Robbie, my best friend from school, is aging gracefully and not showing his age as I am although the rust on his crust aka red hair, is just about all grey with little to say that he was once had a full crop of red hair. Well I can't talk as I am just about bald with silver beard, yes I didn't grow grey like Robbie but like a silver back, I am a silver beard.
Although we didn't spend much time together, it was good catching up in the little time we had. His love life has changed since we last spoke last year, so ladies here is an eligible bachelor who potentially would make a desirable husband.
It is stinking hot. We were supposed to go to the Botanical Gardens this afternoon but I am afraid the heat just kept us in the shade. Nou gaan ons braai, now what other way is there than to have a braai to finish off the weekend with your best friend.
My best friend since High School, Robbie, phoned me a few weeks back letting me know that he is coming up to Johannesburg, well the main reason is that he met someone online and they are meeting up for the first time in Pretoria tomorrow. Yay, it is about time you find someone special Robbie.
Mixing business with pleasure, Robbie took the opportunity to see a few suppliers while he is up here and arrived at my home after getting a little lost just before the sun set. Anyways it is good to have him over the weekend as we have a lot of catching up to do, well since last year December when I was down in Natal.
Since we have new kittens added to our pack, gave me the perfect excuse to get another dog. Now I always wanted a new Italian Greyhound or Whippet but was thinking that maybe we need a bigger dog. I once visited friends Elke and Tomas, who bred wolves, their top female just had a litter of cubs.
Elkie and I went into the make-shift den, and Elke picked up one of the cubs and handed it to me, I held the cub but made the mistake of looking up, and I found mommy wolf, still laying on the same spot feeding the cubs but was staring me down. Intimidated I quickly looked down and past the little cub back to Elke. I remember Tomas once telling me that wolves aren’t aggressive but use their size to intimidate, I got it quite clear that day holding that wolf cub with my throat about a metre away from mommy wolf.
I am in the firm belief that you should have a pack with both small and big dogs. The small to be alert and the big for I got your back. Now my Italian Greyhounds are not that alert as they like to be nice a snug at night. My best friend, Robbie, who I am staying with, his 2 dogs just had puppies, The father Leo is a Belgium Shepard and mommy a German Shepard. And now I have to choose between 2 of my favourites, Little Leo, a black puppy looking a lot like his daddy, and Pepper who looks more like her mommy.
Because of my pack makeup, I would prefer a girl but like Little Leo’s colours, so now a choice has to be made Leo or Pepper.
I woke up this morning feeling much better, as my normal was catching up after such a stressful journey down. It was an early start as I had to get to Hayfields Bible Chapel in Pietermaritzburg by the 9:30am family service. I know I am a stickler for the old country Brethren upbringing.
Since the early start, I stopped at Gillitts for coffee. Just turning off the highway at the Hillcrest offramp was like driving into another dimension, white people everywhere. Yes, I hardly saw any white people in Durban. Even the night I arrived at Glenwood, where I was staying following my GPS I was taken into some dodgy areas with prostitutes on every corner and seedy looking potential drug suppliers lurking in the shadows. Arriving in Gillitts, there was joggers and cyclists doing their Sunday normal. It only dawned on me when standing in the queue between a skinny tall blonde haired lady with sparkling white teeth and a hipster sporting his designer beard and spandex cycling shorts. I carefully looked around, I was surrounded by only white people. Toto, I don’t think we are in South Africa any more.
This Assagay, Bothas Hill, Gillitts, and Hillcreast bubble is not normal yet they seem to be living normal. I mean even Assagay is spelt incorrectly, Ass-a-gay, what happened to Assegai the Zulu short spear. So I quickly continued inland towards Pietermaritzburg and while passing Camperdown, I had to pull over to the side of the highway to witness a flock of about 30 yellow billed kites gathering at a termite emergence. I was in awe watching these raptors swooping and catching the tiny flying ants by the wings and eating all in flight. The spectacular flying displays of what could be the bird's version of a sardine run bait ball was mesmerising. What is happening, nothing seems normal in this place. Please pinch me.
I arrived at Hayfields, a little early and there was already a lot of cars in the parking lot so I walk into the main chapel hall and no-one, I saw nobody. I looked outside at all the cars then back inside, what did I miss the rapture? Oh no I don’t want to be left behind as nothing is normal anymore. Then I heard a faint sound coming from the room in the back, after peering in, ahhh how can I forget, breaking of bread with the faithful.
