in the first place. Then on the first day of painting I looked in the bathroom cupboard and lo and behold there was a box of the original cream tiles! OAP was ever so furious with himself as he hadn't seen them there. I feel quite guilty as I should have looked in the first place as I know he NEVER throws ANYthing away! Oh well - anyone want half a box of cream and half a box of white tiles?

Back to School Blues

As if getting the kids back to school on time on the first day wasn't already fraught with snags like Younger Daughter's not being able to find a single belt belonging to the red and white gingham dress my Princess of a granddaughter wears. She had taken her uniforms (Princesses not YD's!) to be shortened and forgotton to remove the belts. So it was with trepidation that we watched P getting dressed in the morning of BACK TO SCHOOL. As it dawned on her that there was no belt YD tried to reason with her that said belt was missing but we would find a replacement in the Lost and Found at school. After a bit of horror that she was expected to wear someone else's pox-riddled belt and being assured she wouldn't catch anything from it because it would, after all, be worn OVER the dress NOT next to the skin, Princess finally aquiesced and we breathed a sigh of relief. Off we went to the school where my hand was clutched in trepidation and believe me it was not an act - her hand was cold and clammy and trembling - until I was ejected from the classroom because my behind was too large for the miniature chairs!! That made her laugh so I could leave with the knowledge that the situation was not too desperate. Downstairs, two grades lower, I bumped into YD's ex partner in floods of tears rushing from the scene of her twin sons classrooms. Thinking she had a bad case of Partition Blues going I shrieked "Oh come on Bear, it's not THAT bad" only to be informed that she had reversed out of the driveway over the family dog and killed him!!! IN FRONT OF HER SONS who were now in class weeping their little eyes out. What a way to start the year! Younger Daughter when informed of all the snot and trana callously remarked that she should lie the other two ancient maltese poodles in the driveway and reverse over them too and then she wouldn't be looking for place to live that took pets! Apparently she has to move out of her present home at the end of January and as yet has nowhere to go (as her sons happily tell anyone willing to listen!).

Meanwhile I have spent thousands getting my annual mammogram and (first time ever) bone density scan done, complete medical check-up as I needed a new prescription and had my neck twisted by the chiropractor! Actually he was the cheapest of the whole lot and I am totally in love with him since he cured a two month headache in one treatment! He says the stiff neck and tense upper back are probably from getting my last assignment into Unisa (in all honesty it was probably from the hours of Patience I play while listening to podcasts!! but I didn't tell him that). The mammo and bone density (as I knew it would be) were perfect and I don't need to do the bone thing for another 5 years (read 10). These go towards our Medical Aid's Vitality program where we get awarded poiints for all the tests we have done that go towards a healthy body! Hopefully this will push us up from Bronze category to Silver!! It costs a bomb but we love working towards this goal and every time we use the Vitality card at the local supermarket we get a percentage back depending which category we are in.

We are now spending the night at Golden Boy's charming home and as I type this their cat is sitting on the dining room table watching my every move.

What Service!

It is the absolute norm in South Africa to moan about what crummy we service we receive (or don't) from anyone who is supposed to be providing a service but today I have to sing the praises of one service industry: P G Glass!!! I had a double crack right across my drivers side of the windscreen of my car ( I have had it for ages but decided to do something about it before we drive to Cape Town in January) and last year had the windscreen replaced VERY BADLY by Glassfit in Rustenburg. So this time we tried PG Glass. OAP phoned PG's service centre and asked where our nearest (bar Rustenburg) centre was and how much would we have to pay, etc. They took all our details of insurance company, address, etc. and ............. suddenly arrived HERE IN THE BUSH to replace my windscreen, properly, efficiently, pleasantly and FREEEEEE!! Can you believe it? Neither can we and we are still waiting for the other shoe to drop! Maybe the insurance company will phone and tell us there's been a mistake or something and we will have to pay an excess? But I now have a wonderful, clean, crack-free windscreen in my car. Don't know for how long as last time my perfect windscreen only lasted a week before a truck lobbed a stone at us and made a hole which developed into the double crack. We were too embarrassed to phone the insurance company and ask for it to be done again!