Hello? Anyone out there?

What's happened to everyone - why you not blogging? And why, when I have just learnt where your comments are (well done Sal!) can I not upload a picture to my blog? There used to be a logo that I clicked on but the site looks different and that logo has gone with no options.
I've justhad a lovely week with both the grandchildren - 10 is a smashing age: yound enough to still listen to Gran and think the sun shines out of her proverbial but old enough not to be watched and kept entertained constantly! Old enough that I could allow them to go down to the river below the house and keep a promise not to go in till Grandad or I went down. Old enough to go and read for a bit when I got tired and needed a bit of time out. Old enough to play happily together until NOT and then seperate and do something alone until the need to be together overcame the slight that had been thrown! But yound enough to still need Gran to go first upstairs in the dark! Young enough to still need hugs and kisses - oh those soft little arms wound around ones neck make tears come to my eyes! Young enough to enjoy a bedtime story: Around the World in 80 Days. Young enough to cry bitterly when hurt and then for Gran to kiss it and make it better (we had a rock dropped on a toe, a broken elbow - not! when she fell out of a hammock and numerous thorns in feet (I told you to wear your crocs!). Young enough to creep into bed with us during a thunderstorm and then I had to carry her back to bed after it was over - nearly breaking my back! She didn't remember it next morning! He must have been awake but said he wasn't bothered by the lightning and thunder (macho?) but he saw me silhouetted against the window as I sat up in bed playing Nintendo till the storm was over, so he was definitely awake! Young enough to need sunscreen applied - they were fine, I got burned! Young enough to take joy in making dams, finding tadpoles and baby crabs, picking me bunches of wild flowers and grasses and leaping from a rock into the pool below the house. We took them on a 4 hour hike up the mountain in blustery chilly weather - perfect for a walk. We spent a morning in the local shopping mall where we played Deal or No Deal in the video arcade!
And now they are gone and the house feels so empty (I think Grandpa is OK with that!) so I will now give him lots of attention and hope the kids come again soon.

Comments

After completing and posting my blog today I went into my settings to see if there was a reason my sis in UK can't comment. I found a section marked "comments" in which eveyone's comments are there for me to see! Thankyou to all of you esp. Favourite Eldest Daughter, Favourite Niece and Waterbob. I never knew you cared and has anyone any idea as to why these comments don't appear on my web page - Hmmm. Maybe they do and I have just never looked!!!!! Any other ideas as to why Favourite Middle Sis can't comment?

Bah! Humbug!

Jingle b*$#@y Bells! Bah Humbug! I hate Christmas! I used to LOVE it - I used to trawl around Christmas fairs and the toy shops, Woolworths and Edgars and buy my kids the latest clothes and the latest toys. I would fill Christmas stocking with a lot of small things that actually added up to more than the main prezzie! Now even Lego (or should I say - especially Lego) is out of my price bracket and Rustenburg Woolys and Edgars do NOT cater for MY sort of kids! All the clothes are in shades of dirty pink, lime green, dirty orange, bright turquoise - saves on the washing I suppose and if I was dressing Noddy it would be fine but these are my grandkids for goodness sake - I want some class please! As to the toys - my granddaughter hates pink and ALL little girl toys are pink and anyway I hate gender specific toys. So this year it's clothes - after MUCH searching and just a teeny bit into the "dirty" colours. Actually her mom will kill me when she sees the Blinding White capri pants - I guarantee they will stay that way for at least 5 minutes!!!! But I hate giving gift vouchers and money - it's such a cop out and I did that for Golden Boy's birthday anyway. THEN _ having done all my shopping in one fell swoop at our local mall I went to our newish very local (only 17km away and situated in a filling station forecourt - Yes - I live near Rustenburg so whadda ya expect?) boutique come restaurant and discovered millions of goodies I could have bought for everyone! Yes it would have bankrupted me but still - everything was unique and lovely - so I did a little top up for everyone to go with the boring things I bought yesterday and then went and consoled myself over breakfast in the restaurant bit while they washed and vacuumed my car!!! NOW - where else can you have all that done in one place!

Man Flu

As usual I can't remember when last I wrote my Blog. I seem to have forgotton all about blogging lately, but last night in bed, thinking my favourite eldest daughter was ignoring me, I suddenly thought: "I am supposed to read her blog to find out what's going on in her life". I would have risen there and then and booted up the computer except I had just settled down in a comfy position and was damned if I was moving. This morning there was about a months worth of blogs to read from her and also from my favourite niece! It was almost worth not looking for so long - I had a readfest and made a comment or two and then was triggered to write my own one: So - what's been happening in MY life you ask? Hmmmm - well OAP got "man flu" - this a deeply dangerous and harrowing disease (for everyone around him!). He hacked and coughed, snuffled and snorted, refused to use tissues because he blows holes in them - and NO he can't use two at a time or even three as that is a waste of money. Oh - didn't you know that OAP comes from a frugal Scottish background? Well you do now - read on to discover more! I rooted out Disprins, Vicks Vaporub and cough sweeties (all well past their use by dates but OAP doesn't believe in those!) and brought him hot toddies that would have felled a horse and hot soups and little nibbles and snacks (you do know that we live in a house on three floors with many many stairs and wooden floors that can be rapped sharply with a knobkerrie to gain attention?) while OAP lay flat on his back refusing to sit up against his pillows to alleviate his coughing, back of left hand pressed limply against his forehead, eyes closed with a pained expression on his face, telling me that he really wasn't hungry but a little jelly and cream, and another hot toddy like the last one (dear God - I wondered if I should book him into AA) oh - and a little snack of warmed up lasagne and maybe a peach, a banana, an orange, a bowl of cherries, an elephant and an ardvark - just kidding! - would help him to feel better. So I slogged up and downstairs for a week trying to block out the vile noises emanating from the bedroom and trying to smile and not vomit when I heard him sniff or clear his throat! Then, just as he was feeling marginally better - BAM! - I cam down with it! And it's NOT man flu - it's the plague, ebola, typhoid fever, whatever - it's AWFUL and every bit as ghastly he he sounded! I haven't apologised to him of course as he never knew what sort of thoughts were floating around inside my head, but wow this was flu from hell. For a week I have hacked and coughed, snuffled and snorted, sitting side by side with him in the bed - we have taken turns to trot downstairs to get hot toddies that would fell a horse, I will bother about AA next week, bowls of jelly, etc. but I still had to be better enough yesterday to do the washing and ironing. I threw away ALL his snotty hankies and made him buy new ones on a trip to town and actually he got to the stage where even HE thought his hanky deposits were disgusting and took to using 3 tissues at a time - so you see - even Old Dogs can learn New Tricks - given the right MASTER!!!!!

