Ballerina Girl

 

After yesterday weird day, I was thankful not to wake up to an alarm telling me to get up. After a lovely sleep in, we had to go watch our little ballerina girl, Rebekah.

 

Marco's Cube

It is Marco's birthday on the Wednesday coming up and so we had a birthday espetadas braai in celebration. It was supposed o start at 12 noon but our tenant gave us short notice and a potential lessee wanted to come see the cottage at 3pm and knowing that Marco's braais start at least 3 hours after the due start time, I volunteered to wait and so the lessee around. I finally got to Marco and Robynne's home about 3:30pm only to find Marco still preparing the espetadas.

After a lovely evening of espatadas and salads, a Rubic Cube shape birthday cake was brought out for Marco. 

Angry Birds

Oh look what Marco found, Chuck, the Angry Bird cap. Now I tell him not to smile but give me his angry bird face, perfect. Tonight we checked into this platteland farmhouse built in 1849 and has been in this boer family since. And now we are telling ghost stories. There is zero cell phone reception unless I stand on my bed with my phone held high but I need to stay awake because I know as soon as I close my eyes there would be a creak somewhere down the passage.

It is nearly midnight, the witching hour. What was that sound, oh just an owl.

Marco and Calvin

Ahhh the last day of the Rand Easter Show, it couldn't come earlier although I must say I didn't do badly at the show, being here everyday even through the quiet weekdays, it all paid off in the end.

Marco and Calvin came to help out at the stand over the weekend. even on weekends, sales only tended to come from 3pm onwards. Mornings was a long wait but the few leads pays off in the end. I can't wait for the coming week. Somewhere during the past week, I hurt my lower back and I am struggling just to get going in the morning. It is getting progressively worse so I think I better go see the back doctor. 

Mixed Christmas

Christmas Day we all gathered at Robynne and Marco’s home for a Christmas lunch of mixed traditions. The normal Christmas foods that we are used to plus traditional South African braai, Madeiran Espetadas, and Durban Indian curried prawns. Ahhh these mixed families gatherings like to spice things up.

Merry Christmas everyone

Being the Tourist

They say while in Rome, do what the Romans do, so even though I grew up here, the family didn’t so while on holiday at the lower South Coast, why not do the tourist thing. This is us being the tourists.

First on our agenda was the famous Waffle House in Ramsgate for a yummy waffle breakfast. The morning was slightly nippy as the sun still had to warm up so it was hot Mocca to start while Matthew had tea, of course while we waited for our waffles.

A visit to Ramsgate Beach was squeezed in between the waffles and our next tourist stop, the Butterfly World as it was now starting to get warmer. The wind had picked up and the sea a little choppy so we didn't stay long before we were off again.

Now the Butterfly World was a little of a disappointment as it seemed a little run down. Maybe it is supposed to look like a grotto but the decor did not get a huge thumbs up from me. As for the butterflies, well there were lots and lots of Golden Piper butterflies everywhere but not a lot of other species. But for our grand daughter they were the thing to see. Along with the butterflies Rebekah was also enthralled with the tiny tortoises.

By now it was way past Rebekah’s bedtime, so Marco, Robynne and Rebekah headed back to our holiday apartment while Lynda, Bradley, Matthew, and I headed inland to the Oribi Gorge. I spent many times up here at Murchison, Paddock, Oribi Flats, and of course the two gorges. So acting as the tour guide I showed my charges the spectacular Oribi Gorge. But as usual I didn't pay too much attention to the fuel as being a tourist guide was taking a lot out of me and by now my guests were getting tired. But even though we were a little low on fuel we did managed to get back to the coast on a whiff of a oil rag.

Chronological Life Application

On Christmas day when we were handing out presents, Marco, when receiving ours, he said that he hopes it was a bible as he always wanted one. Sadly it wasn't but we never forgot his words and when his birthday came round, which is today, a group of us clubbed together and presented him with the Chronological Life Application Study Bible. Marco loves history and is always intrigued about how things fit into life, now this bible has a lot of behind the scenes history and explanations building up to the passages, hence why we chose this bible for him.

Oh and why Robynne is wearing bunny ears, well I will let her explain that.

Iconic Christmas

Family means a lot to me even though I am not one who enjoys too much family company but on Christmas Day family means the most to me especially big family gatherings. During today’s Christmas lunch at Marco and Robynne’s home, Robynne handed me her phone to take a photo of the family and this is the iconic photo taken.

From left to right are Marco, Shekinah, Kojak, John, Joshua, Bradley, Dael, Lynda, and Robynne all in different poses. Sadly Hilton, Matthew, Rebekah and I were out of the photo. Hopefully next year I will rectify that.

Hey Granddad, why did you leave me out?

So as for my family pictured above and those who are not, we wish you all a meaningful Christmas with much peace, joy and most of all, LOVE in abundance.

Rebekah don’t Recognise

Marco from Custom Couches went away for a few days to deliver couches in Vryburg and Durban and when he returned today he was sporting a new look. Gone was the long hair and beard. The fresh new look took his daughter, our grand daughter, Rebekah but surprise that she refused to go near him as she did not recognised her own daddy.

Content Team Minus Litha

It is Friday already. What happened to this week? Here is the Content Team minus Litha. Get low and dirty with client's content are Noma, and Marco, well and the missing Litha. Enjoy your weekend, dudes and dudettes.

