Day Before 21

We had to make the long trip across town to Benoni to pick up Matthew's laptop bag because he had his ID book in the bag and he needs it for Monday. But I decided we should make it a day and visit my Aunty Rene in Pretoria. So we stopped for shortbread cookies, as my aunt loves shortbread and inventively gatecrashed my 2nd cousin Simon's 21st birthday party. Well Simon's birthday is actually tomorrow but they could get the whole family together today so why not.

Simon, Tony, Alex, and Matthew

All we wanted was visit my aunt and the whole side of their family was there. Well we aren't that big in family get togethers but Matthew and I were well received, I supposed because we not often in the area, it was good to catch up on family.

Debbie and Matthew

To Cut or Not

To cut or not to cut, that is the question. I want Matthew to cut his hair as it is not looking neat but Matthew likes his hair long, so he posed the question in a poll to all his friends and family yesterday on the way home from Benoni. This morning the poll was slightly in favour of cutting his hair, yay at least some sense is prevailing.

Turn the Lights On

It is going to snow. Yes this street light at the end of our street, right outside my home has not worked since we moved in, nearly one and a half years ago. I have reported it to City Power on numerous occasions, yes I have all the reference numbers should you request, after reporting it again yesterday, guess who showed up today. Yes you guessed it, give the dog a done, City Power turned up to repair the non working street light.

After discovering that electricity was not getting to the light pole, they discovered that the wires had burned out at the light pole before this one. A quick repair, and...

Nothing. electricity is now getting to the bottom of the pole but not reaching to top where it is needed. After changing the globe it still was not working, so they deduced that it must be the actual light fitting. So they promise to return again on Monday with a new light fitting. 

So I am actually looking forward to having some light at the cul-de-sac as it would shed light at the gate into the veldt.  

Sometin is Growing

About to go splat, yet here I am calm as a daisy. Who came up with that? I mean who knows what a daisy feels like? I went out and did my neighbourly duties by doing a neighbourhood patrol for the local watch. Out there in the neighbourhood, I feel like I am part of Commander Sam Vimes' Watch. Two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it.

There is this white vagrant who I have seen on numerous occasions in my area. Mostly pushing a shopping trolley of recyclable goods that he has managed to scavenged. On my patrol today, I came across him and stopped to find out more about him. His name is Donald and from what I can tell he is an addict and is living in the veldt next to the home of his mom and step-dad. I don't the story behind why he is living on the streets other than it must be his addiction which brought him to this low place. I just wonder what can I do without feeding his addiction.

So the Watch, is not pretty at all but is is a necessity. Arriving home with this cloud of depression over my left shoulder, I saw a flash of green where there aren't supposed to be green, at the intercom system. Strange that life finds a way to grow where life aren't supposed to be. 

I am still holding on to life as I believe God is in control, no matter what the circumstances are, I am a child of God and He is a good, good father.

Restorative Care

Kittykie is not doing too well. She stopped breathing twice that I know about since last night. She is hungry and when she tries to eats, the food hardly can pass her phlegmy throat before she coughs it all up again.

I had to get Kittykie some Restorative Care a/d, a high protein pet food in a chicken pâté form. She hungrily tried some but then went into a chocking fit. At least she managed to keep some down, I hope.

Sick Kitty

Keep still, Kitty, I know that you are not well. Just let the vets see to you and make it all better.

Poor Kittykie, she is one sick granny puddy tat. The symptoms are similar to cat asthma and she is battling to breathe with all that phlegm in her throat.  

Protea Stump

Yesterday a huge bush fire erupted from an illegal ZCC church gathering on private land. This fire just about decimated the grazing of the endangered Mountain Reedbuck. The teams that went in to stop the fire were shocked to find 12 illegal pilgrim groups, over 200 cut down protea trees, and to make matters worse, a dead Mountain Reedbuck was found in a snare. :-(

This morning I went into the portion of veldt outside my home, I found only a pilgrim couple praying on my side but on the other side of the valley, it was dotted with pilgrims very 100m or so. I found a number of cut protea trees too, this one stump shown above which was cut down some time ago is struggling to regrow and it doesn't help if the branches are broken off regularly. 

This has to stop!

Mustang Frank

Move over Sally, Mustang Frank is in town, and he is passionate about men of God and this morning at a Men's Breakfast I attended, Frank was the keynote speaker and he gave his testimony. Wow was it passionate and from the heart.

Office with a View

After yesterday's traffic, it was a relief to sitting in a meeting room with a view like this. This morning I had a meeting with Andrew from the South African National Botanical Gardens, Bill from the Wild Orchids of South Africa, Belinda from the Proteadal Conservation Association, Johann from the Black Eagles Project, Tony an ecologist, and Dawid a photographer, and this was our view.

