10th Feb - Happy birthday Mila!

Mila opening her birthday presents.


















Mila's birthday cake - beautifully decorated by Mila and Skye.....









Birthday party at the Lodge.

A quick thanks

There is no way to properly thank everybody for all of their help with us getting here.

Well, I'm sure there actaully is, but I am not well, (poor soldier), and this way will be quicker and easier, and will be just enough to ease my concience.


The person who lent us his trailer.
The good news is you cannot see any rust any more.
It is all covered in mud.
I never thought we would get the trailer up to our actual cottage, bearing in mind that the last 3 kilometersis 4 x 4 only. But we did.
With only one jack-knife, one unpack of the entire trailer to get it over a bad stretch, and we only had to jack it up once when we were stuck really deeply.
It makes a perfect extra storage area outside covered by its tarp.
I put 300 bar in the tyres on the way up, and they still looked like they had puncture. Might have been a bit heavily loaded.
Thanks.
And thanks for driving it through for us the day before we left.


The fridge. This poor thing has been banged and bashed around and I was sure it would not work anymore.
It does. Beautifully.
It is something we would not be able to do without.
Thank you to the person who donated it.
Thank you to the person who serviced and delivered it.
It still has a sticker of a smiling banana on the front door.
It is connected to the gas supply with a gardena garden hosepipe fitting.
Works like a bomb.


Thanks for the shelves guys.
They are lifesavers.
We have set a new world record for what we can store in a very limited amount of space.


The oil lanterns and the hand made curtains look fantastic and were the first things up.
We haven't forgotten the promise of a painting, and are keeping a spot clear above our bed on the wall.


For the record, the Penn reel was droken before I got it.
I will fix it and catch a lot of fish with it.
Engraving you rname in the steel was clever.
But seeing as we share the same surname, I think my metal file and sandpaper could do the business and file off the first name.
Haven't figured out have to engrave my name in its place, but will put google to the test.


For all the people who donated clothes, plastic chairs, tables and toys for the early learning centre. Thank you. I thought of you all while I was packing and unpacking.


Thanks for the pump, dude.
Hope to dig down to a spring and put it to the test.


And for keeping the girls occupied for our first week and setting a precedent with the home schooling. Thanks to you both.

Over and out.

Damn you Imodium - why won't you work.

I rushed outside last night in gumboots, a t-shirt and a towel wrapped around my waist. It was 2am and raining. I got about 50 meters away from the house and then dug furiously.
It was a sexy sight I'll bet.
The new dog followed me down and lay staring through the entire episode with its head resting on its paws.
Unnerving, but at least there was a trace of sympathy in the canine eyes.
I am getting no sympathy from Sonja on the other hand. Apparently my cramps are not comparable to child birth. (Says who?), and besides which, if I want to show off and eat raw cows stomach crawling with salmonella, Ecolli, and heaven knows what else, picked clean with somebodies dirty fingers, and left in the sun for 5 hours - well then, my stomach complaints are my own problem.

Whatever happened to "for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health"
I thought it was a sacred vow.

The look in her eyes says it all. Her mouth says "shame my love". Her eyes say, toughen up and get with the program.

Wimp.

My basic strategy is to soldier (bravely) on. (sort of sullenly)
And every now and again let everybody know just how terrible I feel with a load groan, which generally gets ignored.

I will not eat cows stomach again. Well, not unless it is cleaned properly and cooked in some way.

I have rented an "office" from a neighbour for R300 per month. It is a small room, about 3 x 4 meters, but I at least now have some sort of work area.

Besides squeezing in a days work, today's tasks involve spending an hour with Skye (aged 8 and eleven twelfths. I'm not nine yet dad!)
I am in charge of home schooling her in Literacy and Natural Science.
Poor kid.
She knows a lot of swear words from hanging around with her dad.
Amazingly she doesn't use any of them. Instead, two seconds after hitting my index finger full on with a hammer (no kidding) - she chastises me for swearing.
Nice. A living, talking conscience. I now have four.
I am trying to remind myself why we decided to raise free thinking and outspoken children.
If you have young children, - go the Victorian route.

My other tasks involve putting up two hanging areas for clothes.
This involves finding two pieces of long driftwood, that are narrow enough for a clothes hanger to hang from, and then suspending them from the rafters.
Voila - two cupboards for hanging clothes.

The rafters are well used.
I lashed four branches of driftwood together in a big rectangle and suspended this above our kitchen area. All the pots and pans now hang from this.
We also have bags of onions, potatoes, and oranges hanging in the kitchen area, fly paper hanging in all the rooms, and of course oil lanterns.

After lunch I will take the kids down in the bakkie (pick-up) to collect some bigger logs from the beach to make seating for around our outside cooking area. I have also spotted a really heavy, chunky piece of driftwood, that seems to be a hard wood, that I want to bring up to use as a chopping block for our fire wood.

Later in the afternoon we will make some home made bread on our outdoor fireplace.
When we make the fire for this we will also burn all the rubbish that we can (paper, board etc)
When we have our garden and composting system set up we will be able to use this here, rather than burn it.

That leaves the last two tasks which are fixing up a low coffee table for us to eat on inside, and putting up the last of the guttering along the one side of the house. Until that is up we are losing about 30% of our collection potential.

Great. A sudden pang, a sharp cramp, and that is me off down the hill.
A four hundred meter scramble (book in hand) with a pained expression on my face.

Brave little soldier.
I wish it was only birthing pain.