Never Shop With a Partner!

Don't ever go to the nursery with a partner who has eaten a good lunch and now just wants to go home and put his feet up!! I made that mistake yesterday when OAP and I called in at the local nursery in the valley to buy a replacement shrub for the one that died during winter. While I was all gung ho to buy the place out, OAP clutched his wallet firmly to his chest and dragged around looking at the prices of the plants! You know, if its a piece of clothing I want he is dreadfully generous, encouraging me to buy whatever I want, but when it comes to plants he is not too keen. I suppose this is because most of them die while we are in SA and I have to buy new ones every year. Mostly he is keen for me to wander around with a pair of secateurs and a plastic bag secreted in my pocket and filch cuttings from every plant I like! Nevertheless we did manage to agree on two shrubs and four rockery plants. Can't remember the names except the shrubs were Potentilla something - one bright yellow and the other orange and the rockery plants included Gypsophila repens and lobelia.
Back home, having missed a huge thunderstorm, we happily planted the new members of our Swiss family and hopefully they will do well over the summer. But my absolute best is going with my sister to the nursery - this is when I need a credit card to get through the till point though!!

The alpine storm could be seen from the valley, 1km below. The peaks were enveloped in thick dark grey clouds and thunder rumbled and lightning flashed and it was very majestic and awe inspiring. We had a few drops of rain on the windshield as we drove up the steep winding road home but otherwise all the rain had fallen at about 1300 metres and above!

This place is just so absolutely stunning that I have to keep looking at the view every half hour or so - that's when I am not sitting staring at it for hours on end or admiring it from the car as we drive up and down the mountains! Until yesterday it didn't realise it was actually summer and this is the sort of view we got daily as the moisture from the valley, 1 kilometre below, rose each day until we were enveloped in a thick mist. This pic is a bit of a cheat as it was on the OAP's computer from a previous summer visit. Presumably once the mist is up at our level it is then clear down in the Rhone valley. When it's a white-out like this we just sit indoors and watch Wimbledon and soccer on TV! But its now officially summer and today was roasting hot with all the locals wandering around in sleeveless shirts and shorts with nasty pallid legs and arms showing! Even so, there is still a lot of snow on the peaks just a couple of hundred metres above us , making it necessary to keep a jersey close by for when the wind blows. Normally I live in South Africa in the bush where I have mesh on the windows to keep out the monkeys and baboons, but here I have put fine mosquito netting to keep out the flies and midges! Also at night I like the bedroom window open but it's at ground level and I wonder what is wandering, slithering or creeping through the window! The mossy netting keeps most of that out too!

I got my little Acer loaded with the drivers I needed to make the internet link but on arriving home I couldn't make it work so will now have to spend a further half hour or so on the phone to the Swisscom helpline in order to fix the problem. I wouldn't mind but I am always worried that I will get the same guy each time! They all sound alike, are scrupulously polite and very nice but I am sure they think I am an utter ass!! I even had to ask what a browser was when one of them told me to open mine! Why didn't he just say Internet Explorer? For that matter, why do all experts make technical stuff sound so difficult? Most of it is not hard if you know what the bits and bobs are called.

Wimbledon is great this year. I don't normally bother with the first week as I find them a bit boring but this year Nadal was lucky to hang in to win his first match and then the match that lasted 11 hours and ended in a tie break of something like 70 - 68!! You can't ask for better nail biters than those!

We've been here over a week now and yesterday the sun came out and for the first time we were able to leave the apartment without hats, gloves and scarves!! So where did we go? To the nursery of course! To buy bright red geraniums, white alpine rock jasmine and a shocking purple clematis called "Etoile de Violette" - Purple Star! I can't wait for it to flower and climb up its trellis. Every year we arrive at the end of July and so the intense growing period is essentially over and each year I buy new geraniums and a climber and it always dies in winter. But this year we will get a lot of pleasure from them before we leave at the end of September. It's gut wrenching to leave and know no-one will water or protect the plants, but then I do the same in SA and for the most part they somehow survive. Not sure about our new trees this year as, although I covered 12 of the most tender before we left, we heard that one night it was 8 degrees below freezing and many of the water pipes burst!

The birds here are lovely (not as many and not as lovely as SA) and feeding like mad at the feeders. The Blue Jays and Nutcrackers love the peanuts and sumflower seeds and the smaller birds go for the millet and peanuts. The chocolate brown squirrel with his tufty ears and white bib comes to eat up the left overs the birds drop to the ground as he can't manage to reach the feeders. We laugh when he tries as he looks just like the squirrel from Ice Age trying to reach his acorn which is JUUUUST out of reach! He climbs onto the balcony above and hanging by his toenails just can't get onto the feeds but he can touch them , which only makes them swing wildly. So down he comes and onto the table and from there he reeeeaches up but he's nowhere near. Poor frustrated squirrel!

We've had a couple of walks but the OAP's hip is really giving him problems and he hobbles along - it's really sad to watch him as he used to be such a strong hiker. Today a walk that normally takes an hour at most took us nearly two and last week he sat on a bench half way home from the village below while I puffed my way home and collected the car to fetch him.

We have managed to blow up yet another computer! How many does this make? I really and truly have lost count! Yesterday we bought a new light fitting for the kitchen which has always been like the black hole of Calcutta. The OAP switched off the electricity while he took down the old fitting and put up the new one, when we switched the power back on there was a loud bang from the spare room and on investigation we discovered that something had blown up in the tower of the desktop! This happened to me in Benmore when the tower was full of dust and when I switched on one day it blew up. SO - one step forward and two steps back and off we go to Alex, two villages below and no English whatsoever, to explain the problem and hope he can help without too much expense. I meant to bring our newish Toshiba over and leave it here to act as our resident computer but a friend of ours told us that we will kill the battery if we leave it unused for more than 3 months. Not that it would really matter as it will run off mains here. But as it was we didn't bring it in the end. Typical! BUT my OAP insisted on bringing his ancient Thinkpad - just as well as that's what I am now using as I couldn't connect my Acer as I need the drivers to be loaded and as it doesn't have a built in CD drive I have to get it loaded via a memory stick, which I didn't bother to bring!

Speaking of which - I think I must have left my brain behind with all the chargers and wires for our various electrical goodies! I brought my Omnia i900 to use as a GPS and didn't bring either the house or car charger, or the cable to connect it to the computer so I can download maps from the internet! I brought my Nintendo so I can Train My Brain every day - two days into our trip and it showed a red light meaning recharge. Uh Oh - no charger in baggage! No cable to upload pics from the camera to the computer - therefore no pics on my Blog! Grrrr!

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.