Nice to have all this beauty right slap in the middle of urban sprawl.

Traffic Eejets

We all have to wait in the traffic, yet there are some eejets who simply cannot obey the law. This eejet along with the local taxis think that they are better than everyone else, that the traffic laws don't apply to them.

Breathe in, Jerome, Breathe out. Two days ago I was nearly taken out by a clap out pickup jumping a red traffic light, just because it was red doesn't apply to him, and all his passengers sitting in the bin who all would have died if I had being just a half a meter forward. 

Breathe in, breathe out. Well thankfully I am not always in this type of rush hour traffic.

Rabbit Patrol

Every now and again, I help out at our local neighbourhood watch with patrols. Basically you drive slowly around the neighbourhood, armed with direct access to the local ops room to report anything out of place in the neighbourhood.

For me the main thing I get out of the patrols, is that I get to find out all the streets around me, and sometimes meet some of the residents. Here are 2 causally warming themselves in the winter sun. 

Rabbit Patrol Over and Out!

The Kiss

Who remembers the Shoop Shoop song, it's in his kiss, that's where it is, in the kiss. Yeah River Song and Rosy show how it is done, in the dog and cat kiss. This is like Romeo and Juliet, the 2 are sneaking a kiss without any of the other dogs and cats seeing. Uhmmm but I saw, them.

Does he love me, I want to know

How can I tell if he loves me so

Is it in his eyes, oh no you'll be deceived

Is it in his eyes, oh no you'll make believe

If you want to know, if he loves you so

It's in his kiss

That's where it is, oh yeah

It is in the kiss!

Made in China

Looking back over the weekend, I find it hard to believe that my best friend Robbie was up from Pietermarizburg and stayed over, yet there is no mention of him in my weekend posts, uhmmm. Okay Robbie I suppose you are grateful because you don't like your photo taken.

Anyways with 2 weeks till month end, I better get cracking. So first thing is off to see a client downtown. Walking up the steps of to get to the factory office I pasted this bag of Polyac ABS resin from a Chinese company called Chimei, just standing there on a landing corner along with a mop, bucket, and a worn out broom.

On the way out, as I past the bag of resin that was covered in Chinese writing, I thought of my photo a day shot. Not much of a composition but that is how I found them. Anyways it brings the stark reality of the Chinese colonisation that is quietly taking over the world, even in the little cleaning things. Still not sure what the resin was there for. Maybe it was just the bag that was getting reused in the cleaning.  

Our Song

Ahhh Father's Day, another commercial day like the many others which companies have exploited to the hilt but today it was good just spending time with Matthew my son before I had to take him back to varsity in Pretoria. 

The song we remember each other is from the late Avicii, it is our song forever, these are the nights that never die. The following are Avicii's words which are now ours...

Hey, once upon a younger year when all our shadows disappeared, the animals inside came out to play. Hey, when face to face with all our fears, learned our lessons through the tears. Made memories we knew would never fade. One day my father, he told me, "Son, don't let it slip away". He took me in his arms, I heard him say, "When you get older your wild life will live for younger days. Think of me if ever you're afraid." He said, "One day you'll leave this world behind so live a life you will remember." My father told me when I was just a child, these are the nights that never die. My father told me when thunder clouds start pouring down, light a fire they can't put out. Carve your name into those shinning stars. He said, "Go venture far beyond the shores. Don't forsake this life of yours. I'll guide you home no matter where you are."

My father told me these are the nights that never die, my father told me...

Youth of Today

The youth of today never had it so good yet at the same time never had it so bad. I mean, we never had all these electronic goods that nearly every kid now have when we grew up. We used to play outside and our parents struggled to get us back in, whereas now it is the other way round. You try get any of today's kids outside to play with their cellphone or tablet.

Anyways today in South Africa is Youth Day, where we honour the struggle the kids went through in apartheid South Africa. Now the youth of today have a better South Africa or have they? 

Puppy Proof

I suppose nothing is puppy proof but I have to try. Matthew and I went out and bought these wattle fencing to encircle our wash line and vegetable garden because River Song who is now 8 months old is one destructive puppy.

No washing on the wash line is safe and you should see the state of our once magnificent vegetable garden, it is a desert, a dust bowl of nothingness, hence the new endeavour of making it puppy proof.

Being Frank

Let me be frank with you, today is my birthday and driving back home after spending the majority of my day with Frank working on his company's website, Metal Cross, I thought wow, this has being a very productive day and I felt good, real good, something that I have not felt for a long time.