It was good seeing all the old folks and also the young folks that I grew up with, now looking old too. Interesting was today’s sermon by Paul Greeve, oh yes he is looking much older than I remembered, but his wife Dorothy hasn’t aged at all. I must say Dorothy reads my blog, thank you for your kind words today. Anyway I digress, Paul’s message was about what is normal. He used the scripture from Mark 1 verses 1 to 20 about this man living up in the graveyard. He cut himself a lot and was troubled by some bad spirits. When he saw Jesus, he ran to him as begged for help. To cut the story short, Jesus cast out a lot of evil spirits from the man into about 2,000 pigs whom then ran into the sea and killed themselves. Paul was asking what is normal, the troubled man asking for help, or the Jewish pig herders and the Jewish pig owners who then asked Jesus to leave as he caused enough trouble to disturb the normal.
Rabbi be gone. Thy powers brings loss to us. Our ways are not thine. Thou lovest men, we swine.
So what is normal, men sporting designer beards and cycling spandex shorts? Next is I wear speedos, no don’t Google that. Okay now back to normal, here is my best friend Robbie and his brother in law Kevin braaing up in misty Hilton. Nou gaan ons braai as nothing is as normal as it seems.
Ah the first day of the Year 2015 and what better time to spend it chilling with friends and family. The day started with rain and more rain, so much so that I was wondering how we all going to fit into Anika and Gary’s lounge. It wasn’t just the 10 adults shown above as there were another 3 teenagers and a child. But thankfully the sun got brave and dried up all the rain as suns are supposed to do.
As South Africans, the meat was on the braai, with the young ones all occupied playing either in the pool or on the game consoles, the adults aka the Crazy Ones could chill in peace under the lapa next to the pool. Okay from left to right are the Crazy Ones, Sandy and Derrick, Lynda and Jerome, Megan and Bruce, Necia and Craig, Anika and Gary.
As always everything that exciting happened in the year came up in topic, Dr Who; ostrich meat; X-Box games; Ingress; programming; work; bandwidth; beer bread; merits of school and school fees; The Resistance; being splashed by the young ones in the pool and Craig that needed to be thrown in; some muscle car that Bruce owned in the states that he left his iPod in; Dropping DVDs of the film The Interview over North Korea via helium balloons, Apple vs Android; so called home made Turkish delight; various re-modelling projects from bathrooms to this very lapa; some movie about a women who has a sex change, goes back in time, marries herself and has a child, very confusing even to me; and not to forget the chat about cats and more cats. If I did leave anything out, other than the cats, I am so sorry but I can't remember everything. Oh yes talking about remembering we also chatted about how we get round remembering a face but not a name.It looks like this might be a usual problem with us Crazy Ones.
This blog also did an appearance in the discussion. Gary still likes the longer posts whereas Craig wants shorter more factual posts. Oh and I mustn’t forget we found out that Bruce is a fan of my blog and could be a serial blog stalker.
One of the suggestions, Gary’s I think, was maybe add more photos which will get the blog to feel longer. So let me give it a bash, here is the cat Robbie all bored and had enough of this small talk. He had this thing where he sucked his paw and when he had finished with his paw while sitting on his mommy’s lap, he put his head down on the table, relaxed.
My best friend, Robbie, from my High School days came down from Pietermaritzburg to spend the afternoon with Matthew and I at Ballito. It is our last day here on the Dolphin Coast before heading back inland to Johannesburg tomorrow.
Robbie and I spent the afternoon sitting on the porch, catching up on old times and on news of other school mates, of where they are now and what they doing with themselves. Later I put some steak on the webber and slowly cooked the meat to perfection while we continued catching up. Soon the afternoon turned to evening with all the catching up on Robbie and Jerome incidents of our past.
Tuesday, one day away from Monday is fine but why does it still feel the same? Today has been all work and no play. Thank goodness, after work I had an appointment with Robbie. Sometimes you need someone to simply listen to you and look at your issues with a fresh pair of eyes. Ask the right questions, give wise advice and hold you accountable when needed. Robbie is just that person and sitting chatting with him today at his office did a world of good, for me that is. Before my session today, I managed to catch him finding something amusing on his phone. Now I have Friday on my mind.
It has been a busy day with Intersite personnel photos.Touching up, cropping excreta excreta excreta. Pop in to see Robbie in the late afternoon. Here he is in his attempt to grow a mustache for Movember.
I stayed in town with Robbie because he was going back to Durban in the afternoon. In the meantime Carol, Matthew and Steven went to the UIAA Olympic “Friendship and Peace” Youth Hike and hiked up to the highest spot in the North West Province with the Mountain Club of South Africa. Back in town Robbie saw some old friends at BBC. Here is Rene and Robbie catching up on news.
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