Big Clean

At the office, to make more room for the expansions, the boardroom division was taken down which made a considerable amount of drywall dust. Here is our CEO, Richard, manning the vacuum cleaner with the amused Bakang, Marco, and Noma looking on.

Work Happens

In the so called naughty corner, work continues to happen even though the atmosphere in the office has become very heavy and not very satisfying. Well that is how things go sometimes, I have to just hold my chin up and take one step forward at a time.

The only thing keeping me going is the great grace that placed me here for a reason and I am still breathing.

Here is Bakang, Noma, Litha and Marco all little busy bees. Work Happens!

Back To Work

It is back to work I go, I owe, I owe. Yip I have being back at work now since Monday but my loss yesterday over saturated my hours with grief. When I received that phone call about 10am yesterday, I was so shocked that couldn't even talk to the vet at all. I had to walk out of my open plan office outside where the tears and howling started. Why did this have to happen? After pulling myself together, I made a few phone calls and left to fetch Skye. On the way across the city, my shock turned to anger. I wanted to blame someone. I don't have much memory of the conversations I had with the vet but I do recall something about Skye having a heart attack because of fluid around his heart. I have blamed my work, the vets, and myself. But who else can I blame other than myself?

I am trying to keep myself busy while at work but the time I spent with Skye seems the focus now. Looking through my blog post over the last few weeks, one thing is apparent, most of them are of Skye. Now I better put up another type of a back to normal post, although nothing is normal anymore without Skye.

Back at the office the content team is Delia-less, and today the team of Noma, Marco and Litha, dived straight into the deep end to strategise the few months ahead. While on the technical side, that’s me, I have been uber busy running reports which have helped me from crashing and burning into depression.

Tschüss

It is time to sigh and say goodbye, to a good friend Delia. So long, farewell, au revoir, auf weidersehen, time to say goodbye, till we meet again.

Here is the content team, from left to right, though good times and bad, we have such memories, Litha, Louise, Delia, Marco, Noma and Bakang.

Tschüss Delia.

Marco Toilet

After all the sorrow over the last few days, let's get serious! Now why such a heading, Marco Toilet along with Marco having that look on his face? It can't be a new version of the game Marco Polo. Well the story goes like this, Marco decided that he needed to use the bathroom and when he locked the door behind him, the key broke and he found himself incarcerated inside the toilet cubicle.

I am not sure how loud he shouted for help or how hard did he bang on the door because we heard nothing back in the office, nor did any alarm bells ring that he was missing in action, excuse my pun, so no search parties were sent out.

Marco, states that it must have been between 15 to 30 minutes before anyone heard his cries for help and came to investigate. Here is the recently released prisoner pointing to the offending toilet door that had him under lock and key.

Wheel Bearings

Last week sometime my pickup's wheel bearings starting moaning and I was hoping to limp it along until my leave which arrives in 18 days time at which time I can repair it myself. But this morning on the way to work it suddenly got worse so I had to turn around and head back. I spoke to the mechanic who repaired my car last time to see if he could squeeze my pickup in but no he was too busy. This means that I had to do it myself so I bought the spares and headed home.

On arriving home I saw my landlord's mechanic on the property and asked him if he could do it for me. Perfect timing but I ended up late for work on my Vespa. Anyway arriving at work, I found that we have a new colleague in the Content Department. So this is why there is a photo of Marco instead of something from my bad start to the Monday.

Over for Dinner

"Come over to my parlour" said the spider to the fly. No not quite the right way to start this blog post. Lynda's daughter Robynne and her fiancé Marco had their house cleaned out by burglars on Tuesday, so now they came over for dinner. Well I shouldn't say cleaned out as they tossed all the contents from every part of the house onto the floor in search of valuables to steal.

Marco and Robynne are all right as it happened while they were at work only to come home and find all their electronic goods gone and all that remained was the mess.

Robynne and Marco

Okay first some feedback from yesterday's post. Warren, who claimed to be the store manager of Epsom Downs Pick n Pay phoned to apologise and to give his side of the story. The aisle shown in yesterday's photo is the aisle which the staff are busy in re packing the shelves and that is why it looked like it did. The packers must have already gone home and left all the price tags scattered all over the floor with empty boxes and crates lying about. As for the no plastic bags in the entire store, well that was not correct as they did according to Warren have plastic bags at the back. Well what good are they in the back when none of the tills had bags to place the groceries in. Warren also stated on the phone that when he heard that someone (us) was making a noise about the store not having plastic bags, he tried to find us to offer us an alternate but we had already left. Uhmmm, ja right.

He did say that he will get the packers to clean up after them and refund us the money we had to spend to buy alternate bags to put our shopping in. So we have to go back although we afraid to but not today as we have guests over for dinner which was the reason why we had to make an unscheduled stop at a Pick n Pay.

Here is Robynne, Lynda's daughter and her fiancé Marco. Dinner was sweet buttered chicken on rice with vegetables plus yummy dessert. Now I am ready for bed.

Agelastic

Ahhh, a new word for today, agelastic, which is a rare Greek derived word because people affected by this agelast condition eventually find the humour in the world around them :-( Me on the other hand tend to err on the side of gelastic not quite hyper but nearly there. By a strange condition I bumped into Marco having his haircut. He was trying not to smile as I snapped away. Don't panic. So long and thanks for all the fish.

The Chimney sweeps

Jayden, Marco, Matthew and Michael