Yes, we men need to feel that we have accomplished something, that we are providing for the family, like my one friend Mike likes to say, "going out and killing the bull". we want to feel that our lives are not just meaningless but have a purpose. 

So the best part of my day today, was that I was working.

Wash Machine

Oh my goodness, I had a wash machine fail today. I am not sure why a lot of soup suds came pouring out of the top of my wash machine. So here I am standing in front of my wash machine and my thoughts went to my favourite statistician, the late Hans Rosling, who did my favourite talk about the wash machine. See the talk here. 

Okay have you watched the video? To a lot of people in Africa, a wash machine is a luxury as they live below the poverty line, not like me who lives above the wash line but below the air line. Well I not sure how long my wash machine will last at this rate.

Yummiest

Cake Soup Bread, awesome name for a band baby, a band. Matthew tried his hand baking a cake and this is the result... a chocolate cake smothered in pink icing. I haven't tried any of it yet, that I will save it for a few days time as I think Matthew's first cake will be better then ;-) 

This evening we had a Soup and Pudding evening at Connect group. Yip butternut soup yummy, finished off with more yummiest bread and butter pudding. Not sure that is an actual word yummiest but if not now it is, yummiest!

Forget about who has the best Connect group in the Centre Church, for us at the West Rand Connect, there is no competition, we can't compete with the others but we do know we are a flawed group of people that call each other family. We have a long way to go but soup and pudding helps us to be blessed to be a blessing.

Care Centre Fail

Winter is in full swing and I had to go refill a gas bottle for the heater. Driving up to the gas depot, I drove over a number of electrical cables running across the road leading up to the depot on Albertina Sisulu Road. Looking around all I could see was illegal connections everywhere. It is so bad that they are even hanging dangerously close to a children's day care centre at is situated right next to the Princess Squatter Camp. 

No wonder Eskom wants to push the price up for electricity and at the same time refuse to give their employees a pay increase. No wonder there is a potential downing of tools by our electrical monopoly's employees. 

I mean I drove over some live cables, and they run straight into the squatter camp at a dangerously low height. Surely this is a no go area for even the police with all the electrical death traps. God forbid a child should get electrocuted.

Sunday Carwash

It has been a strange day, this Sunday. We arrived at church this morning only to find out that we did not get the memo, church has been cancelled!

Okay not cancelled, just the one service which we were going to, oh dear. Never mind Jon gave us a personal one on one church. And since we were down the hill, we took the long way home via the car wash. Nothing like a clean car to get your hopes back up, nothing.

Leaning Tower of Burger

Leaning tower burger of no respect. Since Matthew had to missed a test due to his mom's passing, a rewrite was scheduled for this morning. I picked him up afterwards and we went to breakfast. Other than sushi, our other soul food is chicken burgers from KFC, especially the Tower Rounder.

Well today the tower was leaning very alarmingly that Matthew promptly stated that it was the Leaning Tower of Burger.

Super Lynda

Ahhh Super Lynda. She wasn't feeling well for a few days now and yesterday she just couldn't get out of bed. After a day in bed just like the doctor ordered, this super woman was rearing to go this morning, not. Yes hell might have freezed over this morning but the cold wasn't going to keep this good woman down. Armed with a scarf and bennie, she was on the go since the un-godly hours this morning and now she wakes me up with a cup of goodness.

Thank you for the coffee, now off you go, as you were.

Didn't Think

I don't know why I didn't think of this before. Maxy, my oldest Italian Greyhound, has this growth near his inner ear. It is quite painful if he bumps his head or opens his mouth too wide. Now with the boisterous River Song, my large 6 month old German Cross Belgium Shepherd puppy, just running around like a tank, Maxy has been keeping out of her way which is mostly up in the upstairs part of the dog house and he now hardly ventures out. Giving him soft foods have been a mission trying keep the other dogs away.

That was until today, my brain wave. The now defunct vegetable garden, ruined by River Song, and the washing line is enclosed off to the dogs, so I put a small doghouse that wasn't in use inside this enclosure and put Maxy inside. Now he can eat in peace and do one of his favourite things, bask in the sun as the vegetable garden gets lovely morning sun but by mid afternoon it gets cold which means I have to transfer him back to the heated dog house later.

He seems to perk up nicely now that he has his own patch of sun.

Aloe

On a Geek friend's chat group which I belong, someone posted "If your life just got a little harder, that probably means you just levelled up". What no fanfare and what sorts from levelling up in life? *I tilt my head, and try strain to hear for that danger music that normally plays faster when danger is closing in.

Lately my posts have been rather depressing, not that I am in a good place, but I have to pull my self out of getting harder level in my life. I am too old for this. Someone once said that when you are just surviving, it is almost impossible to dream. But when I am down, I like to curl into the smallest ball as I can, and dreams are my escape, my poison. And can I dream, yes I can.