When only one of you is studying

Don't ever marry someone who hasn't a clue what it's like to study! And don't ever try studying in a house with wooden floors! And don't ever have wooden floors in a house where a man is living!! Grrrrh! It takes quite a bit for me to get into the mood to study and all of a sudden I have the bug! But getting my head down is quite daunting as there are always things (other) to be done: watering the new seeds I have sown, dusting when I realise I can write my name on the lid of the piano, making the bed which has happily lain unmade for days, writing my blog when I should be onto JStor looking up papers that I can crib from! Etc. But the minute I do get my head down OAP wants lunch, or tea and a scone, or my help replacing some wiring that our resident (but unseen) mouse has snacked on - plunging our whole house into darkness! This task I willingly participated in otherwise I can't watch Who Wants to be a Millionaire? tonight. But the other jobs I just ignored and every time OAP tried to converse I just muttered "Mmm Hmm" and carried on typing. With the result that he found all sorts of things do do up here in my sanctuary (our bedroom unfortunately!) and every time he walked past my desk the floor went bounce bounce bounce until I felt like pushing him down the stairs! I won't do it now that I have confessed that I was tempted because I know I will get found out! ANyway its now sundowner time and I am going to join him for a Bucks Fizz before making macaroni cheese and a huge salad!

Our last few days of a very short holiday

On Friday we went to our favourite thermal baths and listened to whales under water and Mozart. Every now and then we went outside to the larger pool seen here where we were swirled around in the jet pool and lay on the bubble beds, had our heads and necks pummelled under jets of water and stood in intense bubble pools to aerate our bodies. We both went to the Hammam and steamed ourselves into a coma then back for a last whale and Mozart refrain before hauling ourselves out and home for a late lunch. We are trying to eat all the food that OAP in his squirrel like fashion bought when we first arrived! We worked out that if we cook masses of food and consume it every night we wont have to throw anything away! He bought 46 eggs for God's sake - I never want to see an egg again! We are down to two packs of chicken breasts, a pizza and 500 gms mince - I shall be glad to go back on diet again would you believe - well, OK, I don't believe it either!! But I will try as I really enjoyed my smaller figure and the fact that all my clothes fitted better and nothing pinched. Only trouble was that I had just splashed out on larger clothes but I am sure that one day I will fit back in them (especially if I go on eating like this!).

Yesterday, after a huge eggy breakfast, we took the telecabine up to the top and walked up higher to see the "new lake". What a disappointment! There was no water in it! But apparently it fills during October and November and the water is used for making snow on the slopes. This last winter, we are told, it came in very handy as they had strange weather and very little snow in the middle of the season. They were able to make snow on the slopes every night and none of the visitors realised it wasn't God-given natural snow! Itwould be nice if it was full during the summer months especially as they apparently had one of the wettest June and Julys in years! Perhaps its just as well we couldn't come here earlier. After walking down through the trees to Taveyenne we found our favourite picnic spot and had bread, cheese and water for lunch then slogged back up to the Telecabine and back down to our car.

Today we are in "preparation for close down" mode. OAP is doing the paperwork which he always leaves till the last minute and I am packing clothes and bedding away. We had a 3 month let last winter and are hoping for one again this winter. I don't have to leave bedding out for them so am packing it all neatly into plastic bags and storing it. We have done a lot of ruthless clearing out this visit - OAP actually managed to go through a suitcase filled with his ex's and son's clothing. He, of course in true squirrel fashion, tried to keep the lot but after he left me alone in the garage (where the case was stored) I managed to weed out lots from his "keep" pile, then rushed it all off to the decheterie (the most organised, cleanest, tip you have ever seen! EVERYTHING is carefully sorted and put into special bins. They wouldn't even take the clothing until I had bought bags and seperated it: Mens and ladies, pants, shirts, socks, undies, etc.). We now have a bit more room to store stuff when we leave on Wednesday.

I can't wait to get back to Utopia to see how the garden is doing, I looked on the weather report and it showed rain but that doesn't really mean much as it can be raining cats and dogs in Utopia and not anywhere else and vice versa.

Swiss Autumn

After a weekend living in a cloud and with constant rain, this morning dawned sunny and beautiful and this was the view from our patio! A breathtaking picture postcard and the reason we come back here year after year (oh yes, we also come here because we only need one key whereas at home in SA we have a huge bunch each!)