Today has become a blur, not that I have been sleeping but I have been trying not to curl up. The sun was getting low, it is getting colder now that winter has arrived, and I found this fiery aloe. Ahhh God you are just teasing me. Don't you now that I am down. I don't need your handy work to brighten up my day. It seems I do.

Coffee Cake

Coffee cake, since I missed Kerry's chelsa buns last week, Kerry made a lovely and sweet coffee cake for Connect group today. Did I mention how cold this evening was, no? Brrrrrrr, I should have stayed in Hilton, as down there it was 9°C but here it was a freezing 0°C.

Kerry informed us that there was no coffee per say in the cake, but cinnamon. The cake is called coffee cake because you have it with coffee, dah. What ever ingredients, it was certainly a repeat.

Glimpses of the Cross

Well it is time to hit the road back to civilisation. After a good breakfast, I left Hilton and headed north. The weather closed in by the time I got to the Drankensberg, with the peaks of the mountain hidden by snow clouds. All I could do was to push through and on the other side it started to clear.

The temperatures were still about zero. Driving past Harrismith I caught glimpses of the cross on top of the Platberg mountain, the Free States own Table Mountain. 

By time I got to Gauteng, the snow clouds where behind me, icy cold blue skies above, and in front lay Johannesburg, sitting under a brooding layer of smog due to a winter's inversion layer which traps the pollution low to the ground. I just had to put my head down and drive into the haze. 

Private Dancer

I'm your private dancer, dancer for money. I'll do what you want me to do... no no no, wrong Tina. This is Tina and Eddy, not Tina Turner and Ike. 

Now how could I ever get so confused, well any ways, Tina and her husband Eddy are also staying with us at Robbie's place in Hilton. They are down from Johannesburg for a 21st next door at Tim and Fiona's. Now they are beekeepers and this is one thing that I would love to do so we had plenty to talk about other than the commonality of families and religious upbringing as they are ex-Brethren like me, hence the confusing about private dancers.

Note to self: We must get together in Jozi and follow up on beekeeping.

Bunny Box

Well when in Rome, do what the Romans do, and since I am in Pietermarizburg or Sleepy Hollow, I thought I better eat something unique to this place but I could not find that uniqueness. Now Pietermarizburg is just up the drag from Durban, and the Durban speciality is their curries, especially the Bunny Chow. 

No not real bunnies rabbits but a half loaf of bread, hollowed out and filled with some Durban curry be it chicken or mutton curry. Now while at the Royal Show, I have been eyeing out these Bunny Chows served in a box since I've been here, and since today has been rather busy, I rewarded myself with a Bunny Box.

Is our God too small?

Our God is too small!

Something has to give. All around me everyone is wearing orange, you would think it is the queen's birthday in the Netherlands but sadly it is more sinister than nationalistic fever. Today everywhere you look in KwaZulu-Natal most people have had enough of gun violence by wearing something orange after 9 year old Sadia Sukhraj was tragically killed in a shoot-out on Monday after a high-jacking, then yesterday a Kelly Chetty was killed in front of his children in a blogged high-jacking. And this morning bullets went flying when a mini war broke out over taxi routes between Pietermarizburg and Howick. Oh what has the Last Outpost become? I thought I had gotten away from all the violence of Gauteng only to find that this indiscriminate killing has spread even to the peaceful corners of South Africa. Oh cry my beloved country.

Wearing orange is okay to bring some sense that we are standing up together as one but will it help when even pastors of churches are carrying guns. Yes you read correctly, the little girl who was killed, her father is a pastor and he pulled out his gun and a battle ensued between him and the high-jackers of his car with the small child still sitting in the back seat. Is no one is safe any more that even God is too small to protect that even his servants have to arm themselves?

So is our God too small?

I remember once, many moons ago, an evangelistic preacher from Kenya who had moved to South Africa, once asked me my opinion on if he should have bodygaurds after visiting a church in Rustenburg whose pastor had bodygaurds. My answer then is the same as now, NO. Your God is big enough. If you have to have people to protect you then your God is too small. The word pastor derives from the word shepherd. Act like a shepherd not a warrior. Get people to run interference if you have to but not bodygaurds, and not carrying guns either. Even running interference is walking too close to the line. Jesus's disciples tried to run interference once, and Jesus had to chastise them, by saying let the children come, you know the story and it is not the only one. Take the women who was so desperate that she believed that all she needed was to touch the hem of Jesus' cloak.  

So to land this. Our God is NOT small so stop treating as such. Our God is more than enough.